In 1973, a Jamaican immigrant named DJ Kool Herc fundamentally altered the trajectory of dance history by extending the instrumental breaks of funk records into long, rhythmic loops. Before this moment, dancers could only perform during the brief seconds of a song's instrumental solo, but Herc's use of two turntables and a mixer allowed the beat to continue indefinitely, creating a canvas for what would become breaking. This innovation birthed the terms b-boy and b-girl, standing for break-boy and break-girl, and established the cypher, a circular formation where dancers would take turns showcasing their skills. While African Americans initiated the style in the South Bronx, Puerto Rican dancers like Richard Crazy Legs Colon of the Rock Steady Crew later revitalized the movement in the late 1970s, adding acrobatic elements and ensuring its survival when it was considered a passing fad. The dance evolved from simple toprock, performed while standing, to include downrock footwork, freezes, and power moves, transforming a social activity into a complex athletic discipline.
West Coast Funk
Simultaneously developing on the opposite coast, a different set of street dances emerged from California, rooted in funk music rather than the breakbeats of New York. In 1969, Don Campbell created locking in Los Angeles, a style characterized by freezing in place and then moving again, which he popularized through his crew, The Lockers. This playful, character-driven style stood in stark contrast to the aggressive, floor-oriented nature of breaking, yet both were eventually lumped together under the media-created umbrella term breakdancing. Another major style, popping, originated in Fresno and Oakland, relying on the rapid contraction and relaxation of muscles to create a jerking effect known as a pop. Samuel Boogaloo Sam Solomon and his crew, the Electric Boogaloos, expanded this into an umbrella term for various illusionary styles like waving, tutting, and strobing. Despite their distinct histories and techniques, the media's tendency to group these West Coast funk styles with New York breaking caused a historical confusion that persists to this day, obscuring the independent cultural movements that gave birth to them.The Commercial Shift
The transition of hip-hop dance from the streets to the studio required a fundamental change in how dancers approached rhythm and structure. In the 1970s, Toni Basil, a former ballet dancer who joined The Lockers, introduced the concept of eight-counts, a method of counting steps to stay in sync with music that was previously unnecessary in freestyle street dancing. This pedagogical shift paved the way for the creation of new style, a commercialized version of hip-hop that combined urban party dancing with technical studio training. Choreographers like Emilio Buddha Stretch Austin and Safi Thomas began teaching formal classes in the late 1980s, establishing institutions like the Broadway Dance Center to professionalize the art form. This era also saw the rise of jazz-funk, a hybrid style that incorporated jazz elements like pirouettes and arabesques, which were traditionally absent in pure hip-hop. The commercialization process was further accelerated by the music video industry, where choreographers like Fatima Robinson and Anthony Thomas began crafting routines for stars like Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson, bringing street dance aesthetics to a global mainstream audience.