Who Knew You Could Do The Electric Slide to Coldplay? 😂

I've been laid up a bit again after having increased pain last week and discovering I had 4 broken ribs instead of just one (and of course, the vertebral fracture.

Thus, lots of binge-watching.

I just now caught the latest episode of Abbott Elementary.

So I knew that country line dancing adopted the electric slide and put a country spin on it - but who knew you could do the electric slide to the very white Coldplay's  "Viva La Vida?"

I admit, I am among the stereotypically white audience of Coldplay lovers - but I also love the electric slide, and never even considered putting the two together.

Apparently, it can be done - I guess - hahaha! 😂

Hahahaha! I ... guess that works?

Though we LOVE Jacob, sometimes he can be a little white-savior nerdy, and is at his best when he lets the predominantly black audience help him lead (and make these boring school meetings and assemblies more fun)!

So .... my husband just told me he doesn't know what the electric slide is and has never done it.

Wait, WHHHAAAT?

How is that even possible?

He's from Detroit?

It's done at every wedding, every barbecue, every club at least once ( think, though it's been a while since I've been to a club), every ... everything - because it's so easy everyone can do it at they're own pace and with their own style. 

You can dip deep and hop on your spin or you can just do it slow and slow and smooth and cool. You can do it at age 5 or 95.

Then I remembered that he was deployed for most of the 90s and missed that whole period of music and dance and when we met, we were past the age of friends' group weddings, and our kids or nieces or nephews weren't of marriage age yet.

So he asked me if it was a line dance, like a Nashville.

Well?

Yes and no.

The electric slide came out first, and it originated from the American Caribbean Black /Latino community - white country line dance just, um, borrowed (appropriated it) and put a country spin on it. 

Speaking of which, black and Latino people don't mind you enjoying their music and culture, nor does LGBTQ - as long as you give them credit and don't pretend you came up with it yourself  - and most importantly, don't enjoy and borrow their stuff, but then turn right around and vote against/otherwise crap on their community.

Also, you need to be clear you're not doing it in a mocking way, and also be deferent and grateful about it, like "Thank you for teaching me this" sort of way.

Speaking of which, there's a lot of black vernacular that has become popular in our culture in general and there's a debate about it.

But it's also the language of LGBTQ!

I admit, I use a lot of it myself - but then again, I grew up in a multiracial charismatic evangelical church in Cincinnati, my parents are Kentucky blue collar, and I've lived in the South for 37 years - and we share some of the same sayings with the black community and I have black friends.

However, most influential to me "coming up" was the fact that I was an early public adopter/embracer of the LGBTQ community as my close friends in the early 1990s when others were still avoiding them.

If you work in the restaurant business as I did all through college and as supplemental income all throughout my adult life, you will invariably work with people of different races, ethnicities, and LGBTQ, there's no avoiding it - and they will likely become your best friends!

(To the degree that if I had to work exclusively with other straight, European-heritage, overprivileged white people now, not only would I not know what to do because I don't fit neatly into that box, either, but I'd likely also die of boredom and lack of spice.)

Point being, you tend to incorporate the language of the people around you as you come up - creating a sort of personal mix of all your influences, right?

And nowadays, "Girl" has become like the new "Dude" for people of all races (though I say both because I've had different influences and friend groups I came up with).

You can say it as a term of endearment, like "Girl, listen to THIS" with your besties, including your male gay friends.

Or you can say it in a "WTH are you doing?' kind of way, like "Girl ... No." 

It's short, but it makes a point very quickly and with tone alone. 

However, it DID begin in the Southern black and LGBTQ communities and just caught on in popular vernacular because you can use it in so many different ways.

You never want to use it in formal situations, though, like with your boss or your mother-in-law.  😂

Back to the origin of electric slide, the original electric slide has more soul than the country version - because the dance actually began in the black-Caribbean community.

Specifically, it caught on with this particular song "Electric Boogie" by Marcia Griffiths ...

She recorded it in 1983, but it didn't catch on until the video in 1990.

When you heard this song in the 90s, you HAD to get on the dance floor and do it, because everyone CAN do it, at their own pace!

Though they do a more complicated version in the video, the typically done electric slide is in a video at the bottom.

I first did it at clubs and parties and backyard barbecues in the 90s, but it's become a staple at weddings - at least cool ones.

While white weddings were doing the chicken dance (which I hate, by the way -  white people, please stop doing it at your wedding unless your guests request it 😂), black people did the electric slide - to the degree that now, all races usually include it at their wedding because everyone can do the electric slide at their own pace, 

All right, that's it - the first thing I'm doing when I'm healed up is teaching my husband the electric slide!

For now, I showed him this tutorial video - which starts with the boring basics, which you CAN do that way, but they increasingly add the  personal spice, which is what makes it fun!

I think I said once on here that the new form of protest should be dancing, in my opinion - specifically, the electric slide or the cha-cha slide - and other people had the same idea and it's catching on!!! 

This one is a public protest of utility rate hikes, changing the words of "Electric Boogie" to specific situational protest language, performed by all races of all ages ...