The Dab is officially dead!!!

Unless you're the sort of person who is still
comfortable wearing ‘Ama Kip Kip’ t-shirts or a
‘spinners’ belt in 2016, this means it is now
socially unacceptable to engage in "the dab" in
public.

We all love the dab . It’s classy, looks dope, feels
like a decent move, and most importantly, it’s
easy to learn, and requires very negligible amount
of energy to pull off.
In the quest for the perfect Nigerian dance, “the
dab” has been the easiest so far to learn, rising
in prominence among the young folks, who are
naturally the first to pick up on any craze. The
reasons for its meteoric rise and inclusion in our
pop culture was simple: it came from the West,
popularized from the creative hotbed of Atlanta,
and seeping down to us as well, all other things
do. It was also easy to learn, perhaps very easy.
Alanta needed you to scratch like a mad man,
Azonto was for rocket scientists with all of that
oscillating limbs, rhythmically complex hand
movements and energy. Shoki needed the best of
your waist to accomplish. And it also didn’t help
that it was open to interpretation, with everybody
personalizing the dance and making others feel like
their ‘Shoki’ was the best. It was really morale-
deflating stuff, and became a horror show later.
Sekem, well. Sekem came from an untrusted source,
and only Michael Jackson enthusiasts, can drag one
foot across the floor, leaving the other lifeless,
while appearing to enjoy it with one hand on your
waist, and the other on your chest. Hell no!
But dabbing was easy. It was a simple dance in
which the dancer simultaneously drops the head
while raising an arm and the elbow in a gesture
that has been noted to resemble sneezing. As a
Sports Illustrated article about the phenomenon
described the Dab, “The dance is pretty simple;
one leans in to their elbow like they’re sneezing."
Everyone caught the dab. I, Joey Akan, the
overweight, balloon-waist, chubby, sexy Nubian god
of love, could also dab. Before dabbing, I never
danced in public. But now I could. Children sampled
it on the streets, the boys made it fit into any
song in the club. In the offices, ‘Team Dabbing
Sessions’ was launched to foster teamwork and
make the dream work. According to bosses, it
boosted productivity by whatever percentage they
care to slap on that lie. In churches, people
dabbed to the glory of God, and praised the lord
with a wonderful dab. He was also exalted with a
dab offering, and Pastors executed the most
hilarious religious dabbing to edify their brethren.
At homes, your parents embarrassed you with
dabbing, and your annoying Uncles called you to
come display like a clown for a few bucks.
And it is at the juncture, that we have decided
that the Dab is dead.
So, then, as all trends grow and come to pass,
the moment has come for the dance move to be
laid to rest, taken to a spiritual church, buried in
some ancestral cemetery, and left to fester in the
backpages of time.
Dab was first killed in the US, its home country.
In an interview with TMZ » , Quavo of the rap
group Migos—who are widely recognized as one of
the originators of "the dab," having immortalized it
in the hallowed hallways of their Instagram and
tracks like "Look At My Dab (Bitch Dab)" —signaled
the death of the dance move. Asked about
comments made by the NFL star Cam Newton
regarding the expiration of the dance move, Quavo
states "RIP" to "the dab." He then goes on to say,
"You got to give everybody a new trend, a new
wave or something new to do so I feel him on
that. Everybody was copying it and now it's time
to switch lanes."
But Nigeria is yet to catch on to the news. Our
musicians still promote a dead culture in their
music videos, and we all are still reluctant to let
it go. It’s fine, all good things come to an end.
Let’s all pour libation, cry our hearts out, and
look sad while we go back to our chairs and wait
for a new dance move.
Unless you're the sort of person who is still
comfortable wearing ‘Ama Kip Kip’ t-shirts or a
‘spinners’ belt in 2016, this means it is now
socially unacceptable to engage in "the dab" in
public. Fear not, though, as we can always count
on the YBNL boys to come up with something real
quick.
Thanks for listening. Go into the world and dab no
more.