The song, Shake Body by Skales, released in the year 2015, was a very big hit back then. I remember clearly—I was in school then, and this song was repeatedly played for dancers in the dancing competition during the various departmental welcome parties for newly admitted students and also on the department party day. Whenever the song came on back then, everyone would move to dance either with their legs or at least by nodding their heads, especially for people like me who couldn’t dance with their legs.
The intro has a very unique beat, more like an anthem back then because anytime we heard the sound in the midst of songs, we just knew the song was coming to play.
By that time, I already knew Skales as part of the EME record label, which had Wizkid as one of its signees too. The EME label was a big one, with Banky W as the boss, and that’s how I fell in love with the group because they were dropping good hits back to back. That was the record label under which the famous Wizkid released his first album, Superstar, in 2010.
Did you know Baddest Boy featuring Wizkid, Skales, and Banky W? That just goes to show how long I’ve known Skales. His verse in that song is so entertaining.
Why am I bringing up these talks and memories?
After the trend, the song faded away—and that’s very usual because songs can’t keep trending forever.
But some weeks ago, at the time of writing this, the song Shake Body resurrected. And it didn’t just happen in Nigeria or Africa alone—it occurred globally, starting from Barcelona in Spain.
Barcelona's youngest player, Lamine Yamal, did a TikTok dance with the song and—boom!—it spread and made noise everywhere.
Shake Body, the 2015 hit song, came back into the limelight, and not only was the song resurrected, but the artist Skales also returned to the spotlight. He was invited to Barcelona to perform the song, and he was paid a huge amount of money for that.
Skales, all through the Champions League semi-final involving Barcelona and Inter Milan, was there cheering the Barcelona fans, and he was being tagged as “Mr. Shake Body.”
I watched some of the clips and it's so good how people were happy to see him, where they danced the Lamine Yama style of dancing the song.
I must say, this occurrence—although something that has happened before to many songs and many artists—is the first time I’m witnessing it in such a pronounced manner. There was one song that trended only in Nigeria last year, but this one is so loud! After 10 years, a forgotten song and artist came back into the limelight!
Thanks for reading.
Video source: YouTube