Thread by @michaelharriot

What the Raygun memes have to do with Black history:

A thread

https://twitter.com/dyllyp/status/1821998679789801573

I’m sure you’ve seen Black Twitter’s reaction to Dr. Rachael Gunn’s performance for Australia in the Olympic breakin’ competition.

Here’s my favorite

instagram.com/reel/C-eJFaEtl…

While it was objectively hilarious, for some people, it was also kinda cringe.

I thought it was beautiful.

To understand why, you have to go back to the origin of hip hop, dance and American art in general.

Shameless plug:

In my book “Black AF History: The Unwhitewashed Story of America,” I argue that the “Black Religion” is a totally separate denomination of Christianity.

It’s not a new argument. Scholars like W.E.B DuBois have documented this history for more than a century

This reality is most evident in the music. Many of your favorite gospel songs had nothing to do with religion.

You think “Steal Away” was about Jesus?

Fun fact: almost every negro spiritual that references “sinners” is talking about white people getting their comeuppance.

For instance “Let My People Go,” had nothing to do with Moses or Israelites.

People who unenslaved themselves during the Civil War were considered “contraband.”

That’s why the white composer who 1st documented the song gave it a different title:

“Song of the Contrabands”

The white churchgoers had no idea they were the “foes” in the songs they loved.

It wasn’t just the music, tho. The “ring shout” disguised West African & Caribbean rituals as a religious dances

I’m only half joking when I point out that ALL Black dances is modified shouting

My grandma did the Harlem Shake when she caught the Holy Ghost but my aunt Wilma twerked when the spirit hit her. Memphis jookin’ looks like praising the Lord. The running man is just high intensity praise dancing & the Alpha Train is just a single-file ring shout.

Its ONE DANCE

And it is ALL older than the concept of the “Holy Ghost.”

SO when white minstrel performers started doing the “cakewalk,” they had no idea what they were doing.

When the blackface performer known as “Jim Crow” did it, he had no idea that the cakewalk developed from the ring shout, which was NOT Christian & OLDER than the concept of the Holy Ghost

He didn’t know “cakewalk contests” originally made fun of how white people danced.

After the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, cakewalking became a national craze. It was in Broadway musicals & vaudeville theaters but they were not in on the joke

And NO ONE could do that shit like lil Gertie Pridgett.

She could cakewalk like a motherfucker.

Lil Gertie was actually a gospel singer. At 14, she started singing in minstrel shows. And because she was a member of First African Baptist Church, she knew how to shout, which is why she won all the cakewalking contests . Plus, Gertie was funny AF

She would tell jokes about white people and cakewalk between her songs. Remember, HER gospel music WAS NOT about Jesus. In fact, when someone asked her about 1 particular sad song, she shrugged & explained it was not gospel.

She called it “the blues.”

By then, no one called her “Lil Gert anymore.” She had married a man , She had married a famous cakewalker named Will Rainey. Everyone called him “Pa.” By the time Lil Gertie coined the phrase “the blues,” everyone called her “Ma Rainey.”

Just like “gospel” begat the Blues and jazz and rock & roll and ALL POPULAR genres we know as “American Music”…

The cakewalk evolved into the Buck & Wing, tap, and the popular American American forms of dance

There is a great exhibit in the NMAAHC that traces 5 basic movements of American dance from cakewalking to hip hop.

Music scholars trace the rhythm & the notes back to negro spirituals, but there is one uniquely Black aspect of these artistic genres that’s rarely discussed:

Getting your lick back

No, I will not explain this.
IYKYK.

I’ll just say that ALL art genres that have origins in Black culture contain some aspect of getting your lick back.

Roasting or playing the dozens is just verbal getting your lick back.

Contrary to popular belief, guitar & saxophone solos didn’t evolve solely from classical music

Jazz & Blues musicians would have “cutting contests.” But if someone “cut up” during a performance, band members would give you a chance to get your lick back by improvising

And when it comes to Black American dance, battling has ALWAYS been part of the culture

And on March 30, 1900, Bill Bojangles Robinson won a“gold medal” by winning a Buck & Wing battle

WTF is “Buck & Wing?”

It’s when Black Holy Ghost meets Irish clogging

Or “tap dancing”

There is no argument that tap originated with the Irish. But when the Gullah Geechee saw “buckras” dancing without moving their arms, they thought it was hilarious

So, while “Buck” was a derogatory term for male slaves, “buck dancing” originally made fun of white people…

The Buckra Ring dance combined Irish clogging with the ring shout (which, again, WAS NEVER ABOUT JESUS) & became “Buck & Wing” contests.

Bojangles knew battles have always been part of Black dance culture, so he kept battling, which is how Irish clogging became a totally new genre

At the end of his show, Bojangles would challenge ppl to a battle. White audiences didn’t know the culture, so they tried.

But black audiences knew not to embarrass themselves. So Bojangles hired a preacher’s kid named Billy to fake-battle him at the Black shows…

Billy was literally just shouting in tap shoes. After years of battling the GOAT, Billy adapted an old shouting move that broke the cardinal rule of Black dance battle.

He’d leave the stage without letting his opponent get their lick back.

The move made Billy a star. MGM even gave him a part in their all-Black musical. In
In 1943, 80 years before hip hop, 15 years before some dude named Michael Jackson was born, Bill Bailey changed the course of American dance forever

He shouted. He cakewalked. He Buck & Winged

He tap danced. He jooked. He Lindy Hopped. He running manned. He stepped. And when he finished, he did his move

That every competitor in that Olympic breaking competition did a version of:

But let’s go back to the beginning so we can understand why this ain’t no “moonwalk”

But Raygun and the Olympic breakers are not appropriating black culture

When white evangelicals started shouting during the Protestant reformation, they weren’t doing an African dance.

When white Christians sing negro spirituals, they weren’t singing about their foes

Cakewalkers weren’t making fun of themselves. White Buck dancers were imitating BLACK PEOPLE. The Rolling Stones is great at mimicking Black blues players, without the pain. When Kenny G plays a jazz solo; he’s just playing a series of notes that sounds kinda like “cutting up”

They are not imitating Black culture. They are the reason it flourished.

Black art is never stagnant. It is always evolving. The competition & evolution SERVES A PURPOSE. It is about survival and resistance

The BEST Olympic breakers are like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing a negro spiritual or Eric Clapton being called a “the greatest blues guitarist” or when Lady Gaga & Tony Bennet make a jazz album.

It’s a tribute to something that Black people used to do.

But not Raygun

Raygun was the most authentic part of Olympic breaking.

She is the one who made the cake for the cakewalkers. She put the Buckra in buckdancing and clapped for the cutting contests. Raygun would’ve leapt at the chance to battle Bojangles or Bill Bailey.

But before it was an Olympic element called the “moonwalk,” Bill Bailey’s signature move was called the “backslide.”

Black audiences understood it was disrespectful during a battle. But when he played white audiences, Bailey would set up his signature exit with a joke

“Allow me to demonstrate the safest way to run from a white man.”

They weren’t bothered that they were the butt of the joke. Or maybe they didn’t know. Or maybe they just wanted to see him dance

Or maybe they were like Raygun .

Black art is fun…

When you don’t need to get your lick back