“Your body’s my party, so let’s get it started.”
Ciara, “Body Party“

Image via Shutterstock

Image via Shutterstock

I’m an avid fan of modern rap, hip-hop, and R&B; and my guilty pleasure is music videos. Never mind MTV, I don’t know what I’d do without YouTube.

Like a good enthusiast, I made a short-list of my favorite music videos in 2013 and chose a winner: Ciara’s “Body Party.”

It was an easy choice. I loved “Body Party” the first time it debuted in March 2013. The music is classic Ciara: smooth and sultry with a down-tempo. The song has been among the top of Billboard charts, and has sold 133,000 copies and 552,000 downloads as of January 2014 (source: Billboards.com). It wasn’t eligible for a Grammy nomination due to its sampling of Ciara’s earlier song, “My Boo;” but otherwise, I bet it would’ve been a shoe-in.

The “Body Party” music video, released in May 2013, is just as captivating as the song itself. It’s a voyeuristic, fly-on-the-wall experience that lets you witness the intimate details of two people falling in love at first sight. The romance features Ciara and real-life fiancé Future, also a hip-hop artist (word on the Internet is “Body Party” is biographical).

The video starts with alternating images of Ciara’s face and her silhouette spotlighted against a dark blue background. Then the first scene opens: Ciara walks into a crowded room and immediately encounters Future, who is notably impressed by what he sees. Ciara walks past Future, further into the house party graced by the presence of the cool kids – Ludacris, Trinidad Jame$, Jazze Pha and Mike WiLL Made It.

But even from across the darkened room, the attraction is growing between Ciara and Future. She performs a dance routine directed at Future (a precursor to the private one she does later), and then she finally approaches him.

The video next cuts to a poolside scene with flirtatious dialogue between the two lovebirds.

And then we’re at the big scene in “Body Party:” a scantily clad Ciara performing a private lap dance for Future. It’s an incredibly sexy strip tease just short of an ”explicit” label.

Just as Pink is the queen of aerial acrobatics, Ciara is the queen of floor work. She is both a dancer and an athlete in her movements. Ciara’s most impressive move is a handstand backflip during the strip tease, prompting the following tweet from fellow singer Nicki Minaj:

Like most people, I enjoy a good story – especially if it’s told through music and video performed by an artist as remarkable as Ciara.

In an MTV interview about the “Body Party” video, Ciara explained that she wanted “a perfect balance” between “sensual emotion” and “fun.”

What’s not to like about a party like that?