Dutty Wine - a grim fandango

June 11, 2007 1:23 PM

Dutty Wine - the new dance craze that's sweeping the nation, or "a demon sen' from de pit a hell dat is taking the lives of the youth even before dem have time to repent?"
posted by ikkyu2 (59 comments total)

Two points: First, dancing isn't the problem; the real threat to youth is Bengay.

Second, the fact that it's possible to perform a series of dance maneuvers that can kill you is a pretty strong argument against intelligent design.
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:32 PM on June 11, 2007 [3 favorites]

If watching underage girls shake their ass at work isn't your thing, you might want not to click. Parentheses, Oxycontin is also sweeping the nation. Double parentheses, butterface!
posted by phaedon at 1:34 PM on June 11, 2007

If somebody were to make a Caribbean version of Footloose out of this, it would make a boatload of money.
posted by Gamblor at 1:40 PM on June 11, 2007

Some doctors have warned against performing the Dutty Wine, claiming it may cause serious muscle trauma, and ligament damage.

Name me any human activity, and I can find you doctors who are against it....
posted by pax digita at 1:41 PM on June 11, 2007

I believe I'd like to take that up! Looks like a dandy way to get some low-impact aerobic exercise. And old Turtles could perhaps participate in the fun when my daughter had some friends over.

I wonder if the local community centre is offering lessons?
posted by Turtles all the way down at 1:50 PM on June 11, 2007

I was going to comment, but I felt my will to live draining away.
posted by chuckdarwin at 1:51 PM on June 11, 2007

When I was a kid we only had the robot. What a drag.
posted by Mr_Zero at 1:51 PM on June 11, 2007

Name me any human activity, and I can find you doctors who are against it....

You're on. Doctoring....
posted by samsara at 1:54 PM on June 11, 2007 [3 favorites]

ikkyu2, I'm trying to imagine what course of surfing brought you to this. I assume you were researching spinal injuries from dance routines, right?

And that video. Yikes. Givin' me the vapors.
posted by Ynoxas at 2:11 PM on June 11, 2007

I'd like to see some Jamaican examples, because the white girl is really boring.
posted by Liosliath at 2:17 PM on June 11, 2007

Ok, answered my own request - original Dutty Wine video - now that looks more like dancing.
posted by Liosliath at 2:22 PM on June 11, 2007

Now, if someone could post a decent how-to on getting one's ass to shake like that...
posted by mckenney at 2:22 PM on June 11, 2007

It goes without saying that I could be wrong but it seems to me that the young woman in the first video is pantomiming a crude recreation of the generative act.
posted by the sobsister at 2:31 PM on June 11, 2007 [4 favorites]

Doctor warns about doctoring
posted by L. Fitzgerald Sjoberg at 2:34 PM on June 11, 2007

If somebody were to make a Caribbean version of Footloose out of this, it would make a boatload of money.
posted by Gamblor at 3:40 PM on June 11

I think someone pretty much did, called Dancehall Queen.

Don't ask me how I know that.
posted by jennaratrix at 2:57 PM on June 11, 2007

I'd like to make some snarky comment about how I'm glad I can come to metafilter to find all about the latest dance craze of 2006 but in truth I never heard of dutty wine yet and i'm glad i now know.
posted by criticalbill at 3:34 PM on June 11, 2007

I looked at Fitzgerald's link, it seemed to be about Dr Who.

then I watched the Tony Matterhorn vid but I couldnt see anything that looked like it might be fatal. This on the other hand...
posted by criticalbill at 3:43 PM on June 11, 2007

Even if this was not a law, which it is, I'm afraid I would have a lot of difficulty endorsing an enterprise which is as fraught with genuine peril as I believe this one to be. Besides the liquor and the drugs which always seem to accompany such an event the thing that distresses me even more, Ren, is the spiritual corruption that can be involved. These dances and this kind of music can be destructive, and, uh, Ren, I'm afraid you're going to find most of the people in our community are gonna agree with me on this.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 3:45 PM on June 11, 2007

I heard the next version of Dance Dance Revolution will require strapping the Wii remote to one's ass...

(I was being silly, but it actually might!)
posted by LordSludge at 3:56 PM on June 11, 2007

Six months until the cheerleaders start doing it? Give it two years, and it'll be all the rage at middle school dances.
posted by emelenjr at 4:23 PM on June 11, 2007

Never thought I'd live to see the day Pattymayo was mentioned on Metafilter.
posted by muthecow at 4:30 PM on June 11, 2007

Oh boy! Dancehall, that's where I'm a viking.

This is good but seems to have been re-dubbed and re-posted by someone else. Most of the dutty wine videos on youtube are behind the sign-up wall, having been branded as possibly lewd. If you are registered, you can take a look at this example although she isn't Jamaican.

You can also look about about 3 minutes into Sean Paul's "Give It Up To Me" for another example, albeit with some HipHop flavour.

Dutty Wine's a female dance though (youtube wackiness aside). You can see a compilation of more uni-sex moves in the Just Dance video

p.s. The latest dance is the hot fuk/wuk (the actual dancing starts maybe a minute in); Jamaican music moves at light speed.

p.p.s. Dancehall Queen as Footloose? I'm not sure that's what they had in mind, but it's got the up-tempo soundtrack, so why not.
posted by strawdog at 4:44 PM on June 11, 2007

The BEST thing about Youtube, apart from the ability to add and view video, are the comments.

I luv ur communts rofl lamo lol ;)
posted by mattoxic at 4:50 PM on June 11, 2007

Tales me back to last years Big Brother, when the wonderful Rude Girl Aisleyne Horgan-Wallace was the Dutty Wine queen of the UK airwaves.

This year's contestants pale into insignificance by comparison.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 4:54 PM on June 11, 2007

Ugh. Takes. Takes me back.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 4:56 PM on June 11, 2007

I've just officially become old. All that "dancing" gave me a headache. If you need me for anything, I'll be checking into a home now.
posted by The Light Fantastic at 5:00 PM on June 11, 2007

This is all giving me visions of everyone breaking out into choreographed dance in She's All That. These Youtube kids are plotting similar antics, I'm sure of it.
posted by False Jesii Inc. at 5:07 PM on June 11, 2007

Moral Panic Filter.
posted by C.Batt at 5:15 PM on June 11, 2007

Aww, youtube made it go away. I am sad.
posted by prosthezis at 5:29 PM on June 11, 2007

Why do some news sites quote some accents and not others? I mean, look at that article quoted in the FPP, and try to imagine the same thing if it were someone with, say, a strong French accent -- they wouldn't have typed "Aun zee treubell wish zee daynceeng", would they?

maybe they should -- would make news more entertaining, at least
posted by davejay at 5:30 PM on June 11, 2007

I've always been partial to Krumpin...
posted by SweetJesus at 5:32 PM on June 11, 2007

What does "dutty wine" means?

Also, I love that so many Jamaican dances involve the robotic manipulation of girls' asses. Thanks Jamaica, for giving me boners!
posted by Falconetti at 5:55 PM on June 11, 2007

"mean," not "means"
posted by Falconetti at 5:55 PM on June 11, 2007

According to the Dutty Wine blog, Trinidad & Tobago Prime Minister Patrick Manning may be having his own Sister Souljah moment for getting a little too close to the incendiary heat that is duttitude.*
*Falconetti, it's a variant of dirty.


posted by rob511 at 6:12 PM on June 11, 2007

davejay, the woman quoted is speaking Jamaican Creole, or a Creole/English hybrid. She's not speaking English, so it would be inaccurate to transcribe her speech with standardized English spelling. When she says "dem," she means "dem," not "them" or "they." In a Jamaican newspaper, the distinction would be important.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:16 PM on June 11, 2007

It involves moving your legs like a butterfly

What does this mean? How does someone move their legs like a butterfly? I watched 3 or 4 of the videos and everyone's just standing with their feet apart.
posted by iconomy at 6:37 PM on June 11, 2007

Faint of Butt, then please - if you would be so kind - translate into standard English for us. If she doesn't "mean" "them".
posted by Baby_Balrog at 6:38 PM on June 11, 2007

According to the Dutty Wine blog, Trinidad & Tobago Prime Minister Patrick Manning may be having his own Sister Souljah moment for getting a little too close to the incendiary heat that is duttitude.*

He's probably getting clipped for "enjoying" the duttitude in light of his comments in the recent Akon scandal. At any rate it's funny for me to hear of someone in T&T complaining about women wearing "underwear" on stage given their carnival wear.

Methinks this all part of the other Caribbean nation's disapproval of the "passa passa" movement anyway.

On preview, Baby_Balrog: it dem does mean "them" (or "they" depending on context) but I don't suppose that was his point.
posted by strawdog at 6:42 PM on June 11, 2007

Actually, I'm pretty surprised that logging in was necessary to view the youtube clip in that first link. I mean, the girl was fully clothed and all. Interesting. I wouldn't have expected that this would be viewed as something that would need censoring: it's like the late 50's-early 60's, when the TV camera wouldn't show Elvis from the waist down.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:54 PM on June 11, 2007

Baby_Balrog, as I'm sure you could tell, the quote could be translated into standard English as "It is a warning to young people that they must stop doing the Dutty Wine... It is like a demon sent from the pit of hell that is taking the lives of the youth even before they have time to repent." My point is that in Jamaican Creole, "dem" is the third-person plural pronoun. There are plenty of places in the US where regional accents render a "th" sound as a "d," but people who speak with those accents would still write "they" and "them" even if they say "dey" and "dem." Jamaicans would not.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:16 PM on June 11, 2007

I'll hazard a guess at the meaning of "Dutty Wine": "Dirty Wind" where "wind" implies rotation, not air movement.

I feel old, too.
posted by grubby at 7:41 PM on June 11, 2007

I was getting worried that the internet had too few pedantic discussions of language in relation to the newest butt-shaking dances.
posted by Mid at 7:47 PM on June 11, 2007

Actually, Grubby got me interested.

Caribbean Beat - Winding Words

"To wine, if you don’t know, is to move your hips and waist in a “winding” motion, hence the name."

"Dutty wine: a wine with bad intentions, a true jamette wine, uninhibitedly sexual."

There's also dollar, tourist, slow, stiff, rough, and social "wines", among others.
posted by Liosliath at 8:31 PM on June 11, 2007

At least they were smart enough to forbid the Lambada. Looks like someone dropped the ball here.
posted by miss lynnster at 10:29 PM on June 11, 2007

Liosliath: nice find. I wonder if one can combine one's wines...

"Tourist Dollar Wine"

"Stiff Tourist Wine"

"2 Dollar Wine"
posted by grubby at 11:11 PM on June 11, 2007

Dunno, but all these dancestyle are just getting closer and closer to actual intercourse. Maybe that's what dancing was always about: dryhumping to music.
posted by homodigitalis at 12:08 AM on June 12, 2007

homodigitalis writes "Maybe that's what dancing was always about: dryhumping to music."

There's probably about 4 big branches of dance:

• Dancing primarily about mating (either imitating mating, or as an excuse to socialize with the opposite gender) (Dutty wine, sock hops, ballroom dancing)
• Dancing primarily for religion (whirling dervishes)
• Dancing primarily as art (ballet, interpretive dance)
• Dancing primarily as enjoyment of music (breakdancing, techno,

You could probably argue that they're really 3, or there's a 5th, but those 4 are at least in the neighborhood. It greatly confused my mom when I told her my wife was going to a club while I watched the kid, because she's only aware of the mating dances of her childhood, and couldn't really grasp that a man could go to a dance without a woman, or vice versa.
posted by Bugbread at 2:51 AM on June 12, 2007

@bugbread:

Hmmm, apart maybe from the religious part ... almost all displays of dance are in public and during social events.

Unless you dance alone at home I guess there is always an element of mating / display of sexuality, virility and fertility in it?!

Hey, even the religious ones can be very sex orientated as well: rain dance, dance to please so fertility godess ... etc.

Hmmm, we humaaaans liki de sex.
posted by homodigitalis at 3:02 AM on June 12, 2007

homodigitalis writes "Unless you dance alone at home I guess there is always an element of mating / display of sexuality, virility and fertility in it?! "

I dunno. None of the psy-trance parties I've been to had any elements of sexuality/virility. Nor have the jungle parties. Most of the mosh pits I've been in have been almost all male, and mostly straight, but I'd say they were more sporting events than parties. Epic trance parties have generally been a mix of folks with a dance-for-sex groove and folks with a dance-for-dance groove. Drum and bass is generally non-sexy. House has a lot of mating/sexuality. It really depends on the genre. But, yes, there are a lot of genres where people dance in public and there's no sexual undertones. Some of them it's because there are a lot of drugs that generally lower the sex drive (I'm sure some people have sex on LSD, but for most people at psy-trance parties, I think it makes them lose interest), but some of them (jungle, for example) tend to have little drug use, and yet no sexual elements.
posted by Bugbread at 4:11 AM on June 12, 2007

Sorry, regarding moshing - "more sporting events than parties" should have been "more sporting events than dancing".
posted by Bugbread at 4:13 AM on June 12, 2007

Lahdamerrrrceh!
posted by NationalKato at 7:24 AM on June 12, 2007

Dunno, but all these dancestyle are just getting closer and closer to actual intercourse. Maybe that's what dancing was always about: dryhumping to music.
posted by homodigitalis at 2:08 AM on June 12

You're just now figuring this out?

Were you homeschooled? (I'm being serious).

I ask that because after my first dance in Jr. High there was little doubt left in my mind what this "dancing" was all about.

*looks at profile*

Ahhhh, you're German. Now I get it.

NOW IS THE TIME ON SPROCKETS WHEN WE DANCE.
posted by Ynoxas at 7:40 AM on June 12, 2007

Silly Jamaicans. Don't they know the hokey pokey is what it's all about?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:38 AM on June 12, 2007

@Ynoxas: Ohhh, you are soooo funny.
posted by homodigitalis at 10:23 AM on June 12, 2007

@Ynoxas: Ohhh, you are soooo funny.
posted by homodigitalis at 12:23 PM on June 12

Glad you could see the humor in it, as I couldn't resist.

I mean, come on, some German named Dieter asking about has dancing always been considered to be so sexual?

I'm only human.
posted by Ynoxas at 10:38 AM on June 12, 2007

It greatly confused my mom when I told her my wife was going to a club while I watched the kid, because she's only aware of the mating dances of her childhood, and couldn't really grasp that a man could go to a dance without a woman, or vice versa.

I've gotten similar confusion from my mom, and from never-been-a-raver friends.
"Did you dance with anyone?"
"Um, I wasn't trying to. That's not really the point. The whole floor is kind of dancing together"
*boggle*
posted by flaterik at 2:28 PM on June 12, 2007

Ynoxas: I was so hoping that SPROCKETS link was to some YouTube clips. Those skits were pretty dern funny: "Yes, I know Helmut... he is as boring as being alive".
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:27 PM on June 12, 2007

flapjax:I looked (briefly) but couldn't find any, except one that was terrible and didn't have the Sprockets show or the money phrase.

To borrow from the link, your presence intimidates me to the point of humiliation. Would you care to strike me?
posted by Ynoxas at 9:44 AM on June 13, 2007

Oh man, this brings back memories of living in Jamaica (for 3 months).

"Hey gal! Dance me from the front!"
posted by nekton at 6:04 PM on June 13, 2007