Africa Is a Country

Pan-African Twerking

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

Pan-African Twerking

By
Shamira Muhammad

That South Africa has a "Pro Twerk Team" may seem like a great opportunity to see twerking from a new, non-American perspective. Or to throw shade.

Source: Facebook page of Protwerkers.

Welcome to Africa is a Country’s first (?) NSFW post. South Africa has a “pro” twerk team. In what could have been an amazing Pan-African exchange, they came up short and better called themselves professionals. Full stop as I reluctantly throw them a dark haze of shade.

I guess everyone outside the southern United States just discovered what twerking/freak dancing/winding is. (All different, but bear with me.) I’m not hating on the “South Africa Twerk team” because they are twerking. I have been twerkin’ for nearly all my life, and it’s a time honored pastime for me and several of my close friends. Better, this seemed like a great opportunity to see twerking from a new, non-American perspective.

Nope, I’m disappointed because this twerk team is NOT TWERKING. Which is unfortunate, because the origins of twerking, like most great things, lie in Africa. My homie and twerk extraordinaire, Sawdayah, pointed out some quick references are Makossa or Makassi (Cameroon), Mapouka (Cote d’Ivoire), Kwasa Kwasa (DRC).

Twerking is not simply dizzying butt movements meant to arouse any guy watching. It’s not tight camera shots that make you feel like you’re at an awkward strip club. It for damn sure isn’t absent of technique, rhythm and continuous movement and energy. And that’s not what the Pro-Twerkers are giving the camera here.

I’d like to give you, the reader, and y’all, the SA “Pro” Twerkers a quick primer on how to ride the beat.

First, here’s the very talented Atlanta Twerk Team.

To be able to twerk effectively, what you’re doing is pulling in all the techniques learned from a variety of dance forms, and being able to manipulate your hips to create a façade of impossible moves. It is serious and actually requires years of practice and talent. Gymnastics, belly dancing, salsa can all be incorporated, thus, allowing you to recognize a pro when you see one.

If you grew up in the American south, you’ve probably been twerking all your life. At family reunions as a 6-year old. At middle school dances outside the glance of the chaperone. It’s not about someone else projecting their own sexual issues onto you. Here are some classics to practice with. I’ll start with Juvenile with the obvious reference in the title, “Back That Ass Up.”

Next up is Project Pat and Juicy J’s “Twerk It.” The lyrics are gross, but thank you Three 6 Mafia, UGK, and Bun B for your bass lines.

Then you have to know how to play with the layers of rhythms. Ciara in “Ride” is fantastic.

Can you do that? Yes? You are talented. One of the members of the SA Pro Twerkers immediately complains that they get a lot of haters who dismiss them as simply doing sexual dancing. Another goes on to say that they have all types of different techniques and rhythms they throw on their hips. First, girls, your haters have a point and second, just no. You are not professionals. What you are giving is a sexual shock factor, not real twerking talent. If you want it to be an authentic, Southern style twerk, elevate above the basic “just-found-out-I-got-a booty” spastic gyrating and become one with the beat. Learn the basics.

Improvise and earn the professional title. Until then, please practice.

Further Reading

After the uprising

Years into Cameroon’s Anglophone conflict, the rebellion faces internal fractures, waning support, and military pressure—raising the question of what future, if any, lies ahead for Ambazonian aspirations.

In search of Saadia

Who was Saadia, and why has she been forgotten? A search for one woman’s story opens up bigger questions about race, migration, belonging, and the gaps history leaves behind.

Binti, revisited

More than two decades after its release, Lady Jaydee’s debut album still resonates—offering a window into Tanzanian pop, gender politics, and the sound of a generation coming into its own.

The bones beneath our feet

A powerful new documentary follows Evelyn Wanjugu Kimathi’s personal and political journey to recover her father’s remains—and to reckon with Kenya’s unfinished struggle for land, justice, and historical memory.

What comes after liberation?

In this wide-ranging conversation, the freedom fighter and former Constitutional Court justice Albie Sachs reflects on law, liberation, and the unfinished work of building a just South Africa.

The cost of care

In Africa’s migration economy, women’s labor fuels households abroad while their own needs are sidelined at home. What does freedom look like when care itself becomes a form of exile?

The memory keepers

A new documentary follows two women’s mission to decolonize Nairobi’s libraries, revealing how good intentions collide with bureaucracy, donor politics, and the ghosts of colonialism.

Making films against amnesia

The director of the Oscar-nominated film ‘Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat’ reflects on imperial violence, corporate warfare, and how cinema can disrupt the official record—and help us remember differently.