The Evolution of Hip-Hop Dance, From Popping and Locking to TikToking

As hip-hop music emerged in the Bronx during the late 1960s and early 1970s, break dancing naturally evolved with it. DJ Kool Herc is credited for the evolution of this new form of dance, according to Encyclopedia Britannica. He was the first DJ to use two turn tables at once, and his creation of unique beats and extended dance breaks in songs gave performers the space and time to express themselves as the music played freely. Performers without formal dance training found movement in their bodies to match the Funk beat found in hip-hop songs at the time.

Block parties and street dancing enabled this dance style to quickly spread from the Bronx to all five boroughs of New York City and eventually throughout the US. During block parties, DJs would encourage the crowd to dance; attendees would have combinations such as hustle, uprocking, lindy hop, popping, and locking. This mixture of dance styles formulated what we know to be modern-day hip-hop dance.

Locking emerged in Los Angeles in the 1970s. The creator of the dance form, Don "Campbellock" Campbell, was attempting to do a dance called the robot shuffle but instead ended up creating a new form of dance by accident. He and his crew, The Lockers, performed on the musical variety show "Soul Train" for the first time in 1971, which brought national attention to the dance form. Along with using this dance form to elevate hip-hop culture, it was also used to show solidarity within the Black community. Many lockers were also civil rights activists who used moves like the "locking handshake" to represent Black unity.

Choreographer Toni Basil, cofounder of The Lockers, and the crew are credited with changing the world of dance through this form of movement. They performed on "Saturday Night Live," at Radio City Music Hall and Carnegie Hall, on countless award shows, in movies, and many went on to have successful solo careers. This form of dance is most notably associated with wrist rolls, jazz splits, high kicks, and knee drops. Dancers perform fast movements and then "lock" in a position for a moment before returning to fast movements.

Between 1975 and 1976, Boogaloo Sam created popping — a dance that combines flowing movements with rigid, robotic movements creating a stop-motion illusion in the body — in Fresno, CA, according to Red Bull. After seeing a performance by The Lockers, he was inspired to create his own hip-hop dance style. Drawing inspiration from Chubby Checker, James Brown, and cartoons, Boogaloo Sam actualized this new form of movement. In 1977, he founded his own crew, the Electric Boogaloos.

Notable moves from the popping genre include the Boogaloo (created by Boogaloo Sam), botting, dime stop, gliding, and popping. Boogaloo Sam's musicality and deep understanding of movement made him an influential figure in early hip-hop on the West Coast, and he continues to dance and teach today.

There's a bit of debate over it, but the 1983 classic "Wild Style" is argued to be the first film centered on hip-hop culture. Charlie Ahearn, the film's director, focused on all four elements of the culture: DJing, rapping, graffiti, and break dancing. Ahearn made history by selling out all showings for the three weeks it played in Time Square, according to The Source. The film was low budget and raw, but thoroughly encapsulated the feel of the culture helping expand its reach outside the five boroughs of NYC. Though originally released only in a handful of theaters, "Wild Style" was remastered and released 30 years later for a new generation of hip-hop performers and fans to enjoy.

By the late '80s and early '90s, hip-hop was gaining more mainstream notoriety, and clubs throughout started to feature DJs in the genre. The incorporation of DJs into the club scene made way for dance competitions to emerge as an organic result. Club attendees would clear out space on the dance floor for different groups to go head-to-head. These impromptu battles eventually led to club promoters highlighting these competitions to get more people into their spaces. The elevation of these competitions enabled hip-hop dancers to stay connected to the genre's original nature of battling
. We see similar head-to-head battles in other dance genres, such as tap, as well.

As the music and culture of hip-hop evolved over the years, it brought forth new forms of dance. In the 2000s, the most notable additions to the hip-hop dance genre have been krumping, turfing, and jookin.

Krumping is a freestyle form of hip-hop dance that consists of jerky, fast movements that present in a strong and powerful, yet aggressive, manner. It emerged in Los Angeles with Tommy the Clown and his crew. This form of dance was introduced as a way for individuals to release frustration and anger from their bodies in a nonviolent way. This dance form was made popular in large part to the feature film "Rize".

Turfing came out of Oakland and combined waving, gliding, and floor moves to create this new dance style. Turfing stands for "taking up room on the floor." Jeriel Bey created the term in 2006 and organized the first turfing crew from West Oakland, the Architeckz.

Lastly, jookin emerged in Memphis, TN, and is a combination of footwork and gliding. Lil Buck helped popularize this genre of dance by performing in music videos such as Janelle Monae's "Tightrope," for which he received an MTV Video Music Award Best Choreography nomination.

Hip-hop dance as a culture has greatly benefited from social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. These resources have provided current hip-hop dances with a global outlet to create new forms of expression and collaborate with dancers around the world. The exposure social media has given hip-hop culture as a whole has helped expand its reach and impact worldwide throughout this past decade.

But we'd be remiss not to address how the inequities of our world have also emerged in the way hip-hop culture shows up on social media. Many Black TikTok dances have noted their choreography has been repurposed by white influencers without any credit given to them. This led to a brief "strike" by Black dancers and creators on TikTok in the fall of 2021.

Black dancers stopped creating new choreography for popular songs being released during this time period. They did this to draw attention to the fact that they were the ones creating these viral trends but weren't getting the recognition they deserved in the process.