Yesterday, I had a nice date with a guy who I think I may be feeling on the low, but he doesn’t need to know that yet. Here’s why.
Last night we had a great evening, chilling with some glasses of wine and getting to know each other. It was nothing sexual, but rather, just two people with a connection, taking our time to learn about one another and listening to great soul music. First it was the O’Jays. Then there was some D’Angelo. Then we started in on Lauryn Hill. And we concluded the evening with some Floetry.
At first he was trying to get me to sing. He swears I have a voice. I told him I had never heard that before and quite frankly, I didn’t believe him. He said, “Really?” And I was like, “Really. Now stop trying to gas me up because you’re not getting any.”
He laughed. “No seriously, nobody has ever told you that you could sing before?” he asked.
I thought about his question long and hard. I have always liked to sing. In fact, I am the type of person who will sing along out loud and publicly with songs on the radio both in my car and out in the streets. Hell, I’ll bust out a tune even when the only song playing is the one in my head. And there have been times in the past when a couple of folks who overheard me singing told me I had a very nice tone. But nah, not really. Coming from the hometown of both Patti LaBelle and Jill Scott, trust me when I tell you that whatever singing ability I have is average, at best.
He shook his head. “I swear to you, you have a great voice. Why don’t you sing for me for a bit?”
I shook my head in response. This dude just dropped the news on me that I supposedly had a voice, and now he wanted me to belt out a tune on command like it was amateur night at the Apollo? “No, I’m good,” I told him.
He sucked his teeth and said, “See, that’s your problem.”
“What’s my problem?” I asked.
“That,” he said.
“What?” I asked.
“That,” he said again.
And that went on for a few more moments until the irritation started to show on my face.
He shook his head for a second time. “People nowadays are so uptight and scared to be themselves with other people. Come here and I’ll show you what I mean.”
He turned up the music, took my hand and led me to the middle of the living room. Apparently, my friend now wanted to dance. However, I was more uncomfortable with that than the prospect of singing. The thing is, I haven’t slow dragged in years. In fact, the last time I recall dancing closely with a man was in middle school when my first boyfriend asked me to the dance floor. Back then, the slow jams were a major part of the party. In fact, the fast songs were just a warm up to what we all really came to do. And once the DJ turned the lights down low, you could find yourself slow dragging with the same guy for at least a few songs.
But that was in the late ’80s and early ’90s. Nowadays, the slow jams we used to grind and drag to are just background noise during crowded Happy Hours. Or they are songs used to signify that the club is about to close so hurry up and finish your Blue Motorcycle cocktail and go home. Today, if you are at a party and a guy asks you to dance, which is a rarity in itself, you’re more than likely to be greeted by long sets of angry, anti-love high-tempo music, and cardio aerobic style dancing – that is if we dance at all. As Fat Joe once predicted, folks are not about that life anymore. Instead, we just lean back.
I tried to explain this to my friend, but he wasn’t interested in my cultural critique. Instead, he put his arms around my waist and started rocking side to side. Reluctantly, I followed suit, wrapping my arms around his neck and rocking side to side as well. It was awkward at first, but soon our bodies were in sync, and we were matching grooves. It was slow and sensual, but not sexual. And before I knew it, I was singing without any prompting into his ears. And I have to say, my friend was right: My voice isn’t that bad…
He was also right about another thing: People today have become cowards when it comes to letting our guards down and being truly intimate with each other. That includes slow dragging. And apparently, it is an art form that has been culturally on the decline for years. As this piece from 2009 on the blog SoulBounce notes:
“Unless it’s an actual event where a big deal is made out of the actual event of slow dancing itself, e.g. a wedded couple’s “first dance,” then the actual art of slow dancing may be dying a quick and forgotten death. It is for this reason that President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama dancing to Etta James’ “At Last” at least a dozen times on Inauguration night was such a spectacular event. It gave this country a concrete example that Black Love certainly exists even when these families are being decimated. But for all the hope that Obama in office may bring some much needed changes to Hip Hop and R&B, thus far it seems as though our national pride has given way to complacency yet again.”
What I realized last night was that slow dancing is about more than rubbing your private parts against each other and dry humping each other’s legs – although that is nice too. But rather, slow dancing is about bonding, and it is also about expressing love or the beginning of love. I don’t know whether our music is to blame, which seems to be more focused on f**king one-night stands and talking about how much we hate our exes than actually loving, or if we as a society have just decided that the slow dancing is no longer culturally relevant, but it is clear that the art form is dying. And boy, do I miss it.
