WHO WANTS TO DANCE SHOKI?

Sometime in September 2015, we were invited to a teens’ forum to speak on, DRAW THE LINE, which was based on one of the books the Lord helped us to put together and which urges young people to stay away from pre-marital sex. 

I really commend the organizers of the event because they did not only mobilize the young minds that turned out in a large number, the forum was involving for the teens as it was full of varieties and anything one may call a dull moment was nowhere to be found. 

After our presentations, a co-facilitator, Pastor Peter Oyesiku and myself, had a major issue to confront with when it was question and answer time. One major question that kept popping up was, Can we dance Shoki in the Church? As the two of us said No and presented our reasons to these teens, more of these teenagers kept asking the same question and we insisted that Shoki was not meant for the church and not only that, anyone who professes to be a child of God should not even dance Shoki in or outside the Church. Were they satisfied with our answers? Time will tell…

I got a shocker when I turned to page 37 of the Sunday Punch of, October 4th, 2015 and I saw this headline, ‘I don’t know the meaning of Shoki—Orezi.’ Just because it sounded unbelievable to me that someone who sang a song did not know its meaning, I quickly read the full page interview in which the Delta State-born musician, Esegine Allen, aka Orezi, who sang the hit single, Shoki replied to the question, what is Shoki? By saying, “Shoki is just a dance step which I stumbled upon while I was relaxing at an African Shine. I felt it was interesting and I needed to make a record about it. I do not know what it means; I only know it is called Shoki.’’

Hmm! We, as the next generation must really learn to censor what we watch and listen to irrespective of where we are or at any point in time. For some of us who do not know Shoki; it is a type of dance that stylishly portrays a kind of indecency that I do not approve of and again, the dancers usually use one hand to wipe one eye as if they want to see clearly from a blurred vision. It is a dance step that has taken over many places, including religious houses. It is really making waves among children, teenagers, youths and adults. 

If the man who sang Shoki does not know what it means and he also borrowed the dance steps from an African Shine, why is it that that is what we want to employ as a means of praising our God. Don’t you think we are losing our bearing and gradually denying our paternity since we want to follow after the dance step that is danced godlessly in an African Shrine?

For me, the challenge of creativity comes up here. Like we told the young guys in that forum, if you call yourself a child of God who is filled with the Spirit of God, why is it that you cannot introduce your own dance steps which will make waves and glorify God?

Also, it shows that some of us do not edit what we watch on our television sets and internet, especially some songs or films that we watch on You-tube. 1 Corinthians 12:13 says, ‘For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.’ (KJV) In the same vein, we also drink into a spirit that is not of God when we indiscriminately swallow strange songs, by singing and dancing to them. You know what? There is a spirit behind every song!

It is rather unfortunate that many of us do not bother about the lyrics of some of the songs we sing or dance to. As young people, I know that many of us are mostly interested in the beat more than the lyrics. But I think we should also learn to go through the lyrics as we dance to the melody of any song.

You know what? Shoki will soon go into extinction and another dance step will come on board; are we going to cave in to that too? By now, we should know that evil communications corrupt good manners.

Going by the information supplied by Orezi; it does not matter whether it is in the Church or outside the Church, I think we should stay off shoki. Choose To Be Different!