Toppa Top ’15: Fifteen Ways The Caribbean Impacted Pop Culture In 2015

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December 28, 2015

7. Drake Did the Log On in “Hotline Bling,” The Year’s Most Meme-worthy Music Video
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Drake inspired one of the year’s biggest memes this fall with his freestyle grandpa dancing in the video for “Hotline Bling.” When Drake starts to bubble with his “Hotline Bling” dance partner, Jamaican-Canadian choreographer Tanisha Scott, against Director X’s minimalist backdrop, he was actually paying homage to some classic dancehall steps. As Scott joins Drake towards the end of the video, we see the pair doing the Log On dance created by Mr. Bogle and popularized by Elephant Man. In fact, it’s the same move that Scott, who has brought dancehall steps to a flowing list of music videos, and Director X did together over a decade earlier, in Sean Paul’s groundbreaking “Gimme The Light” video, a clip Drake cited as inspiration for “Hotline Bling.” (In an interview with the Fader, Scott cited John Travolta and Uma Thurman’s exchange in Pulp Fiction and “the way we move in Toronto” among the elements that inspired her take.

For more ways Drake has been influenced by dancehall, see LargeUp’s countdown of Drake’s “Most Dancehall Moments.”Ola Mazzuca