The Southside will forever be one of Houston’s most iconic dances.
The music video is now a part of Houston canon. Kids chase after an ice cream truck as it plays a dreamy melody. The jingle fades. A hip-hop beat drops, bumping with bass and cymbals, before the video zooms in on Lil’ Keke’s face.
Welcome to the uh, Southside
No, uh-uh, I said the Southside of H-Town.
Images flash onscreen: a “Welcome to the Astrodome” sign, people gathering around parked cars in the neighborhood, and, finally, four men bending down, pivoting from left to right, alternating their hands and knees to different sides as they bop to the chorus.
Everybody do the Southside, the Southside, yeah.
And by the third verse, Lil’ Keke gives instructions:
Raise yo hands, so so high
Rub ya head, and do the Southside
Do the shockin’ and the rockin’ from left to right.
Moving side to side with ya motion and ya rhythm
You stick and move, stay in the groove
Keep your hands high, and you can’t really lose
I’m a lift my head, and keep my pride
And let the whole world do the damn Southside.
Released on May 27, 1997, the music video is a visual landmark for rap fans, and the song, the origin of one of Houston’s most enduring dances. Long before TikTok made viral choreography a daily occurrence, the Southside was already spreading the old-fashioned way: person to person, block to block. Ask a longtime Houstonian to hit the Southside, and they’ll likely execute it without hesitation.
Like 713 Day, the story starts with Lil’ Keke. Named after the Houston neighborhood where the rapper grew up, the song is a love letter to the Southside’s place in the city’s culture. “Southside is very important to the landscape and the infrastructure of what we do down here,” Edwards says. Home to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, where car enthusiasts park their tricked-out swangas, and “Screw House,” where DJ Screw recorded and sold mixtapes, the neighborhood has been central to Houston’s rap scene. Fat Pat, Big Moe, and Megan Thee Stallion all hail from Southside neighborhoods, South Park and Sunnyside among them. The dance, with its swaying rhythm and easy-to-follow moves, is an extension of that hip-hop legacy, but Edwards never intended for the dance to take off.
“That was just us messing around,” says the rapper, with a chuckle. Neither a dancer nor a choreographer, Edwards says it was natural for him and the other members of the Screwed Up Click, DJ Screw’s rap collective, to be playful while making music and feed off of each other’s energy. “We used to be just talking and talking, ‘Today, boy, you shockin’ and rocking,’” he recalls. “When I was making the song, I had no idea [it would become] a dance party.”
Almost overnight, the Southside blew up. The dance became synonymous with the song and the neighborhood, reaching a level of virality nearly unheard of in the 1990s. “It just took off,” he says, and it’s still here, as iconic as ever.
