Arab Malaya / Baikoko Dance

Malaya (or معلايه ) is an afro-arab dance similar to Baikoko, a costal dance found within the East African region of Tanga (Tanzania) and Mombasa (Kenya). M’alayah also resembles the Swahili Chakacha dance, which features hip roll movements like singer Shakira (in swahili you may say kata kiuno or viuno which simply means to cut your waist) and slow waist wine like Rihanna. The Somali niiko and the Malagasy kawitry dance also shares its similarites with Malaya.

In West Africa, Malaya is similar to the Mapouka dance from Cote d’Ivoire, the sabar-leumbeul dance from Senegal and the funana from Cabo Verde.

In North Africa you may see similar dances in Morrocan chaabi chickat (or الشعبي )

In North America Malaya relates closley to twerking, a dance which was popularized by the twerk team along with pop singer Miley Cyrus and former teacher Jessica Vanessa. Popular music videos such as Nick Minaj’s “Anaconda” and Jennifer Lopez “Booty” (feat. Iggy Azelia) also contains a form of Malaya dance.

“Sugua Gaga” is another popular twerk video from Tanzanian singer Shaa. That video contains all the dance moves listed above.

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