We're all doing the Harlem Harlem Shake

 
Harlem Shake
Emer Martin|Maxine Frith22 February 2013

First we had Gangnam Style and now it's the Harlem Shake: from Cara Delevingne to Tube travellers and students at Brunel university, Londoners are doing this crazy new dance and uploading the evidence on YouTube.

More than 4,000 videos featuring the words “Harlem Shake” are being uploaded every day and for the first time the US Billboard chart has counted hits on the site in its data, as a result of which the tune by 23-year-old Canadian DJ Baauer shot to number one in America.

Videos featuring the dance have now been viewed 175 million times since the first clip was posted on February 2. And if further proof was needed of its cool status, model Delevingne is among them. She can be seen copying the moves in a YouTube clip alongside fellow supermodel Jourdan Dunn backstage at London Fashion Week.

DJ Bauuer, whose real name is Harry Rodrigues, released the hip-hop tune last year but it went viral after a group of Australian students posted a 30-second video of themselves with it playing in the background.

In the original, one man is seen dancing manically to the song in a bedroom while his friends all ignore him until 15 seconds in when they all begin doing it too.

Since then, tourists at Oxford Circus, Crystal Palace football club’s cheerleading team and the London Wasps rugby squad have all posted their version, filmed in different locations across the capital.

A parody by a London dance group also uses a London Eye capsule, Harry Potter’s Platform 9 3/4 at King’s Cross station and the back of a double-decker bus as dance floors and has been viewed 5.5 million times.

Manchester City footballers, the Norwegian army, elderly residents of a nursing home in the US and even an underwater diving team have also joined the craze.

Baauer now stands to make a fortune from the craze as he shares the profits from the videos with YouTube.

He said: “I think it caught on because it’s a goofy, fun song. But at the base of it, it’s my song and it’s making people want to dance. That’s the best feeling in the world to me.”

One prominent Londoner has yet to embrace the dance, however. Speaking at the British Museum at a celebration of London’s heritage held in collaboration with the Evening Standard last night, London Mayor Boris Johnson said: “I have not heard of the Harlem Shake but I will look it up.”

You have been warned.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in