The history of hip-hop dance encompasses the people and events since the 1970s that have contributed to the development of the early hip-hop dance styles of uprock, breaking, locking, popping, and boogaloo. Uprock and breaking were created by Black and Latino Americans in New York City. Locking, popping, and boogaloo—collectively referred to as the funk styles—were created by Black Americans in California. All these dance styles are different stylistically. They share common ground in their music and street origins, and in their improvisational nature.
More than 35 years old, hip-hop dance became widely known after the first professional breaking, locking, and popping crews formed in the 1970s. The most influential groups include the Rock Steady Crew, The Lockers, and The Electric Boogaloos who are responsible for the spread of breaking, locking, and popping respectively. The Brooklyn based dance style uprock influenced breaking early in its development. However, it never gained mainstream popularity. Boogaloo gained more notability because it is the namesake of the Electric Boogaloos crew. Both uprock and boogaloo are respected dance styles but neither are as mainstream or popular as breaking, locking, and popping.
Parallel with the evolution of hip-hop music, hip-hop social dancing emerged from breaking and the funk styles into different forms. 1990s era dances such as the running man, the worm, and the cabbage patch hit the mainstream and became fad dances. After the millennium, newer social dances such as the cha cha slide and the dougie also caught on and became popular.
Hip-hop dance is not a studio derived style. It is comparatively younger than ballet, ballroom dance, and modern dance and it was developed in urban neighborhoods without a formal process. All of these early substyles and social dances were brought about through a combination of events including inspirations from James Brown, DJ Kool Herc's invention of the break beat, Don Cornelius' creation of the TV show Soul Train, and the formation of street based dance crews. Events such as these were succeeded by the production of several films and international competitions which contributed to introducing hip-hop dance outside of the United States.
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According to Afrika Bambaataa[1] and b-boy Richard "Crazy Legs" Colón[2] the purest hip-hop dance style, breaking (commonly called "breakdancing"), began in the early 1970s as elaborations on how James Brown danced to his song "Get on the Good Foot".[3] People mimicked these moves in their living rooms, in hallways, and at parties. It is at these parties that breaking flourished and came into its own with the help of a young Clive Campbell. Campbell, better known as DJ Kool Herc, was a Jamaican American DJ who frequently spun records at neighborhood teenage parties in the Bronx. Can't Stop Won't Stop, a novel about the history of hip-hop culture, describes DJ Kool Herc's eureka moment in this way:
- "I was smoking cigarettes and I was waiting for the records to finish. And I noticed people was waiting for certain parts of the record." It was an insight as profound as Ruddy Redwood's dub discovery. The moment when the dancers really got wild was in a song's short instrumental break, when the band would drop out and the rhythm section would get elemental. Forget melody, chorus, songs—it was all about the groove, building it, keeping it going. Like a string theorist, Herc zeroed in on the fundamental vibrating loop at the heart of the record, the break... " And once they heard that, that was it, wasn't no turning back. They always wanted to hear breaks after breaks after breaks after breaks."[4]
In response to this revelation, Herc developed the Merry-Go-Round technique to extend the breaks—the percussion interludes or instrumental solos within a longer work of music.[4][5] When he played a recorded break on one turntable, he repeated the break on the second turntable as soon as the first was finished. He then looped these records one after the other in order to extend the break as long as he wanted. It was during these times that the dancers later known as break-boys or b-boys would perform what is known as breaking.
Breaking started out strictly as toprock,[6] footwork oriented dance moves performed while standing up. Toprock usually serves as the opening to a breaker's performance before transitioning into other dance moves performed on the floor. A separate dance style that influenced toprock is uprock (also called Brooklyn uprock or rocking). The uprock dance style has its roots in gangs.[2][7] Uprock comes from Brooklyn, New York.[7] Although it looks similar to toprock, uprock is danced with a partner[8] and it is more aggressive involving fancy footwork, shuffles, hitting motions, and movements that mimic fighting.[6][9] When there was an issue over turf the two warlords of the feuding gangs would uprock. Whoever won this preliminary battle decided where the real fight would be.[2][9][1] Because uprock's purpose was to moderate gang violence, it never crossed over into mainstream breaking as seen today except for some very specific moves adopted by breakers who use it as a variation for their toprock.[7] Aside from James Brown and uprock, toprock was also influenced by "...tap dance, Lindy hop, salsa, Afro-Cuban, and various African and Native American dances."[10][11] From toprock, breaking progressed to being more floor oriented involving freezes, downrock,[note 1] head spins, and windmills.[13][note 2] These additions came about due to influences from 1970s martial arts films,[15] influences from gymnastics, and the formation of crews[16]—groups of street dancers who get together and create dance routines. One b-boy move taken from gymnastics is called the flare which was made famous by gymnast Kurt Thomas and is called the "Thomas flair" in gymnastics.[17]
Rock Steady Crew (RSC) was founded in 1977 in the Bronx by b-boys Jamie "Jimmy D" White and Santiago "Jo Jo" Torres.[18][19] Along with Dynamic Rockers and Afrika Bambaataa's Mighty Zulu Kings they are one of the oldest continually active breaking crews.[note 3] For others to get into the crew they had to battle one of the Rock Steady b-boys[18]—that was their audition so to speak. The crew flourished once it came under the leadership of b-boy Crazy Legs. Crazy Legs opened a Manhattan chapter of the crew and later made his friends and fellow b-boys Wayne "Frosty Freeze" Frost and Kenneth "Ken Swift" Gabbert co-vice presidents.[18][note 4] RSC did not create breaking. However, they did a lot to spread breaking's popularity beyond New York. They appeared in Wild Style and Beat Street—'80s films about hip-hop culture—as well as the movie Flashdance. They also performed at the Ritz, at the Kennedy Center, and on the Jerry Lewis Telethon.[18] In 1983, they recorded a song titled "(Hey You) The Rock Steady Crew" which was commercially released.[18] RSC is now worldwide with member units in Japan, the UK, and Italy.[18]
"We didn't know what the f-ck no capoeira was, man. We were in the ghetto! There were no dance schools, nothing. If there was a dance it was tap and jazz and ballet. I only saw one dance in my life in the ghetto during that time, and it was on Van Nest Avenue in the Bronx and it was a ballet school. Our immediate influence in b-boying was James Brown, point blank."
Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian martial art—"a form of self defense disguised as a dance."[11] Its influence on breaking is disputed and debated. Capoeira is hundreds of years older than breaking, uprock is similar in purpose to capoeira, and both breaking and capoeira are performed to music. Both art forms are acrobatic and some moves look similar to each other but one major difference between them is that in capoeira a competitor's back can never touch the ground.[23] In contrast, a breaker's back is always on the ground. There are two camps: one side holds the belief that breaking came from capoeira, the other side denies that breaking ever came from capoeira. Several breaking practitioners and pioneers tend to side with the later.
B-boy Crazy Legs states "We didn't know what the f-ck no capoeira was, man. We were in the ghetto!"[2] Hip-hop historian Jorge "Popmaster Fabel" Pabon states "Unlike the popularity of the martial arts films, capoeira was not seen in the Bronx jams until the 1990s. Top rockin' seems to have developed gradually and unintentionally, leaving space for growth and new additions, until it evolved into a codified form."[11] B-boy crew Spartanic Rockers adds "Despite of many rumours and opinions Breaking didn't originate from Capoeira but during the last few years many moves, steps and freezes of this Brazilian (fight-) dance have inspired more and more B-Girls and B-Boys who integrated them into their dance."[24] B-boy Ken Swift states "In '78 I started [breaking] and I didn't see it [capoeira] til '92 ... I was around, too -- I was in Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, I went around and I didn't see it. What we saw was Kung Fu-we saw Kung Fu from the 42nd Street theaters. So those were our inspirations... when we did the Kung Fu sh-t we switched it up and we put this B-boy flavor into it..."[25]
As breaking was developing and evolving in New York, other styles of dance were developing at the same time in California.[26] Unlike breaking, the funk styles—which originated in the '70s in California—were not originally hip-hop dance styles: they were danced to funk music rather than hip-hop music and they were not associated with the other cultural pillars of hip-hop (DJing, graffiti writing, and MCing).[26][27] The funk styles are actually slightly older than breaking considering that locking was developed in the late 1960s.[28]
Like breaking, the different moves within the funk styles came about with the formation of crews. The Lockers were founded in Los Angeles by Don "Campbellock" Campbell who created locking.[29] Locking is characterized by consistently locking (freezing) in place while dancing. Campbell developed locking accidentally while pausing in between dance moves when trying to remember how to do "the funky chicken".[28][30] He developed routines based on his new style using these pauses or "locks".[28] Other dance moves performed in locking include "...points, skeeters, scooby doos, stop 'n go, which-away, and the fancies."[31] Campbell founded The Lockers, originally called The Cambellock Dancers, in 1973.[32] The Lockers made appearances on Soul Train,[33] The Carol Burnett Show,[34] The Johnny Carson Show, the The Dick Van Dyke Show, and Saturday Night Live.[11] Adolpho "Shabba Doo" Quinones, one of the original members of The Lockers,[35] played a lead role in the 1984 movie Breakin'. Two other original members were Toni Basil[35] who doubled as the group's manager and Fred "Mr. Penguin" Berry[35] who played the character of Rerun on the TV show What's Happening!!.
The Electric Boogaloos are another funk styles crew founded in Fresno in 1977[28] by Sam "Boogaloo Sam" Solomon, Nate "Slide" Johnson, and Joe "Robot Joe" Thomas.[34] Their name was originally the Electric Boogaloo Lockers but "Lockers" was dropped the following year[28][36] after the group moved from Fresno to Long Beach.[37] Boogaloo Sam is credited for developing popping and boogaloo.[26] Popping got its name because when Boogaloo Sam was performing it, he would say "pop, pop, pop" under his breath as he was popping his muscles to the music.[38] Boogaloo is both a style of dance and style of music.[39]
Bugalú, also called Latin boogaloo, was a style of music created in New York City by Cubans and Puerto Ricans that combined mambo, soul, and R&B music.[39] Boogaloo is a dance style created by Boogaloo Sam that is characterized by rolling hip, knee, and head movements as if the body has no bones.[38] Boogaloo Sam was influenced to create boogaloo by cartoons, the 1960s dances "the twist", "the popcorn", and "the jerk", and the movements of everyday people.[11][34] The dance got its name from song "Do the Boogaloo" by James Brown.[38] Electric boogaloo is a combination of boogaloo and popping.[38] This dance style lost popularity after the '70s but it is still a respected dance form. It is the signature dance style of the Electric Boogaloos (the crew).[38]
Popping is also an umbrella term that includes several other illusory dance styles including (but not limited to) ticking, liquid, animation, waving, gliding, and tutting. Most of these styles can not be traced to a specific person or group. Other styles may have influences earlier than hip-hop. Earl "Snake Hips" Tucker was a professional dancer in the 1920s who appeared in the film Symphony in Black and performed at the Cotton Club in Harlem.[40][41] Because hip-hop did not exist in the '20s his style was considered jazz but his "slithering, writhing" movement foreshadowed modern waving and sliding.[42]
In the '70s while Los Angeles was known for locking and Fresno for popping, several other cities in Northern California had their own styles. Oakland was known for a style called struttin, San Jose for dime stopping, and Sacramento for Sac-ing.[11] These styles faded and never became mainstream. (Ro)boting came from Richmond, California.[11] Charles "Charles Robot" Washington was a pioneer of this style of dance. Before touring with The Lockers, he had a crew called The Robot Brothers in the late 1960s.[43] In 1973, The Jackson 5 performed "Dancing Machine" on Soul Train which popularized (ro)boting.[44]
Though breaking and the funk styles are different stylistically they have always shared many surrounding elements such as their improvisational nature and the way they originated from the streets within Black and Latino communities. The funk styles were integrated into hip-hop in the 1980s when the culture reached the west coast of the United States.
The 1970s media applied the term "breakdancing" to what was called breaking or b-boying in the street.[12][45][46] A break is a musical interlude during a song—the section on a musical recording where the percussive rhythms are most aggressive and hard driving. When 1970s hip-hop DJs played break beats, dancers reacted to those breaks with their most impressive dance moves.[12][47] DJ Kool Herc coined the terms "b-boys" and "b-girls" which stands for "break-boys" and "break-girls."[12]
When the movies Breakin' and Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo came out, they put all the styles of dance performed under the "breakdance" label causing a naming confusion domestically. In addition, Breakin was released internationally as Breakdance: The Movie causing a naming confusion abroad.[48] The media followed suit by calling all represented styles "breakdancing".[11][38][45] Breaking originated in the Bronx while the funk styles came from the west coast.[27] They are called funk styles because they were originally danced to funk music rather than hip-hop music.
Hip-hop social dancing came about when hip-hop musical artists started to release songs with an accompanying dance. In 1990, the rap trio Digital Underground released the single "The Humpty Dance" with an accompanying dance of the same name. The same year MC Hammer created the Hammer dance[49] and popularized the running man in his video "U Can't Touch This". The Hammer dance and the Humpty dance were nationally known dance moves that became wildly popular and then faded as the songs they were associated with lost popularity. Most social dances are short lived fad dances, some are line dances, and others spawn new dance styles that stay relevant even after the life of the songs they came from come to an end. The development of hip-hop social dancing extends further back than the 90s with The Charleston, a jazz dance, and Chubby Checker's twist which at the time of its creation was considered rock & roll.
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| *The reject is one of many dance moves used in Jerkin'. |
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The Charleston was created in the 1920s by African-Americans in Charleston, South Carolina as a rebellion against prohibition. It gained popularity once it was embraced by Caucasians but was still considered an immoral dance due to its association with alcohol.[50] This dance relied on partnering and eventually led to the development of Lindy Hop and Swing. These dance styles fall under the jazz and ballroom umbrellas; however, there is a dance move used in breaking that is taken from the Charleston called the Charlie rock.[7] Chubby Checker released the song "The Twist" with an accompanying dance of the same name in 1960. He performed the dance on the television show American Bandstand and the song reached number one in 1960 and 1962.[51] The twist was the most popular dance craze of the 60s because it broke away from the trend of partner dancing enabling people to perform on their own.[52][53][54]
James Brown was also a major contributor to social dancing. He popularized several dances in 1970s such as the mashed potato[55] and the good foot which were considered funk dances. Accompanying songs to these dances include "(Do the) Mashed Potatoes" and "Get on the Good Foot" respectively. James Brown also popularized the funky chicken which was a major influence to Don Campbell when he created the locking style of dance[30] and the good foot triggered the creation of breaking.[1] In an interview with NPR, Lockers' member Shabba Doo stated "We're all children of James Brown... And you know, if James Brown was our father then you'd have to say Don Cornelius was our great uncle."[56] In 1970, Don Cornelius created Soul Train[57]—the song-and-dance television program featuring funk music, soul music, disco, R&B, and social dancing. The pilot for the show was taped in Chicago[57] but after being picked up for syndication it was moved to Los Angeles.[56] While on Soul Train, the Lockers introduced several dance moves during the "dance of the week" segment of the show. It was during this time that moves like the the robot and locking moves such as which-aways and the stop and go were introduced.[56] Disco was very popular during the 1970s so some dances at that time such as waacking and the hustle stemmed from disco rather than funk. Hip-hop became more mainstream in the 1980s and this surge in interest combined with the popularity of Soul Train kick-started the rise of hip-hop social dancing.
One of the more popular social dances that came about during this time was the cabbage patch which was created by the Miami rap group Gucci Crew II and introduced to the country in 1987 by their song "The Cabbage Patch".[58] Another popular social dance was the roger rabbit. This dance imitates the floppy movements of the cartoon character as seen in the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit which was released in 1988.[59] One of the most widely known hip-hop social dances is the running man. The pop duo LMFAO brought the running man back into the mainstream with their song "Party Rock Anthem" which was named the 2011 song of the summer by Billboard.com.[60] The accompanying dance in the song simply called the shuffle combines three dances: the running man, the (half) Charleston, and the t-step.[51]
"Chicken Noodle Soup" was a song released in 2006 by DJ Webstar and Bianca "Young B" Dupree. The accompanying dance was a rare example of when the musical artist did not create a dance to go with the song but instead a dance was created by listeners and party goers after the song was released. The song sold 335,000 ringtones but was not strong enough to sustain momentum for the full length album "Webstar Presents: Caught in the Web" which was not successful.[61] For this reason both the chicken noodle soup song and dance faded. "The reject" is one of several dance moves used in jerkin', a style of dance from California that was popularized in 2009 by the New Boyz rap song "You're a Jerk".[62][63] It is essentially the running man done in reverse.[63] Other dance moves in jerkin' are the pin drop, the dip, and the SpongeBob.[62]:2 The Dougie comes from Dallas, Texas. The dance was named after the 80s rapper Doug E. Fresh and popularized in the 2010 song "Teach Me How to Dougie" by the rap group Cali Swag District. According to the Wall Street Journal, the dougie has been particularly popular as a celebratory dance among professional athletes.[64] In 2010, CNN news anchor Wolf Blitzer performed the Dougie at the Soul Train Music Awards.[65]
It is important to note that the above mentioned dances do not make up a complete list of all the social dances in hip-hop that have come and gone. Many of these dances generated more mainstream attention than others that are lesser known. As the years go by social dances of the time fade away while newer dances emerge and take their place.
The cha cha slide, the soulja boy, and the cupid shuffle are examples of urban line dances that have been created from hip-hop songs of the same name. These line dances have the same premise as the more widely know electric slide. There are several variations to the electric slide but the dance is always performed to the song "Electric Boogie" by Marcia Griffiths. In keeping with this tradition, the cha cha slide, the soulja boy, and the cupid shuffle are always performed to their respective songs. "Cha Cha Slide" was released in 2000 by DJ Willie "Casper" Perry.[66] DJ Casper actually created the song in 1996 for a personal trainer in his hometown Chicago. In 2000, Chicago radio station WGCI-FM started playing the song as part of its rotation. Soon after other radio stations across the country started playing the song which led to a record deal with Universal Music Group.[67] After securing a deal, the label began producing and distributing instructional videos of the dance to nightclubs which helped spread its popularity.[67] On February 20, 2011 dancers in Anaheim, CA set a Guinness world record when 2,387 performed the dance at the Anaheim Convention Center.[68] The song "Cupid Shuffle" was released in February 2007 by singer Bryson "Cupid" Bernard from Lafayette, LA. In August 2007, another world record was set when 17,000 people performed the Cupid Shuffle (dance) to his song in Atlanta, GA.[61] The Soulja Boy dance became popular through MySpace when rapper DeAndre "Soulja Boy" Way posted the song to his MySpace page and uploaded an accompanying instructional video showing viewers how to perform the dance. After amassing more than 16 million page views he was signed to Interscope Records.[61]
Hip-hop dance is now practiced worldwide. There were many steps in its history for it to come to the international acceptance it has today.
| Year | Contributor | Country | Event |
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| 1970 | Don Cornelius | Cornelius creates and executive produces Soul Train.[57] Soul Train was broadcast in South Korea via the U.S. Armed Forces Korea Network.[69] Before officially becoming a crew, The Lockers made several appearances on this show.[33] After becoming a crew, The Electric Boogaloos also appeared on Soul Train.[27] The show ran from 1970 to 2006.[56] | |
| 1982 | Ruza "Kool Lady" Blue | / | Manager Kool Lady Blue organizes the New York City Rap Tour featuring Rock Steady Crew, Afrika Bambaataa, Cold Crush Brothers, the Double Dutch Girls, and Fab 5 Freddy.[70] This tour travels to England and France.[70][71] |
| Rock Steady Crew | Wild Style opens in Japan.[71] Rock Steady Crew b-boys from the film perform breaking in Harajuku shopping district in Tokyo.[72] | ||
| Jeffrey Daniel | During a performance on Top of the Pops, Jeffrey Daniel performs the backslide (moonwalk) for the first time on British television during the song "A Night to Remember" thus spreading its popularity in the United Kingdom.[note 5][75][76] | ||
| X-Tro Kid Terrific |
"A dancing-studio from Zurich named "Jazzeria" organized a "Breakdance - Competition" in New York City in '82. The [prize] for the best [two] dancers of that contest in New York was to come to Zurich and to give some Breaking lessons in the dancing-studio. The names of the [two] winners of that contest were X-Tro and Kid Terrific."[77] | ||
| 1983 | Michael Jackson | multiple countries | Jackson performs the moonwalk (called the backslide in popping context) on ABC's Motown 25 TV special.[note 6] This performance is broadcast all over the world.[80] |
| Rock Steady Crew; Norman Scott |
multiple countries | Flashdance is released and becomes the first Hollywood film to feature b-boying[71] with a young Crazy Legs serving as a body double for Jennifer Beals' character Alex.[9] Crazy Legs, Frosty Freeze, Ken Swift, and Norman Scott (popper) all danced in this film that contributed to the exposure of hip-hop dance upon international release. | |
| Rock Steady Crew | RSC performs for Queen Elizabeth II at the Royal Variety Performance.[9][18] | ||
| 1984 | Breakin films | multiple countries | Although Breakin' and its successor Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo caused a naming confusion when shown abroad (marketed as in Europe as Breakdance: The Movie)[48] it did contribute to the exposure of popping, breaking, locking, and electric boogaloo upon international release. Dancers featured include Michael "Boogaloo Shrimp" Chambers, Adolpho "Shabba Doo" Quinones, Timothy "Popin Pete" Solomon, Ana "Lollipop" Sanchez, and Bruno "Popin Taco" Falcon. |
| New York City Breakers; Rock Steady Crew |
Beat Street, a film about hip-hop culture, is released in West Germany introducing breaking, graffiti writing, and DJing to this part of Europe.[81] The film features a battle between the Rock Steady Crew and the New York City Breakers. | ||
| 1985 | Tony "Go Go" Lewis | Tony Go-Go, one of the members of The Lockers, opens a locking school in Japan.[note 7][29] | |
| 1990 | Thomas Hergenröther | Hergenröther organizes Battle of the Year, the first and largest international breaking competition, in Germany.[82][83] | |
| 2005 | David LaChapelle | Rize, a krumping documentary directed and produced by David LaChapelle, is screened at several festivals overseas including the Auckland International Film Festival in New Zealand.[84] Pioneers of krumping Ceasare "Tight Eyez" Willis, Christopher "Lil' C" Toler, Marquisa "Miss Prissy" Gardner, and the inventor of clowning Tommy "The Hip-Hop Clown" Johnson all appear in this film.[85] | |
| 2008 | Kate Prince | Created and performed by Prince's hip-hop dance company Zoo Nation, Into the Hoods becomes the first hip-hop theater show to premiere in London's West End.[86] It eventually went on to become the West End's longest running dance show ever.[87] | |
| 2010 | Big Toe | On October 12, 2010, the Ministry of Culture, Sport, and Tourism awarded Big Toe, a hip-hop dance crew, the Certificate of Merit for winning a variety of international dance competitions.[88] | |
| 2011 | Stephane Gauger | Vietnamese American filmmaker Stephane Gauger wrote, produced, and directed Vietnam's first hip-hop film Saigon Electric. The film is about the friendship between two female dancers (a ribbon dancer and a hip-hop dancer) and how their respective romances, the threat of their community center being torn down, and the stress of an upcoming dance battle with a rival dance crew affects their relationship.[89][90] The film was choreographed by Viet Max and Ricky Cole.[91] |
Television, film, music videos, international performances, dance classes offered abroad, and now the Internet have contributed to the spread of hip-hop dance across the world. Although these styles first appeared on their own independent of each other they are all now accepted within the bigger hip-hop dance schema.
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