While the inevitable union of City Girls and Cardi B was made somewhat bittersweet by the fact that JT remains in prison therefore unable to fully enjoy the continued success of the fruits of their pre-fame labor, what stands out most about the collaboration is the fact that twerking is a dance that simply can’t be forgotten (that, of course, is the power of the ass).
As Cardi asserts, “Big bitch God’s gift to a dick,” the twerking legends of the video jiggle and sweat to prove just that. Or at least that a dance craze never has to die if you don’t let it (then again, try telling that to Los Del Rio). Reaching its peak in the mainstream consciousness arguably around 2013 when it became the top “What is” search in Google (with the help of songs like Major Lazer’s “Bubble Butt” and Trevor Smith’s “#Twerkit”), it truly became commodified when the token white girl that was Miley Cyrus appropriated it for her performance with Robin Thicke at the 2013 VMAs (again, aiding in making twerking the most searched “What is” by the wrong kind of bumpkins of the south).
Usually, when a dance craze reaches this level of saturation, it fades away almost as quickly as it came. Not so with twerking, which has been in our midst since the late 80s, when New Orleans first decided to birth it unto this then still vaguely fair nation. Filled with every possible variation of how to do what KC and the Sunshine Band said and “Shake Your Booty,” the word itself is a combination of “twist” and “jerk” (or so Oxford Dictionary claims). Others not part of historically white institutions have offered that it’s a contraction of “to work” via “t’work” (as in “go to work” on giving men boners with your ample backside) and eventually twerk.
As it has evolved over the decades and accordingly appeared time and time again in the latest batch of rap videos, it only proves what Sir Mix-a-Lot has long known about society–specifically men–and that’s that they will never not be mesmerized by an ass waving in their face. Fittingly, then, it has long been a staple of strip clubs, the milieu of which Cardi B was given ample time to perfect her skills in the art (which, tragically, yet predictably hasn’t had quite as affecting of a pop culture moment since Miley Cyrus made it her own–cultural appropriation be damned, just as Ariana Grande made the lyrics “I want it I got it, I want it I got it, I want it I got it” her own). And during this time of being a different sort of “Cardi [taking] the stage,” she was also known as “Cardi with the braids” for fashioning her hair into two braids to stand out from the other girls instead of donning wigs or weaves as she would post-fame.
That Cardi B is the one to be included on a song of this nature can only serve as a further blow to recently in love with a sex offender/murderer Nicki Minaj, who was a beloved twerker “in her day”–or at the height of its first wave of mainstream interest, when her lethal backside was still a much discussed news item. Smacking their cheeks against one another, Cardi and Yung Miami take to giant poles to show gravity-defying abilities with the sheer wonders of what alluringly flabby skin can do. And what it can do is motivate thousands of women to compete for the chance to be one of twenty-five lucky winners who get to be “flewed out, all expenseses paid” to participate in the video. So it dramatically begins with the intro, “On November 9th, The City Girls sent out a challenge to the world. The goal…To find the world’s greatest Twerker.” Surely somewhere in this video, it’s clear that they did.
As a barrage of scandalized whites reading off news reports featuring phrases like “Dirty dancing” and “Sexual and inappropriate,” it’s clear that Yung Miami and Cardi are about to debunk any naysayers’ uninformed comments. A riveted man staring at a video of a girl twerking notes simply, “Shit.” Because not only is that what a twerker’s arse can drop if her sphincter is loose enough, but also the reaction she can induce upon wielding her weapon of mass seduction.
To the overt sample of Choppa’s 2002 track, “Choppa Style,” the motivating cry of, “I want a slim, fine woman with some twerk with her/Throw that, twerk that” is enough to get the twerkers going. Directed by Daps and Sara Lacombe, the serene tone of Miami’s beaches is quickly kiboshed as females flaunt all they’ve got in the hope of winning that $25,000 cash prize offered. This could very well be, in part, why Cardi and Yung Miami didn’t go balls to the wall with the video’s budget, modestly spraying champagne on a boat here and appearing in tiger and zebra bodysuits respectively there (hence the lyric “This pussy wild, they should throw it in a cage”).
Sure to pay City Girls’ other half JT her due respect despite being stuck in the clink, a graffitied image of her on a wall serves as the backdrop to women twerking in underwear with JT stamped on them. As the video escalates in terms of overloading the visual sense with all that ass, we are slapped not just with butt cheeks, but the realization that, sure, no dance craze has to die if the people don’t want it to. But the only one we’ve ever cared enough about to persist in latching onto is twerking. Just goes to show, if you want to make your own dance moves stand the test of time, make sure the glutes are well showcased.
