Still dabbing in 2017: A Mixmag retrospective

We're a week into 2017. The crippling pain of the post-New Year's Eve comedown has finally seeped away and we're back in the real world, ready to conquer another year. New year, new you, right?

These days you fire up Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and see people ‘dabbing’. The old you has seen this before and thinks, 'What? I don’t have time for these memes'. But there's no escape. From Premier League footballer Paul Pogba to Hilary Clinton, it seems like everyone's trying to perfect the head down, arrowed arms out move.

Let’s find out how the 'dab' has gone from niche to the normal.

Simply, it’s widely disputed. Year zero of the dab is hard to come by. While it’s known the move originated in the Atlanta rap scene thanks to the likes of Migos, Skippa Da Flippa, Jose Guapo and Rich The Kid, who started it is up for debate. While Migos’ ‘Look At My Dab (Bitch Dab)' was the most popular track to first directly acknowledge the move, Skipper Da Flippa’s ‘How Fast’ had the rapper casually dabbing in 2014.

Even more hotly debated is how the dab came to be. Some say it was a simple reaction to the start of a beat in a song. Some say it’s fashion. What does seem to be clear, though, is that it has nothing to do with the practice of smoking weed. Lil’ Bow Wow felt the smackdown when he said it was to do with coughing after ‘dabbing’ marijuana before getting salty over how mainstream it had gone. Rich The Kid told him to STFU on Twitter.