From The Doug E. to The Dougie

AKA how that Cam'Ron scene from Paid In Full I posted the other day in the Ill Flow by C.O.C post was a kind of pontoon between Doug E. Fresh's trademark move in the late eighties and regional dance hits from the last couple of years by kids lookin' to make their own Laffy Taffy.

Doug E. Fresh & The Get Fresh Crew - Keep Risin' To The Top



First rap video to open with an intro featuring another song from the LP the rapper was promoting? Umm, not entirely sure, but the intro where Doug cuts a rug to Guess? Who? does feature him doing The Doug E, which was his patented move where he'd run his hand over his head and the back of his neck in a seductive manner, gyrate his hands around, and then spin around 360 degrees on the spot. It never quite caught on as a dance in the same way that The Peewee Herman, The Wop, The Roger Rabbit, The Running Man, and The Mark Wright (I may have made that last one up but a Mark Wright dance where you scream racist abuse at your players before sleeping with their wives and taking backhanders from your Scouse gangster employer seems like a pretty good idea) did, but it remained a dance recalled with fondness by older heads which Doug continued to do live on stage.



Fast foward to 2002 and a new generation of kids are discover the dance when Cam'Ron's Alpo-inspired character from the 'hood classic Paid In Full (I was holidaying in NY when the pre-release bootleg of this was floating around in 2002 and overhearing conversations of dudes talking about it was as common as hearing Made You Look, Hovi Baby and Nothin' by Nore blaring from car windows) Rico busts them Doug E moves twice in the scene when he's showing his homemade porno VHS tapes to the goers of the infamous Harlem club The Rooftop. This is the point where the dance goes from being The Doug E. to The Dougie as young un's probably didn't really know who Doug E. Fresh was pre-him appearing on American Idol with the stupid whigga beatboxer that time. Sorta..

Lil' Man ft Lil' Wil & Fat Pimp - D-Town Boogie



Apparently a variation of Doug's original dance was popular back in the day in Dallas because Doug toured there regularly, and Cam exposing it to a new audience in 2002 possibly inspired a new breed of chil'rens who'd grown up in an era when the Bay were getting Hyphy and six out of every ten records out of ATL are based on a dance to make a song called D-Town Boogie (D-Town Boogie..Dougie..geddit?) as a showcase of the various moves most popular in the clubs of their city. Man, forget Puffy, because that Mr Hit Dat Hoe kid is the one who's really all in the videos, all on the records.. dancing.

Cali Swag District - Teach Me How To Dougie



And, finally, the point where the dance, albeit it in an elaborated format with new moves derived from Jerking, finally gets its own anthem by a group of shorties caught up in the disco dem lookin' to make that New Boyz skrilla with Do The Dougie by Cali Swag District which inspires a plethora of fat chicks, well-to-do white hoes, AZN skaters and overweight black dudes in COOGI to make Youtube videos of themselves Dougieing in their bedrooms. The circle becomes complete when Cali Swag District bring out Doug to Doug E/Dougie and beatbox with them to an audience of teenage girls who are all like "OMG it's the old dude who made the funny noises with Blake on American Idol lol!!!" or "WTF Gucci Mane has lost lots of weight and had extensive tattoo removal surgery???" at the BET awards a few months back, before Lil B's Cooking Dance stole everybody's thunder as the official summer dance of 2010.

Bonus beats :

Doug E. Fresh & The Get Fresh Crew - All The Way To Heaven



Doug's "the one thing I'm sure of is that the Devil loves abortion" stance on Abortion from the Oh, My God LP makes me wish someone would tattoo a picture Deicide's Glen Benton's face on his face when he's sleeping, but he gets away with his God-bothering idiosyncrasies on the main single from the aforementioned album here as he keeps them vague and continues the rich vein of form started with The Show & La Di Da Di the year previously. This is the only rap video you'll ever see where a pair of Bally high-tops stand-off against a pair of Adidas Campus in a Western duel to the death, and when you factor in the intro where a Kangol sporting rapper and his mate look on powerlessly as the local kids they've been entertaining flock to Doug, Chill Will, and Barry Bee when they stroll into the neighborhood, then you have one of the more unabashed examples of the tension which existed between Harlem rappers like Doug and The Treacherous Three and Queens young bucks like Run Dmc and LL Cool J at the time.