Let's Do The Twist, African Style

Doing the twist with a song from Kenya.

About "The Twist," the song. Yes, that one (this is the super-condensed version, by the way). Hank Ballard wrote the song in 1955 and recorded it in 1959. Chubby Checker then recorded it and brought it to the world at large the following year.

But the notion of a dance referred to as a twist apparently goes back a lot farther, perhaps being first noted in Africa as far back as the nineteenth century.

I'd like to dig into this one a little deeper, but I'm not writing a dissertation. I just wanted to share a catchy "twist" song from Africa.

From Kenya, John Nzenze, with "Angelike Twist." Nzenze toured in eastern Africa, Japan, Germany, and Britain. He died in 2020, at age 80.

As the BBC obit put it, at the time, "The singer, guitarist and dancer was among the last of the pioneer artistes who popularised the Kenyan Twist genre of music, and was part of a band that produced East Africa's finest funk in the 1960s and early 1970s."

As of early 2024, our content is still free, but we've added a paid subscription option. If you’d like to support us that way, we’d be very grateful.