As fall heightens the festival season, a dance celebration with over 30-decades of history and culture in the city returned on Saturday, Sept. 18 at Welcome All Park, just outside the city of Atlanta. Yeek!ATL, in partnership with Councilwoman Helen Willis, City of South Fulton, and Melodic Movements, held the third annual Yeek Fest. Rolling out got the chance to join some of the OGs of Yeek!ATL, including Anthony “A Dog,” Sweet Melodi, and Ted Rush, to discuss the Yeek Fest and the preservation of Yeek culture.
YEEK, (Your Energetic Explosive Klimax) is a style of dance created in the heart of Atlanta, characterized by a buildup of emotions, high energy, and boisterous moves, which leads to a climactic bellow of “Yeek!” Popularized at skating rinks then later in dance competitions and nightclubs, its influence even reached superstars such as TLC, OutKast, Usher, Diddy, Ciara, and Michael Jackson, who incorporated the moves into their videos and performances.
How do dance and Yeek culture come into play in the discussion of influencing Black culture?
Sweet Melodi: It saved our lives. It kept a lot of us out of trouble, off the street, and focused. Street dancing may be nothing to some, but it meant everything to [us] and to Atlanta’s culture.
Anthony “A Dog”: A lot of people didn’t have their own families, so the people they danced with [became] family.
How do we continue to preserve Yeek culture and other dance cultures like it?
Anthony “A Dog”: You preserve in life flow. Live every day in your truth, if you’re a Yeeker, be a Yeeker, and you just tell the story.
Ted Rush: We need to be seeing more of [our] style and of other styles of dance. As Yeekers, we want to pass it on to the next generation, so we can keep it going. That’s how we pass it down from generation to generation, and it [will] evolve.
With TikTok and other social platforms amplifying dance and reaching kids, how timely is educating youth on the history of this dance and its place in Black culture?
Sweet Melodi: We just have to push the culture and make sure that people can connect with us now. We’re making a little noise on Tik Tok. We get them connected, and it moves on. It serves its purpose to get the younger generation involved.
What is Yeek Fest about?
Sweet Melodi: [Expect] food, fun, and to dance. We invite all styles of dance. It’s all about the culture. We’re basically preserving the culture and pushing it forward for the future. We have to. It’s Atlanta’s culture, and Georgia’s culture, and we have to credit those who started it. We pray that it gets bigger every year and that people just understand that it’s about dance, and coming out in performance. … So our goal is to get it worldwide.
