Ying Yang Twins Host Twerk-Off In New York City

[Photos by Lauren Gesswein]

After years of fading from the spotlight, Atlanta's Ying Yang Twins are back, with plans to claim their rightful place in a twerk-crazy 2013, which has seen a resurrection of a dance they brought to the mainstream when Miley Cyrus was still in grade school. On Friday night, they brought their Keep Calm And Twerk Tour to New York's Santos Party House for the tour's penultimate stop.

Though their name admittedly draws much smaller crowds than it did in the days of "Get Low" and "Ms. New Booty," the duo did their best to keep the energy high at the downtown venue, running through a mix of their millennial singles for an audience of less than 100, mostly made up of nostalgic twenty somethings, novice twerkers and members of the press.

Still, Ying Yang's Kaine and D-Roc showed that they can still move a crowd, no matter how big, and seemed to have a lot of fun doing so. In additional to lively performances of hilariously crude classics like "Whistle While You Twerk," "Salt Shaker" and "Wait (The Whisper Song)," the duo eventually got into new single "Saying My Word." The track sounds like a 2013 update on "Blow The Whistle," and features Kaine and D-Roc accusing current acts like French Montana and Kanye West of stealing their signature ad-lib ("Hannn!"). They might have a point.

The Keep Calm Tour will close out this Sunday night at Toad's Place in New Haven, Connecticut. Their new mixtape, Ass In Session, is out now.—Nick de Molina