6.26 AM Friday, 29 March 2024
  • City Fajr Shuruq Duhr Asr Magrib Isha
  • Dubai 04:56 06:10 12:26 15:53 18:37 19:52
29 March 2024

Obama dances to impress: Pulls off traditional Lipala moves

Published
By Agencies

President Barack Obama just proved that he knows his way around the dance floor.

During a dinner at Nairobi's State House on Saturday, Obama joined the Kenyan band Sauti Sol in performing the Lipala, a traditional dance experiencing a resurgence in popularity after the band gave it a modern upgrade earlier this year.

The band performed the song live for the visiting president—who they referred to as 'our returning son'—and Obama—along with President Uhuru Kenyatta and First Lady Margaret Kenyatta—joined the band in a little dance.

Obama put those moves to the test during two-day trip to Kenya—his first visit to his father's birth country since his election as president.

Sauti Sol posted an Instagram video of the president grooving.

People reports that this little snippet of Lipala wasn't the only performance that evening from the US president.

When President Kenyatta's niece Kavi Pratt took to the stage to sing 'At Last,' the president was reportedly seen singing along.

When he arrived in Kenya, Obama had an emotional reunion with his sister and other members of his father's family.

And before his departure on Sunday, Obama gave a rousing speech to a Nairobi gymnasium packed with nearly 5,000 cheering Kenyans.

"Kenya is at a crossroads, a moment filled with enormous peril but also enormous promise," he said in a rousing live address to the nation.

Seeking to leverage his status as a 'son of the soil' and his huge local popularity, Obama said his ancestral homeland faced 'tough choices' ahead, urging Kenyans to end the 'bad tradition' of failing to empower women, while warning that "a politics based only on tribe and ethnicity is a politics doomed to tear a country apart."

"Treating women as second-class citizens... those are bad traditions, they need to change, they are holding you back," he said.

"Corruption is not unique to Kenya, but the fact is too often corruption is tolerated because that's how things have always been done," he said. "Just because something is a part of your past doesn't make it right."

"I'm the first Kenyan-American to be president of the United States. That goes without saying," he said before declaring, “When it comes to the people of Kenya, especially the youth, I believe there is no limit to what you can achieve. You can build your future right here, right now . . . You are poised to play a bigger role in this world. In the end, we are all a part of one tribe, the human tribe."

This summer has seen Obama doing everything from making a historic journey to Africa, to performing a heartfelt rendition of 'Amazing Grace,' to gamely weighing in on whether peas in guacamole.