The 2021 BET Awards were already a spectacle but at 10:20 pm ET / 7:20 PT, it was time for the “Twerkulator.” Miami duo City Girls — that’s JT and Yung Miami — hit the stage with a fleet of dancers in the shortest of short shorts to explain just what exactly their newest hit is about, with all the visual aids anyone could want.
Although the Miami duo’s musical output this year has been lower than it was at the same point when they were first breaking out, that doesn’t mean they haven’t been in the news quite as much. They’ve created their share of disturbance on social media, particularly with regard to JT’s relationship with fellow rapper Lil Uzi Vert, as well as Yung Miami’s similar possible situation with rap vet Puff Daddy — aka Diddy — aka “Love.”
However, the City Girls did share their new single “Twerkulator,” which had samples of Afrika Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock” and Cajmere’s “Percolator,” and tried to make sure that they had an entry for “song of the summer.” So far the track has peaked at No. 51 on the Billboard Hot 100, which is a pretty strong start — although with Black TikTok on a strike, there won’t be a splashy dance number to push it along. Hopefully for them, tonight’s performance will do enough to get them to where they want to be.
Watch City Girls’s 2021 BET Awards performance of “TK” above.