Music is an experience.
It can alter our mood, shift our perception and arrest us in the most delightful of ways.
While some music is thought-provoking and memory-inducing, other music brings with it a satisfying party. Some music is made for walking in the rain, while other music is made for setting the dance floor on fire.
Takes James Brown for example.
With a musical career spanning fifty years, he pioneered funk in such a way that it will always remain ingrained in our culture.
Generations of artists have been inspired by his timeless songs, going on to sample them across new waves of musical evolution. Pick a genre, any genre, and no doubt they’ve been influenced in some manner by the force of nature that is Brown.
Even the stiffest bodies instantly soften beneath the carefree grooves that Brown offers.
Across his career, Brown took the stage time and time again as an incredible entertainer.
His awe-inspiring dance moves have lived on in the hearts of many, often imitated but never perfectly replicated.
Amazingly, he didn’t need a choreographer to teach him his famous dance moves. In fact, he made them up himself!
And if you’re heading out tonight and need to brush up on your dance moves, we’ve got just the video for you—featuring none other than James Brown himself!
In this footage, Brown gives you the grand tour of some of his most iconic moves.
He shows you how to get down the only way he knows how. For anyone willing and able, it’s fascinating to watch him teach the Boogaloo, supposedly “one of the hardest dance moves in the world,” and coincidentally a dance that used to make him dizzy doing it.
As the video progresses, Brown melts his body into a series of fluid motions that he calls the “Funky Chicken.”
As a viewer, it starts to become a somewhat attainable goal.
He truly makes it look easy. The short video turns into a dance move called “The Ol’ James Brown,” followed up by the famous “Mashed Potato.” You may find yourself laughing at the suggestion that this was made for the dance floor. And then Brown goes into the “Camel Walk.”
Lastly, he doesn’t hesitate to whip out an impeccable version of the well-known and loved “Robot.”
His mechanical moves outfit the funky background track in perfect time.
One watch, and you’ll undoubtedly be right beside Brown ready to shake things up into your own groovy inferno.
SPIN music magazine did a 1988 interview with the entertainer and declared this:
“When James Brown walks into a room, he is immediately aware of the danceability of the floor. He can tell through his feet the type of tree the floor is made from and which birds live in it. The surfaces he prefers are slate and polished wood.”
When interviewed about dancing, Brown admitted:
“Sometimes they make hard floors, but that don’t stop me from dancing. They [rivals] try to sabotage me, though, by making the floor rough and taking away the slide. But that don’t stop me neither.”
Nothing stopped Brown from showcasing his electric moves with the world. And nothing will stop the world from remembering and continuing to be inspired by the same.
Ready to learn from the master? Check out The Godfather of Soul and his dance moves in the video below!
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