Sofi Tukker wants you to throw some ass and free your mind (but not you, Donald Trump)

While Trump spun his rallies into surreal dance-offs, Sofi Tukker offers the real deal: a joyful, inclusive funk revolution. This week, the ING Arena is your place to move, groove, and defy division.

Only earthlings who spent the past few months in digital detox could have missed it: Donald Trump’s littles dances during his campaign rallies. Fists in the air, duck lips tucked between orange trenches, as if he had his eye on a new catch on the Love Boat and wanted to flap his pheromones into the wind. It’s not surprise that he was a regular at Studio 54 in the 1970s, finding himself surrounded by Mick Jagger, Andy Warhol, and Liza Minnelli.

Mid-October, at a rally in Pennsylvania, Tony Manero’s not so cool nephew was not even bothered by skipping thorny issues and dancing for 40 minutes to James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” and Sinéad O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U”, among others. God rest their souls. “Let’s not do any more questions,” he smugly grinned after two fans fainted (because of the heat), “let’s just listen to music.” Saying Trump owes the renewal of his presidency to those moves may be a bold statement, but of course, with those crazy Americans, you never know.

Brain and body have always performed an intimate mating dance. Those who venture onto the dance floor to shake their ass momentarily banish all worries from their existence. PhDs were written on the subject. But don’t be fooled, dancing has always also been political. In the early 1970s, when the world was in the grip of social unrest, protests, and cultural change, the funk pioneers of Funkadelic introduced a revolutionary message that pretty much became the slogan of every disco: “Free your mind...and your ass will follow.” Überfunker George Clinton knew about it: first break the chains in your mind, and then – that’s right – your ass will follow on its own. Nowadays, funk’s theatrical freedom is unfortunately a bit obscured by the cynical bullies in politics. Trump’s little dances are not a spiritual liberation, like the one Funkadelic & Co stood for, but a political stunt. It is his way of thickening the image of an “unconventional” leader going against the establishment.

Fortunately, American duo Sofi Tukker breathes new life into George Clinton’s motto: “Throw some ass, free the mind” is how it goes on their new album BREAD. For Sophie Hawley-Weld and Tucker Halpern, the dance floor is bread and circuses, the powerbank propelling them forward (the title of their album is also an acronym for “be really energetic and dance”). In the video to “Throw Some Ass”, a doctor wearing buttless pants rushes to the rescue and has only one cure for the patients in his cabinet: their butts urgently need more shaking!

Sofi Tukkers’ message is not explicitly political, but their red-hot mix of Brazilian rhythms and funk does display a philosophy of freedom, inclusivity, and community spirit from which politicians could learn. The Tangerine Tornado who will soon storm the Oval Office probably won’t give a damn, but Hawley-Weld and Halpern put connection before division, and what’s more in a light-hearted, pleasant way.

So show up at the ING Arena before Trump also builds a wall around the dance floor and shake your booty while singing along at the top of your lungs: “It feels so good to / Throw some ass / Turn it ‘round, can you make it clap? / Give the old man a heart attack.”

Sofi Tukker is opening for Kygo at the ING Arena on 6/12, ing.arena.brussels