Twerking and P-Popping in the Context of the New Orleans Local Hip Hop Scene

Abstract

Abstract After nationwide exposure through performances by the artists Miley Cyrus, Beyoncé, and Big Freedia, twerking—a shaking dance that originated in New Orleans in the early 1990s—became a flashpoint of controversy around issues of sexuality, morality, gender, and cultural appropriation. This chapter traces the evolution of twerking from local phenomenon with roots in the vernacular music culture of New Orleans to sensationalized, mass-mediated phenomenon. New Orleans has been a focal point for the development and evolution of African American social dance since the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and the city has been at the center of the emergence of several important dance-music genres including jazz, R & B, and funk. In the last three decades, as Hip Hop and rap have become the dominant frame of musical reference among African American youth, the city has continued to act as an influential presence in the national scene. The chapter will show that, despite its eroticized image, twerking, or p-popping, is not a product of strip clubs or the adult-entertainment industry but, rather, a dance with deep roots in the vernacular African American music culture of New Orleans. In the process of wider popularization and exposure, the dance brought issues of sexuality, gender, and morality into focus within a racially inflected framework.