Lizzo: The Black history of twerking -- and how it taught me self-love | TED

Oh my God.

I'm so excited.

(Applause and cheers)

This is the first time I’ve seen people since March 2020.

Hi!

Hi, people.

I’ve had a lot of accomplishments,

but this is a dream come true right now --

(Applause and cheers)

by the way.

So make some noise for the dress.

(Applause and cheers)

And now the back of the dress.

(Applause and cheers)

Can we get booty cam, please?

(Laughter)

Booty cam!

If you follow me on social media you’ve probably seen my heinie before;

it’s no secret.

(Cheers)

But you know, I used to hate my ass ...

believe it or not.

I have my father’s shape and my mother’s size,

so it was big and long.

(Laughter)

I used to think that only asses like J.Lo’s or Beyoncé’s could be famous.

I never thought that could happen to me.

I always felt like my body type wasn’t the right one

or the desirable one growing up,

because I grew up in an era where having a big ass wasn’t mainstream.

I grew up watching movies where women were like,

“Does my ass look fat in this?”

like it was a bad thing.

(Laughter)

I felt like the ass odds were against me,

but baby --

(Laughs)

this badonkadonkdonk was going places.

(Cheers and applause)

My ass has been the topic of conversation,

my ass has been in magazines.

Rihanna gave my ass a standing ovation.

(Cheers)

Yes, my booty,

my least favorite part of my body.

How did this happen?

Twerkin’.

(Laughter)

(Applause and cheers)

Through the movement of twerking,

I discovered my ass is my greatest asset.

Ladies and gentlemen,

welcome to TED ...

Twerk!

(Laughing)

(Applause and cheers)

I’m going to take my shoes off,

is that OK with y’all?

(Cheers)

So the first time I saw twerking in person was at a teen club called The Z

in Houston, Texas.

Hey, shout out, Houston,

we got some Houstonians here!

There I saw a bunch of girls my age shaking their booty to New Orleans bounce,

and I was like, “How are they doing that?”

It was incredible to me.

Thanks to my Caribbean besties, Peaches and Jolene,

and thanks to Master P --

whoop, whoop --

I found the rhythm.

The better I got,

the more I fell in love with what I had,

because, damn, my ass could do magic.

Finally, I could twerk,

but twerking did not begin with me ...

believe it or not.

(Laughing)

I know you think I invented twerking;

I didn’t.

I want you to know where twerking came from.

I think everyone should know where everything comes from.

You should know where your food and water come from;

you should know where your clothes come from.

It’s important to me to keep the origin story of twerking alive.

So here’s some farm-to-table for that ass.

(Laughter)

(Applause)

Modern-day twerking derived from Black people and Black culture.

It has a direct parallel to West African dances like mapouka.

Traditionally, mapouka was a dance for West African women

to be used as a celebration of joy,

religious worship

or a dance to do at a wedding to show you were DTF

or DTM ...

down to marry, down to marry --

get your mind out the gutter.

(Laughter)

Black women carried these dances across the transatlantic slave trade

to the ring shout and what became the Black American Church,

into the hips of Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith when they sang the blues,

into the bounce of Josephine Baker’s banana dance.

From jazz dance to jitterbug,

from shake ya tailfeather to shake your thang

to that thang thangin.

(Laughter)

Black people carried the origins of this dance through our DNA,

through our blood,

through our bones.

We made twerking the global, cultural phenomenon it has become today.

Now, as a big, Black woman who has ass,

who can twerk

and who’s been doing it her whole life,

I kind of think I'm an expert on the subject.

I want to add to the classical etymology of this dance because it matters.

Black people will not be erased from the creation,

the history

and the innovation of twerking.

(Applause and cheers)

Thank you.

(Applause)

From TikTok trends to songs and humor,

we see so much erasure of what Black people have created,

so I want to do everything in my power

to prevent the erasure of Blackness from twerking.

Twerking is a Black American communal collaboration

born of Black Southern culture.

From DJ Jubilee and Cash Money Records in New Orleans,

to Lil Jon

and the Ying Yang Twins in Atlanta,

to Uncle Luke in Miami,

twerking was alive and well in nearly every Black club in the South.

But it would take years after these songs were released

for twerking to finally become mainstream.

I got a test for y’all.

(Singing) Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh oh, no, no.

Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh, oh, no, no.

You know that one?

Hold up.

Ya’ll ain’t see it.

(Singing) Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh oh, no, no, uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh, oh, no, no.

(Applause and cheers)

The “Uh-oh” dance.

Beyoncé called it that because she was trying to warn us.

(Laughter)

Because of Destiny’s Child,

bootylicious is in the dictionary.

And because of Beyoncé’s 2003 music video for her single “Crazy in Love,”

the world was introduced to the “Uh-oh” dance.

That was the first time I’d ever seen a popstar do something like that,

and I wanted to be just like her.

Beyoncé gave me permission to be myself ...

to be bootylicious.

Because she could shake ass and still be seen as classy

in the eyes of America.

And that was hard to do.

When I moved from Houston to Minneapolis in the early 2010s,

I hadn’t seen twerking in a while until Big Freedia’s tour came to town.

Now, Big Freedia performs bounce music with the voice of a preacher

and the body of bad bitch.

(Laughter)

If you can imagine, it’s incredible.

Big Freedia has a moment in her shows

where she will call people on stage to twerk,

and she chose me from the audience to battle another person.

And I remember being like, “Oh my God, I miss this so much.”

(Laughter)

When I was up there I thought to myself,

not only am I shaking ass but I am winning,

and besides Big Freedia, I’m the best twerker in the building.

And just like that,

I was reintroduced to twerking.

When I started to perform my solo music,

I began incorporating twerking into my performances,

and people would go crazy.

I performed for mainly indie audiences,

so they didn’t know what the fuck was happening,

and I liked it that way.

(Laughter)

Twerking made me feel empowered.

It was my secret language;

my sauce.

Little did I know that a couple of years later,

Miley Cyrus would perform what seemed like the twerk heard around the world.

Y’all remember that.

In 2013,

within a month of each other,

I released my debut project,

“Lizzobangers,”

and Miley Cyrus released her project, “Bangerz.”

That same year, Miley released the single “We Can’t Stop,”

and she was twerking in the video.

I remember being like, “This is crazy;

Hannah Montana twerking all over the place.”

(Laughter)

A couple months later, she performed with Robin Thicke on the V.M.A.s,

and that night, seemingly overnight, twerking went mainstream.

The media described twerking as, I quote, “disturbing and disgusting.”

Critics blasted twerking

as something that was exploiting and over-sexualizing young women.

Once mainstream,

twerking was misunderstood and taken out of context.

It was bittersweet.

For one,

I wish that a Black woman could have popularized twerking in the mainstream.

But on the other end,

twerking going mainstream played a role in the rise of my profile and my career.

Listen.

Everything that Black people create,

from fashion to music to the way we talk,

is co-opted, appropriated and taken by pop culture.

(Applause)

For this reason,

optimism can be an illusion

to the experience of Black people in America.

In this TED Talk,

I’m not trying to gatekeep,

but I’m definitely trying to let you know who built the damn gate.

(Laughs)

(Applause and cheers)

The fact that I can make a stake in the reclamation of Black things

and Black culture

makes me very optimistic.

To be on stage at the premiere conference for the experts in their field,

talking about twerking --

(Laughter)

and stating my facts,

makes me optimistic.

The best thing I can do is be loud and take ownership,

because for me,

twerking is a pearl of optimism.

It’s a form of self-expression, freedom --

confidence.

Twerking is not just something I do to music.

It’s extremely useful.

It manifests in my life in ways that I need more joy.

In the mornings,

twerking leads me to stretching and taking care of my body.

I bend over and I isolate my cheeks;

I’m in downward dog.

(Laughter and cheers)

Namaste.

(Laughter)

Sometimes I’ll put on a song and I shake ass,

and immediately I’m in love with myself.

And not just self-love.

I mean like,

“OK, Lizzo, what’s your number?”

(Laughter)

I would do me.

But it’s not just sexual.

(Laughter)

It's not.

(Applause and cheers)

Twerking is a deep, soulful, spiritual practice.

It’s hip-opening.

It’s empowering.

When performed as the mapouka,

it’s said to connect you to God.

It’s sacred.

And now we’re practicing that on mainstream stages.

We're practicing that at home,

and it's contributing to the liberation of women and people around the world.

Twerking is good for humanity.

(Laughter)

Forty years ago,

when Black and brown people in New York invented break dancing,

it was villainized.

Mainstream media weaponized break dancing by connecting it to gang activity

and violence.

As an art form and subculture,

it wasn’t taken seriously.

Fast-forward to today,

break dancing is now an Olympic sport.

What will be the future of twerking?

Russian ballet dancers are twerking.

Have you seen it?

They be like this.

Y’all think I’m playing.

They’re out there like --

(Singing) Doo doo doo doo.

(Laughter)

Can we clear Tchaikovsky?

(Laughter)

Will we see twerking as an Olympic sport one day?

And will Black people still be part of it?

I’m proud to be a twerk pioneer.

I’m grateful for the asses that came before me.

(Laughter)

All hail Beyoncé.

Nicki Minaj.

From Betty Boop to Buffie the Body.

When I shake this ass,

I do it for the culture,

not the vulture.

For me, twerking ain’t a trend.

My body is not a trend.

I twerk for the strippers,

for the video vixens,

for the church ladies who shout --

for the sex workers.

I twerk because Black women are undeniable.

I twerk for my ancestors,

for sexual liberation,

for my bitches --

hey, girl --

because I can,

because I know I look good.

I twerk because it’s unique to the Black experience.

It’s unique to my culture,

and it means something real to me.

I twerk because I’m talented.

(Applause and cheers)

Because I’m sexual, but not to be sexualized.

(Applause)

I twerk to own my power,

to reclaim my Blackness,

my culture.

I twerk for fat Black women,

because being fat and Black is a beautiful thing.

(Applause and cheers)

I twerk because it’s as natural to me as breathing.

Black women invented twerking,

and twerking is part of the revolution.

We’ve been doing it,

we’re going to keep on doing it

because we have and always will be the blueprint.

(Applause and cheers)

We twerk to remind ourselves we here,

and we ain’t going nowhere.

So in the case of optimism,

I want everyone to stand up and shake some ass with me.

Are y’all ready?

Come on, y’all.

(Music) “Tempo.”

I’ve been waiting for this one.

I’m going to show you how to do it.

Pop, pop, pop, pop.

You’re going in a circle now.

Hey, hey, hey!

(Laughs)

(Whistles and cheers)

Let’s go.

I see y’all.

(Music)

OK, you really twerkin’ it.

(Music)

(Cheers)

Come on, I want to see what you can do.

OK, OK, OK, OK.

OK, I like what you’re doing.

Hey, hey!

(Laughs)

(Music)

(Laughs)

Thank you so much TED Talk.

(Applause and cheers)

This is a dream come true.

Thank you so much.

(Applause and cheers)

I don’t know why I’m emotional,

but I feel like we made history tonight,

so thank you so much.

(Applause and cheers)