Lizzo Delivers TED Talk on Twerking: 'My Ass Could Do Magic'
"Through the movement of twerking, I discovered my ass is my greatest asset," rapper says during 13-minute "TED Twerk"
Over the 13-minute TED Twerk, Lizzo goes into a detailed history of the dance, tracing it back to West African culture — where it was "a celebration of joy and religious worship" — up through hip-hop music and on to social media apps like TikTok, which now threaten the "erasure of blackness" from twerking.
"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," Lizzo said. "Now, as a big black woman who has ass, who can twerk, who has 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 to twerking."
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/lizzo-ted-talk-twerking-1235589/
