'Nae Nae The Hell Out', Says Baltimore Pastor Westley West Invoking Popular Hip-Hop Dance in Church
An unorthodox decision by a Baltimore, Maryland pastor to invoke a popular hip-hop dance during a recent sermon on righteousness by instructing his congregation to "Nae Nae the hell out", has made his message viral and sparked debate about whether he went too far to make his point.
A recording of the message showing Pastor Westley West from Baltimore's Faith Empowered Ministries encouraging his followers to "Nae Nae the hell out" was first posted to YouTube in August but was recently highlighted by former youth pastor turned comedian Kevin A. Fredricks. A description on the YouTube video explained that the event was the church's "1st Annual Youth & Young Adults Back to School Jam".
"I don't know if you all know but I used to be a youth pastor preaching every Sunday in front of the entire sanctuary. And one thing people always say about youth pastors is that they end up taking popular songs and turning them into a message, well this guy does just that," explained Fredricks introducing the video on his website.
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In the video clip, Pastor West is shown at the pulpit declaring that he would stand for Christ before challenging the young congregants to "Nae Nae the hell out".
"On Christ the solid rock I stand. All other grounds is sinking sand. And y'all gonna help me preach. In fact, I dare somebody even right now to stand up on your feet and begin to Nae Nae some of this hell out," said West in the video as the congregation cheered.
"In fact we got some stuff outside that we need to get to but we ain't going nowhere until we Nae Nae the hell out some stuff. I need somebody to stand up," he continued as he called on the young people of the church to start the dance.
"Help me to Nae Nae the hell out," he declared as he erupts into some moves of his own. He told the church he was "dancing his pain away" and said the move made the devil mad.
The "Nae Nae' dance", which became popular among the youth earlier this year, was created by teen quintet We Are Toonz from Atlanta. It is based loosely on Martin Lawrence's Sheneneh Jenkins character from the 90's sitcom "Martin" according to Billboard. Group member Cal Lamar says of the dance: "It's really just based on a ratchet girl in the club dancing kind of funny and the best girl to describe it is Sheneneh from 'Martin.'"
Celebrities like John Wall, point guard for the NBA's Washington Wizards helped fuel the dance's popularity.
