Imma need you to clock that bag. Then watch me clock your Mama if she opens that door again.
I know, right? It’s like you’re looking at freakin’ Beyoncé. And I know you ain’t ready for this jelly.
Oh Hella ‘ella ‘ella NoSheDin’t just say she was Beyoncé. I just ’bout flipped my new Rihanna wig.
Srsly, Siri. Where do they find this hair?
You know I can hear you, right? Cuz I’m sitting right over here looking atchoo little girl. Dat’s rite.
I’m thinking some of these bitches might be a little bit crazy. Just a little bit.
It’s not like we’re trying to figure out what type of damn polygon has interior angles equal to the sum of the exteriors. We’re just twerkin’.
That’s it.
I’m done.
Every time I say that I’ve seen it all, something comes along and proves me wrong.
Like Bring It! Which totally brought it.
So, yeah. I’m not saying that anymore.
Lifetime’s newest DanceYourBootyPantsOff reality show, which promises to shine a spotlight on the elite world of hip-hop majorette competitions, Stand Battled it’s way right up in our grills this week and had the internet buzzing before we even got permission to take our first water break.
Let’s just keep it real, mmmkay? If you know me…or my hot mess of a site…you knew I’d be all over this show. Girrrl, pleez. Not gonna lie. A little obsessed already.
But I’m going to leave all the controversy over young girls booty popping in gymnasiums vs. young girls feeling empowered and building self esteem through dance to the angry chat rooms. Because under all the noise OhHellNo’s and synthetic lace fronts is a pretty solid statement on mentoring kids so they grow up to be better kids.
That, and the fact that I tend to shy away from controversy whenever possible.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind starting controversy. It’s kinda my thang. I just don’t want to be in the middle of it once I get everyone else all wound up. I’d rather just slowly back out of the room like nothing ever happened and then continue rambling on endlessly about things I know absolutely nothing about.
Like the elite world of hip-hop majorette competitions.
Somehow over the last few years, I’ve managed to cleverly bluff my way through multiple seasons of Toddlers & Tiaras and Dance Moms without any working knowledge of how those competitions are supposed to be run. And nobody has ever caught onto me. Yet.
But the elite world of hip-hop majorette competitions is pretty much like asking me to give a book report on a book that I’ve never read. Or even checked out of the library.
But you know I love me some Crazy. Especially if it happens to be stuck to the side of a loud Mom. The bigger and prouder and louder and crazier the better. So yes, please.
Which brings us to Bring It!
And the Dollhouse Dance Factory in Jackson, Mississippi.
Can I just say before we even get started that I’m getting pretty sick of the South getting all the good stuff? I mean, really. They have all the cool Glitz Pageants. The Jackin’ It To Jesus hair. The fried stuff. They even have Honey Boo Boo Child.
And now they have to go and swipe hip-hop majorette competitions right out from under the rest of us, too? So not fair.
If you’re pressed for time and can only spare one hour a week for your television viewing, you could probably tune into Bring It! and cover all your bases, because it’s pretty much a combo platter of all the ratchety reality goodness that you might otherwise be missing.
You got your Dance Moms. Your sparkly Toddler bling. Real Housewives of Wherever drama. MTV video dancing. Those thick girls from VH1 clanging on pots and pans to wake up their roommates. What Not To Wear fashions. And some of the most whacked out Jerry Springer weaves that you’ve ever seen go flying around the room.
Spoiler Alert: A preview of an upcoming episode even shows one of the Mamas whipping off her hair in the heat of the battle. I already died a little in anticipation.
At the center of the show is owner Dianna Williams and her mission to promote high self esteem, determination, persistence, high academic achievement, community involvement and the importance of healthy young women through her dance studio.
Yes. It’s a mouthful. But Girlfriend has the mouth for it, don’t you worry. She’s loud and aggressive and don’t put up with yo’ Mama’s crap. At all. But under all that no-nonsense exterior, she has a heart of gold. And probably a grill of silver and some brass knuckles.
Dianna don’t play. She ain’t gonna baby you and she ain’t gonna sugar coat it.
She also ain’t gonna let yo’ Mama in the building.
Cuz that’s the rule. Moms have to stay on the cold sidewalk, watching the action through cracks in the window blinds like underage boys outside a strip joint, which by itself could be a spin-off show if this thing takes off in the ratings.
Trust me. It was like a clown car full of Circus Moms as they all started piling out under the streetlights, each one funnier than the next. None of them had a filter. Or a blending brush as they all started talking at the same time for the entire hour.
First up was Mom Selena and her daughter Sunjai. Selena’s nickname around town was ‘Beyoncé‘ because I guess a long time ago somebody at some bar somewhere was Drunk In Love and told her that she looked like Jay-Z‘s wife and it stuck. So now she’s Beyoncé.
The Voice of Reason in the MomPosse was Mimi and her Dancing Doll Camryn. Mimi called everyone ‘Sugar‘ and ‘Sweetie‘ and you know she probably sings too loud in her church choir.
This week’s award for Wearing A Wig And Not Even Trying To Hide It went to Mom Tina, who looked exactly like that Ronald McDonald statue that sits on the end of the bench right before you turn into the drive-thru. If she hadn’t accessorized it with that little black bow that Sally used to wear on The Dick Van Dyke Show I probably would have talked into her mouth and ordered a Big Mac.
She’s my new TV girlfriend, by the way. Love me some Tina. Her daughter Kayla is the Team Captain, which is also a good thing to be.
And finally, there was Rittany, Bitch. And her daughter Crystianna. Rittany did that NeNe Leakes pinky sweep thing with her bright red bangs every 14 seconds and you could already tell that she’s the pot that will probably blow a lid first. She was not happy that they had to stand outside all night, even though Dianna had already made it clear that you could not come in and eat yo’ wings and eat yo’ hamburgers.
This ain’t no Burger King. Which is true, because I think it’s actually a Target.
You tell me the inside of that studio doesn’t look exactly like Target the day after Black Friday when all the racks are empty.
While the Moms tried to push each other in the front door without an officially sanctioned DDP (…Dancing Doll Parent…) Union Card, Dianna was inside giving us Shangela Realness.
Or something I like to call Six Degrees of Nia Frazier, for all you Dance Moms fans.
Clock The Bag. Clock The Shoes. Now Punch The Clock. Which are all lyrics from a song that drag queen Shangela Laquifa Wadley sang. Miss Thang Shangela was on RuPaul’s Drag Race. Twice. And then he/she was on Dance Moms, where he/she taught Nia Frazier how to Death Drop and tuck it like a Boss. And then Abby Lee Miller showed up in the music video for some reason.
Six Degrees of Nia Frazier. Halleloo. Now give me Face. And Werk.
We’ll go into the Dance Dictionary at a later date and break it all down for you. For now, all that matters is that the DDs would be going up against the Ladies of Excellence in a Stand Battle this week, which is the most important part of any competition. Turns out that there are loads of categories in the elite world of hip-hop majorette competitions, but the one where two teams face each other and get all OhNoSheDin’t and Don’t Make Me Snap My Fingers In A ‘Z’ Formation seems to be the most important one.
But it’s still not Geometry, which Rittany somehow compared the whole process to as she tried to make Beyoncé understand what was actually happening inside the building after Sunjai got cut from the routine.
Quote of the Day: It’s not Geometry. It’s simply 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, sevum, 8. That’s the counts they do. This is not mathematics.
Umm. Yeah. It kinda is, actually.
But Rittany keeps it Real. She said so. She also said it might not be in the proper grammar. But you’ll git it, gurl. And I did.
Srsly. What I love even more than these crazy ladies is how much these crazy ladies love their not so crazy kids. Because that’s what really matters at the end of each day. All sevum of ‘em.
Finally, it was Showtime! And what a production it was.
Two tour buses full of kids. And all their luggage. And all their non-nappy weaves. And all their non-nappy wigs. And all their clear lip gloss. And one lone tube of pink lip gloss that somehow made it through the TSA checkpoint undetected, but was immediately discovered and smeared off the face of some poor little girl who just guaranteed herself at least two more years of therapy.
Pink lip gloss? Srsly? You ain’t Nicki Minaj.
Noticeably missing from all the festivities was Rittany, who never showed up for the bus ride. Nobody knew where she was. Or if she was coming. Or how Crystianna made it to the bus without her Mama driving the car. That kid can’t have a license yet. Anyone else catch that one?
They also didn’t explain that little nugget of a tyke sitting next to Dianna, who I’m going to assume was her son. He had the best fuzzy little head and sat their like a perfect little gentleman writing “These Bitches R Krazee” on his Crayola Wii screen.
Oh. And Dianna did porn.
Wait. What?
Yeah. That’s about how subtly it came up in conversation. I don’t know if it was for shock value or to prove how she wanted a better life for her Dolls or to spike sales on Amazon. But it totally came out of nowhere and made my Twitter page freeze up.
And, no…I didn’t Google it. I don’t want all of that sitting in the cloud somewhere when my hard drive crashes, thank you. Find it yourself, pervert.
Dianna also said she loves her team…loves them hard, which she probably shouldn’t have said so soon after the whole porno thing, but sometimes you can’t take stuff back no matter how much you wish you could after it’s out there.
Like that whole last paragraph.
Once everyone made it to the venue, we met Brittany Grace, the coach for the Ladies of Excellence. She seemed very nice, but I’m not sure if she realized the right side of her bangs were a little wonky. She also looked like she swam in the community center pool without goggles. But she was very polite and rather nervous about going up against the Dancing Dolls. Can you blame her?
After a quick Prayer Circle with about 217 girls in booty spandex (…how big is this dance company anyway?…) Dianna and her team hit the floor. Kayla did her Captain’s Solo while Mimi held up a gigantic cardboard Camryn head on a stick, which I totally need now.
Please tell me you saw that crazy random Mom trying to videotape everything on what was either the world’s biggest iPad or the actual screen from a Microsoft desktop. What was that thing…? And how did she not fall over? Tina literally pushed her out of the way like she just heard someone call her name on The Price Is Right.
Kayla rocked her solo and yet was less out of breath than her mother when the whole thing was over. I lived for how excited Tina got during the routine.
That’s My Baby! That’s My Baby!
Rittany finally showed up with gigantic earrings made out of gold cocktail coasters and some lame excuse about no cell service. Puh. Leez. Nice try, honey.
I don’t know one sistah who doesn’t somehow have a constantly charged Sidekick. You ever been to a food court on a Saturday? It’s like Jack Bauer on Fox’s 24.
Chloe? Where you at, Bitch?
Dianna and Rittany went at it for a few rounds until Rittany’s parenting skills were called into question. Then it was all Slow Your Row. Slow Your Row. Just Slow Your Row.
Rittany tends to repeat everything she says at least 3 times. I think it’s actually still a rule on VH1 and few other select channels, now that you mention it. At least during chick fights. I’m sure some other great one liners were probably spit out during their argument, but in all honesty, Rittany was wearing a white track jacket, red NeNe hair, denim cut offs and black lace hosiery so my focus was all over the place.
Oh. And the Stand Battle set the place on fiyah. Thanks for asking.
When it was all over, both Kayla and the Team took home a First Place trophy, proving that with strong mentoring leadership and the proper shade of lip gloss girls can do whatever they set their minds to.
Bring it? Hellz to the Yeah.
They done brung it.
Now clock out and we’ll see you next time.
Muah.
DD4L.
