Coffin Dance

2020Video edit / fail punchlineclassic

Also known as: Dancing Pallbearers Β· Dancing Coffin Β· Astronomia Meme

Coffin Dance is a 2020 video meme of Ghanaian pallbearers dancing with a coffin to "Astronomia" by Tony Igy, used as a dark humor punchline for TikTok fail compilations.

Coffin Dance is a video meme featuring Ghanaian pallbearers from the Nana Otafrija Pallbearing and Waiting Service dancing while carrying a coffin, set to the EDM track "Astronomia" by Tony Igy. The format exploded in March 2020 on TikTok as a punchline for fail clips, implying the person in the video died. Its rise during the early COVID-19 pandemic turned it into both a dark humor staple and a global public health messaging tool.

TL;DR

Coffin Dance is a video meme featuring Ghanaian pallbearers from the Nana Otafrija Pallbearing and Waiting Service dancing while carrying a coffin, set to the EDM track "Astronomia" by Tony Igy.

Overview

The Coffin Dance meme follows a simple formula: a short clip of someone about to suffer a spectacular fail, followed by a hard cut to footage of sharply dressed Ghanaian pallbearers dancing with a coffin on their shoulders while "Astronomia" blasts in the background. The implication is clear: whoever was in the fail clip just died. The format borrows its comedic DNA from earlier "you died" punchline memes like To Be Continued and We'll Be Right Back, but the visual punch of the dancing pallbearers and the infectious beat of "Astronomia" gave it a distinct identity4.

The pallbearers themselves are real. They work for the Nana Otafrija Pallbearing and Waiting Service, a funeral business based in the coastal town of Prampram in Ghana's Greater Accra Region5. Led by founder Benjamin Aidoo, the group performs choreographed dances while carrying actual coffins at funerals. Locally, they're known as "Dada awu," meaning "Daddy's dead"5.

Benjamin Aidoo started his pallbearing company in 2003, initially offering standard funeral services before adding choreography5. He took up the profession during high school and built the business from there3. Aidoo's motivation was personal. His father died in front of him when he was just eight years old, and watching his mother and family endure that grief shaped his approach to death1. "Our way of saying goodbye to the dead gives them morale, boosts their morale," Aidoo explained to VICE. "Bring out a dance, and people stop crying and then start cheering us"1.

The group's signature look, matching black suits and sunglasses, came from a specific request. The family of a deceased parliament member asked the pallbearers to wear matching suits, and the overwhelmingly positive response made it permanent3. By 2013, Aidoo's team had completed over 200 performances, with prices starting at 800 Ghanaian cedis2.

The first widely circulated video appeared on YouTube on January 22, 2015, uploaded by a user called Travelin Sister, and picked up over 2.9 million views over the following years4. A BBC News Africa report from July 27, 2017 gave the group much broader international exposure5. A third key clip, showing pallbearers accidentally dropping a coffin mid-dance, was posted to Facebook by user Bigscout Nana Prempeth on May 2, 2019, collecting 2,900 reactions, 4,600 shares, and 350,000 views within a year4.

The meme format itself, pairing the pallbearer footage with "Astronomia" as a fail clip punchline, first appeared on February 26, 2020. TikTok user @lawyer_ggmu posted what Know Your Meme identifies as the earliest known instance, which pulled in over 4.5 million views and 474,700 likes within a month4.

Origin & Background

Platform
YouTube (source videos), TikTok (meme format)
Key People
Benjamin Aidoo, @lawyer_ggmu, Tony Igy, Vicetone
Date
2020 (meme format); 2015 (earliest source video)
Year
2020

Benjamin Aidoo started his pallbearing company in 2003, initially offering standard funeral services before adding choreography. He took up the profession during high school and built the business from there. Aidoo's motivation was personal. His father died in front of him when he was just eight years old, and watching his mother and family endure that grief shaped his approach to death. "Our way of saying goodbye to the dead gives them morale, boosts their morale," Aidoo explained to VICE. "Bring out a dance, and people stop crying and then start cheering us".

The group's signature look, matching black suits and sunglasses, came from a specific request. The family of a deceased parliament member asked the pallbearers to wear matching suits, and the overwhelmingly positive response made it permanent. By 2013, Aidoo's team had completed over 200 performances, with prices starting at 800 Ghanaian cedis.

The first widely circulated video appeared on YouTube on January 22, 2015, uploaded by a user called Travelin Sister, and picked up over 2.9 million views over the following years. A BBC News Africa report from July 27, 2017 gave the group much broader international exposure. A third key clip, showing pallbearers accidentally dropping a coffin mid-dance, was posted to Facebook by user Bigscout Nana Prempeth on May 2, 2019, collecting 2,900 reactions, 4,600 shares, and 350,000 views within a year.

The meme format itself, pairing the pallbearer footage with "Astronomia" as a fail clip punchline, first appeared on February 26, 2020. TikTok user @lawyer_ggmu posted what Know Your Meme identifies as the earliest known instance, which pulled in over 4.5 million views and 474,700 likes within a month.

How It Spread

After @lawyer_ggmu's initial post, the format caught fire on TikTok. On March 6, 2020, TikTok account Trickshots posted a version that hit 2.9 million views and 237,000 likes. A March 12 post by @xacamnhuong scored 2.7 million views, and a March 14 edit by @.minh_hieu racked up 7.2 million views and 478,400 likes. The meme quickly jumped platforms. By late March 2020, it was spreading across Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. YouTube compilations labeled "Dancing Coffin memes" or "Astronomia memes" started stacking views.

On March 30, 2020, YouTuber DigiNeko uploaded a compilation that eventually surpassed 400 million views, making it one of the format's biggest single uploads. The timing was critical. The meme's breakout coincided exactly with the global spread of COVID-19, and the gallows humor clicked with an audience stuck at home and grappling with a mounting death toll.

"The clips of the Ghanaian Pallbearers are so striking and charming," said Don Caldwell, editor-in-chief of Know Your Meme. "This kind of morbid humor may have been seen as refreshing to people who were experiencing a time of global crisis".

On May 4, 2020, BBC News Africa published a follow-up video where the pallbearers discussed their viral fame and the pandemic, pulling over 98,000 views in its first two days. That same day, Aidoo tweeted a video of his team in white suits and face masks, thanking healthcare workers and warning people to "Stay at home or dance with us".

On May 26, 2020, Donald Trump's official Facebook page shared a Coffin Dance edit mashing the pallbearer footage with a clip of Joe Biden on The Breakfast Club saying "If you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't black." The post hit 2.8 million views, 198,000 reactions, and 45,000 comments within three hours.

Platforms

TikTokYouTubeTwitterInstagramReddit

Timeline

2017-01-01

Ghanaian pallbearers video circulates on social media

2020-03-01

Coffin dance meme emerges during COVID-19 pandemic

2020-06-01

Meme explodes globally, used for 'death' commentary

2021-01-01

Meme begins declining as pandemic-era novelty passes

2022-01-01

Coffin Dance reached mainstream popularity and media coverage

2023-01-01

Brands and companies started using Coffin Dance in marketing

View on Google Trends

How to Use This Meme

The Coffin Dance format typically follows a two-part structure:

1

The setup: A short clip (usually 3-10 seconds) showing someone in a dangerous or foolish situation, often a fail video, an extreme sports wipeout, or a risky stunt about to go wrong.

2

The punchline: A hard cut to the pallbearers dancing with the coffin, with "Astronomia" kicking in. The implication: the person in the first clip didn't make it.

Create Your Own

Cultural Impact

The meme's most unusual legacy is its adoption as a genuine public health tool. Governments in Brazil, Colombia, and Peru used the pallbearer imagery in official COVID-19 awareness campaigns. Billboards, social media posts, and even police performances leveraged the meme's dark humor to communicate a serious message about social distancing.

"Astronomia" saw a massive streaming boost thanks entirely to the meme, climbing charts worldwide in spring 2020. The song had been a relatively obscure EDM track for years before the meme made it instantly recognizable.

Aidoo and his team appeared in a second BBC News feature in May 2020 discussing their accidental fame. Trump's campaign use of the format in a Facebook video attacking Biden showed how quickly the meme moved from internet joke to political messaging tool. In Georgia, the political party Girchi adapted the format for their own messaging.

The meme also drew attention to Ghanaian funeral traditions more broadly. VICE produced a full documentary-style feature exploring the cultural context of dancing pallbearers and how Ghanaian attitudes toward death differ from Western norms. The coverage introduced global audiences to the idea that funerals could be celebrations rather than purely somber occasions.

Full History

The Coffin Dance meme sits at the intersection of a real Ghanaian funeral tradition, a Russian-produced EDM track, and the specific anxieties of early pandemic life.

Dancing pallbearers aren't unique to Aidoo's company. Similar practices exist in other parts of Africa and the American South. But Aidoo's group stood out because of their polished choreography and showmanship. Professor Evelyn Efua Xeflide, an expert on Ghanaian funeral culture, explained the broader context to VICE: "Ghanaian relationship with death is part of the daily living. That is why a funeral is a process. It is not an event that is held in a day and that is it". Funerals in Ghana are extended celebrations of life, not just somber farewells.

The musical backbone of the meme has its own story. "Astronomia" was originally composed by Russian musician Anton Igumnov, who produces under the name Tony Igy. The version most people know is a 2014 remix by Dutch duo Vicetone, consisting of Ruben den Boer and Victor Pool. When the meme took off, the song climbed global music charts on its meme status alone.

The COVID-19 pandemic gave the meme a second life beyond pure comedy. In Brazil, the city government of Caldas Novas in GoiΓ‘s state installed billboards featuring the dancing pallbearers with the caption "Stay at home or dance with us" to promote social distancing. In Colombia and Peru, police officers imitated the group's dance while carrying a coffin to discourage people from breaking quarantine. In Belarus, activists from the opposition Youth Bloc used the dance in May 2020 to protest a military parade held despite the pandemic.

Aidoo himself leaned into the public health messaging. His company became a face of COVID-19 awareness campaigns on billboards and social media across multiple countries. In an interview, Aidoo quipped: "Otherwise we are dead, and you're going to be dancing with me".

The meme also caught the attention of game developers. An easter egg referencing the Coffin Dance was included in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. When the White House COVID-19 outbreak hit in October 2020, with then-President Trump testing positive, the pallbearer meme saw a brief revival on social media.

Grief expert David Kessler, author of *Finding Meaning* and founder of grief.com, wasn't surprised by the meme's pandemic popularity. "There's no one model for grief, and there's no right way to do grief," he told VICE. "When death is in the air, we need a way to release it. And people don't understand laughter is sometimes the way we deal with uncomfortable emotions".

Political figures also used the format. Leaders of New Political Center, a Georgian political party known as Girchi, created their own version wearing traditional chokhas. Trump's Biden edit in May 2020 was one of the most high-profile political uses of any meme that year.

Despite its peak being brief, roughly March through May 2020, Coffin Dance left a lasting mark. Aidoo's group employed over 100 people at its height of fame, and he spoke of post-pandemic plans to open international branches and train new pallbearers. The meme drew a direct line between a local Ghanaian business practice and a global internet joke, all filtered through a pandemic that made death feel uncomfortably close.

Fun Facts

Aidoo's company is formally called the Nana Otafrija Pallbearing and Waiting Service, but locals call it "Dada awu" ("Daddy's dead").

The original "Astronomia" was composed by Russian musician Anton Igumnov (Tony Igy); the well-known version is a 2014 remix by Dutch duo Vicetone.

Some Ghanaian families take out loans to pay for dancing pallbearer services, which cost 800+ cedis as of 2013.

A single YouTube compilation by DigiNeko crossed 400 million views.

Aidoo's father died in front of him when he was eight, which directly inspired his career in pallbearing.

Derivatives & Variations

Different footage of the same pallbearers performing

A variation of Coffin Dance

(2020)

Similar funeral practices from other cultures used as variations

A variation of Coffin Dance

(2020)

Creative editing showing different 'deaths' being carried away

A variation of Coffin Dance

(2020)

Reversal variations showing resurrection or revival

A variation of Coffin Dance

(2020)

Crossovers combining coffin dance with other meme formats

A variation of Coffin Dance

(2020)

Frequently Asked Questions

Coffin Dance

2020Video edit / fail punchlineclassic

Also known as: Dancing Pallbearers Β· Dancing Coffin Β· Astronomia Meme

Coffin Dance is a 2020 video meme of Ghanaian pallbearers dancing with a coffin to "Astronomia" by Tony Igy, used as a dark humor punchline for TikTok fail compilations.

Coffin Dance is a video meme featuring Ghanaian pallbearers from the Nana Otafrija Pallbearing and Waiting Service dancing while carrying a coffin, set to the EDM track "Astronomia" by Tony Igy. The format exploded in March 2020 on TikTok as a punchline for fail clips, implying the person in the video died. Its rise during the early COVID-19 pandemic turned it into both a dark humor staple and a global public health messaging tool.

TL;DR

Coffin Dance is a video meme featuring Ghanaian pallbearers from the Nana Otafrija Pallbearing and Waiting Service dancing while carrying a coffin, set to the EDM track "Astronomia" by Tony Igy.

Overview

The Coffin Dance meme follows a simple formula: a short clip of someone about to suffer a spectacular fail, followed by a hard cut to footage of sharply dressed Ghanaian pallbearers dancing with a coffin on their shoulders while "Astronomia" blasts in the background. The implication is clear: whoever was in the fail clip just died. The format borrows its comedic DNA from earlier "you died" punchline memes like To Be Continued and We'll Be Right Back, but the visual punch of the dancing pallbearers and the infectious beat of "Astronomia" gave it a distinct identity.

The pallbearers themselves are real. They work for the Nana Otafrija Pallbearing and Waiting Service, a funeral business based in the coastal town of Prampram in Ghana's Greater Accra Region. Led by founder Benjamin Aidoo, the group performs choreographed dances while carrying actual coffins at funerals. Locally, they're known as "Dada awu," meaning "Daddy's dead".

Benjamin Aidoo started his pallbearing company in 2003, initially offering standard funeral services before adding choreography. He took up the profession during high school and built the business from there. Aidoo's motivation was personal. His father died in front of him when he was just eight years old, and watching his mother and family endure that grief shaped his approach to death. "Our way of saying goodbye to the dead gives them morale, boosts their morale," Aidoo explained to VICE. "Bring out a dance, and people stop crying and then start cheering us".

The group's signature look, matching black suits and sunglasses, came from a specific request. The family of a deceased parliament member asked the pallbearers to wear matching suits, and the overwhelmingly positive response made it permanent. By 2013, Aidoo's team had completed over 200 performances, with prices starting at 800 Ghanaian cedis.

The first widely circulated video appeared on YouTube on January 22, 2015, uploaded by a user called Travelin Sister, and picked up over 2.9 million views over the following years. A BBC News Africa report from July 27, 2017 gave the group much broader international exposure. A third key clip, showing pallbearers accidentally dropping a coffin mid-dance, was posted to Facebook by user Bigscout Nana Prempeth on May 2, 2019, collecting 2,900 reactions, 4,600 shares, and 350,000 views within a year.

The meme format itself, pairing the pallbearer footage with "Astronomia" as a fail clip punchline, first appeared on February 26, 2020. TikTok user @lawyer_ggmu posted what Know Your Meme identifies as the earliest known instance, which pulled in over 4.5 million views and 474,700 likes within a month.

Origin & Background

Platform
YouTube (source videos), TikTok (meme format)
Key People
Benjamin Aidoo, @lawyer_ggmu, Tony Igy, Vicetone
Date
2020 (meme format); 2015 (earliest source video)
Year
2020

Benjamin Aidoo started his pallbearing company in 2003, initially offering standard funeral services before adding choreography. He took up the profession during high school and built the business from there. Aidoo's motivation was personal. His father died in front of him when he was just eight years old, and watching his mother and family endure that grief shaped his approach to death. "Our way of saying goodbye to the dead gives them morale, boosts their morale," Aidoo explained to VICE. "Bring out a dance, and people stop crying and then start cheering us".

The group's signature look, matching black suits and sunglasses, came from a specific request. The family of a deceased parliament member asked the pallbearers to wear matching suits, and the overwhelmingly positive response made it permanent. By 2013, Aidoo's team had completed over 200 performances, with prices starting at 800 Ghanaian cedis.

The first widely circulated video appeared on YouTube on January 22, 2015, uploaded by a user called Travelin Sister, and picked up over 2.9 million views over the following years. A BBC News Africa report from July 27, 2017 gave the group much broader international exposure. A third key clip, showing pallbearers accidentally dropping a coffin mid-dance, was posted to Facebook by user Bigscout Nana Prempeth on May 2, 2019, collecting 2,900 reactions, 4,600 shares, and 350,000 views within a year.

The meme format itself, pairing the pallbearer footage with "Astronomia" as a fail clip punchline, first appeared on February 26, 2020. TikTok user @lawyer_ggmu posted what Know Your Meme identifies as the earliest known instance, which pulled in over 4.5 million views and 474,700 likes within a month.

How It Spread

After @lawyer_ggmu's initial post, the format caught fire on TikTok. On March 6, 2020, TikTok account Trickshots posted a version that hit 2.9 million views and 237,000 likes. A March 12 post by @xacamnhuong scored 2.7 million views, and a March 14 edit by @.minh_hieu racked up 7.2 million views and 478,400 likes. The meme quickly jumped platforms. By late March 2020, it was spreading across Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. YouTube compilations labeled "Dancing Coffin memes" or "Astronomia memes" started stacking views.

On March 30, 2020, YouTuber DigiNeko uploaded a compilation that eventually surpassed 400 million views, making it one of the format's biggest single uploads. The timing was critical. The meme's breakout coincided exactly with the global spread of COVID-19, and the gallows humor clicked with an audience stuck at home and grappling with a mounting death toll.

"The clips of the Ghanaian Pallbearers are so striking and charming," said Don Caldwell, editor-in-chief of Know Your Meme. "This kind of morbid humor may have been seen as refreshing to people who were experiencing a time of global crisis".

On May 4, 2020, BBC News Africa published a follow-up video where the pallbearers discussed their viral fame and the pandemic, pulling over 98,000 views in its first two days. That same day, Aidoo tweeted a video of his team in white suits and face masks, thanking healthcare workers and warning people to "Stay at home or dance with us".

On May 26, 2020, Donald Trump's official Facebook page shared a Coffin Dance edit mashing the pallbearer footage with a clip of Joe Biden on The Breakfast Club saying "If you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't black." The post hit 2.8 million views, 198,000 reactions, and 45,000 comments within three hours.

Platforms

TikTokYouTubeTwitterInstagramReddit

Timeline

2017-01-01

Ghanaian pallbearers video circulates on social media

2020-03-01

Coffin dance meme emerges during COVID-19 pandemic

2020-06-01

Meme explodes globally, used for 'death' commentary

2021-01-01

Meme begins declining as pandemic-era novelty passes

2022-01-01

Coffin Dance reached mainstream popularity and media coverage

2023-01-01

Brands and companies started using Coffin Dance in marketing

View on Google Trends

How to Use This Meme

The Coffin Dance format typically follows a two-part structure:

1

The setup: A short clip (usually 3-10 seconds) showing someone in a dangerous or foolish situation, often a fail video, an extreme sports wipeout, or a risky stunt about to go wrong.

2

The punchline: A hard cut to the pallbearers dancing with the coffin, with "Astronomia" kicking in. The implication: the person in the first clip didn't make it.

Create Your Own

Cultural Impact

The meme's most unusual legacy is its adoption as a genuine public health tool. Governments in Brazil, Colombia, and Peru used the pallbearer imagery in official COVID-19 awareness campaigns. Billboards, social media posts, and even police performances leveraged the meme's dark humor to communicate a serious message about social distancing.

"Astronomia" saw a massive streaming boost thanks entirely to the meme, climbing charts worldwide in spring 2020. The song had been a relatively obscure EDM track for years before the meme made it instantly recognizable.

Aidoo and his team appeared in a second BBC News feature in May 2020 discussing their accidental fame. Trump's campaign use of the format in a Facebook video attacking Biden showed how quickly the meme moved from internet joke to political messaging tool. In Georgia, the political party Girchi adapted the format for their own messaging.

The meme also drew attention to Ghanaian funeral traditions more broadly. VICE produced a full documentary-style feature exploring the cultural context of dancing pallbearers and how Ghanaian attitudes toward death differ from Western norms. The coverage introduced global audiences to the idea that funerals could be celebrations rather than purely somber occasions.

Full History

The Coffin Dance meme sits at the intersection of a real Ghanaian funeral tradition, a Russian-produced EDM track, and the specific anxieties of early pandemic life.

Dancing pallbearers aren't unique to Aidoo's company. Similar practices exist in other parts of Africa and the American South. But Aidoo's group stood out because of their polished choreography and showmanship. Professor Evelyn Efua Xeflide, an expert on Ghanaian funeral culture, explained the broader context to VICE: "Ghanaian relationship with death is part of the daily living. That is why a funeral is a process. It is not an event that is held in a day and that is it". Funerals in Ghana are extended celebrations of life, not just somber farewells.

The musical backbone of the meme has its own story. "Astronomia" was originally composed by Russian musician Anton Igumnov, who produces under the name Tony Igy. The version most people know is a 2014 remix by Dutch duo Vicetone, consisting of Ruben den Boer and Victor Pool. When the meme took off, the song climbed global music charts on its meme status alone.

The COVID-19 pandemic gave the meme a second life beyond pure comedy. In Brazil, the city government of Caldas Novas in GoiΓ‘s state installed billboards featuring the dancing pallbearers with the caption "Stay at home or dance with us" to promote social distancing. In Colombia and Peru, police officers imitated the group's dance while carrying a coffin to discourage people from breaking quarantine. In Belarus, activists from the opposition Youth Bloc used the dance in May 2020 to protest a military parade held despite the pandemic.

Aidoo himself leaned into the public health messaging. His company became a face of COVID-19 awareness campaigns on billboards and social media across multiple countries. In an interview, Aidoo quipped: "Otherwise we are dead, and you're going to be dancing with me".

The meme also caught the attention of game developers. An easter egg referencing the Coffin Dance was included in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. When the White House COVID-19 outbreak hit in October 2020, with then-President Trump testing positive, the pallbearer meme saw a brief revival on social media.

Grief expert David Kessler, author of *Finding Meaning* and founder of grief.com, wasn't surprised by the meme's pandemic popularity. "There's no one model for grief, and there's no right way to do grief," he told VICE. "When death is in the air, we need a way to release it. And people don't understand laughter is sometimes the way we deal with uncomfortable emotions".

Political figures also used the format. Leaders of New Political Center, a Georgian political party known as Girchi, created their own version wearing traditional chokhas. Trump's Biden edit in May 2020 was one of the most high-profile political uses of any meme that year.

Despite its peak being brief, roughly March through May 2020, Coffin Dance left a lasting mark. Aidoo's group employed over 100 people at its height of fame, and he spoke of post-pandemic plans to open international branches and train new pallbearers. The meme drew a direct line between a local Ghanaian business practice and a global internet joke, all filtered through a pandemic that made death feel uncomfortably close.

Fun Facts

Aidoo's company is formally called the Nana Otafrija Pallbearing and Waiting Service, but locals call it "Dada awu" ("Daddy's dead").

The original "Astronomia" was composed by Russian musician Anton Igumnov (Tony Igy); the well-known version is a 2014 remix by Dutch duo Vicetone.

Some Ghanaian families take out loans to pay for dancing pallbearer services, which cost 800+ cedis as of 2013.

A single YouTube compilation by DigiNeko crossed 400 million views.

Aidoo's father died in front of him when he was eight, which directly inspired his career in pallbearing.

Derivatives & Variations

Different footage of the same pallbearers performing

A variation of Coffin Dance

(2020)

Similar funeral practices from other cultures used as variations

A variation of Coffin Dance

(2020)

Creative editing showing different 'deaths' being carried away

A variation of Coffin Dance

(2020)

Reversal variations showing resurrection or revival

A variation of Coffin Dance

(2020)

Crossovers combining coffin dance with other meme formats

A variation of Coffin Dance

(2020)

Frequently Asked Questions