YOU GUYS. I am tired.
Because I decided to NOT workout yesterday morning, I decided to do a workout after work.
A few things:
1. I am a morning person.
2. I hate leaving the house after I’ve already taken off my work pants.
a. That’s a metaphor. I almost always wear dresses.
3. I HATE WORKING OUT IN THE EVENING.

ANYWAYS.
Because going to the gym is an exercise in aggravation after 5PM
And I can’t burn any calories staring angrily at people hogging machines or sighing loudly at people blocking the way chit chatting,
I decided on Zumba! Because I do hate working out at night, but this is DANCING!
And if there’s anything that people like to stereotype black people liking more’n music, it’s DANCING.

I haven’t been to a Zumba class in FOREVER.
But rest assured when I DO go, and they are randomly playing Nicki Minaj,
Of all the black people in this class, the instructor comes RIGHT UP TO ME and I end up in some sort of weird dance battle.
Because NO SENOR (sorry, no tilde), you are not getting ready to drop it lower than me.
Also be absolutely positive that my body is gonna make me pay for that later.
(oy! My hip!)

What? Onika in a Zumba class? YES.
Zumba is a mixture of hip hop, with some salsa, soca and such thrown in.
There is nothing more fun that going from La Vida es un Carnival to the Ying Yang twins.
And really the beats are easily interchanged. Probably because some of them have African roots.
Because even though people like to pretend that latinos only look like J.Lo and Shakira
Black People are EVERYWHERE.

celia

This pretty Afro-Latina is Ursula Hilaria Celia Caridad Cruz Alfonso of Havana.

That a LOT of names. Let’s just call her Celia Cruz for short.
She first gained recognition in the 1950s, as a singer with the orchestra Sonora Matancera. She relocated to the United States after the ascent of Fidel Castro in 1961.
The social culture in New York — where she lived — was beginning to change, as a massive infusion of Latino youth entered the city.
Cruz plunged into the New York music scene, filled with musicians from across the Caribbean and Latin America.
She began a musical relationship with Tito Puente began in 1966 and lasted until 1973. Together, they recorded memorable numbers such as “Aquarius,” which brought Cruz closer to the new musical landscape that was developing in New York City during the 1960s and 70s. This new sound came to be called salsa —music born of Cuban and other Afro-Latin mixed musical traditions. By 1971, it was an important genre with a record label, Fania, devoted solely to it.

Cruz put salsa music on the map at a time when most Latinos didn’t have their own special kind of music that they could relate to their culture.
Whites had stolen and claimed rock music; blacks had soul music.
Now, thanks to Celia Cruz, Latinos had salsa music.
She not only pioneered the genre of salsa, but was one of the most popular salsa artists of the 20th century.
She is known all over the world as “The Queen of Salsa”

*AZUCAR! : When Cruz shouts, “Azucar!” it’s an allusion to the African slaves that worked on the sugar plantation in Cuba and the violent history of slavery on the island.