LET'S GET PHYSICAL - Ele releases exercise video

Krista Henry, Staff Reporter


Elephant Man's exercise video Let's Get Physical.

The 'energy god' Elephant Man shows off his energetic dance moves in an exercise video that is being released with his latest album ' Let's Get Physical.

The album was released on April 8.

The exercise videos entitled Elephant Man Dancehall Gym # 1 and Elephant Man Danchall Gym Webisode 2 have also grown in popularity on youtube.

Elephant Man told the STAR, "its about when yuh buy an album and you get a CD showing you the latest dancehall moves. I went in gym with a couple of girls in Miami and recorded the

CD. You can also go online and get it, it's better for you cause you get to see the artiste in person wid the CD. it's more intriguing for di fans."

In the video Elephant Man is doing the most popular Jamaican dance moves as a vigorous exercise routine. On youtube, both videos were posted by Bad Boy Records but according to Ele, only one of the videos is on the official CD. Each clip is over five minutes long with Episode # 1 receiving 295,600 views and is subtitled 'Elephant Man shows how to do crazy moves in his first instalment of the dancehall gym series.'

Ele starts off the clip stating "this is the dancehall gym DVD if yuh don't know dis dance I'm gonna teach yuh". He proceeds, in colourful gym wear, to do the Scoobay, Elbow Dem, Away, Blazay among other dances while telling the audience what each move does for the body.

Hilarious sequence

In a hilarious sequence, Ele tells the audience "I'm kinda frost. I was drinking Hennessy and my head is spinning." Further on, he does a move and his chain hits him in his head.

In the official second clip, 'Elephant Man Dancehall Gym Webisode 2', Ele is joined by two skimpily-clad women following his moves. This clip is subtitled 'Elephant Man shows us how to do some of his favourite dances in a Richard Simon's esque (sic) performance'.

This clip features a testimonial from one of the dancers who states, "My name is Tasha. I was fat but now I'm phat with a 'ph'. Doing Elephant Man's dancehall jams I lost 200 pounds. now I look good, can't get the men off me."

My idea

According to Elephant Man, the videos were his idea as his fans requested it. "As an 'energy god' exercise is important. I gotta keep it energetic. These are things I do every morning," he said.

While most fans on youtube thought the videos funny, there were a few detractors. One fan posted "Ele is making a mockery of himself ... Diddy is milking the fact that dancehall is hot in America right now. I can see it all ending bitterly."

Another viewer said, "OMG Diddy, what have you done to Elephant Man? .... Don't you try to make this man commercial cause you taking away from the realness of the culture."

Yet, Elephant Man is not perturbed about the criticisms saying his fans enjoy it and are satisfied.