Hip hop started in New York and was originally called b-boying. The term breakdancing came from the break in the music (the extended drum beat) in which the dancer would do his moves. The hip hop culture had and still has three major components which made it stand out: Breakdancing- the physical movement part, Graffiti- the written and visual part, and Rapping- the verbal part.
Breakdancing was started in the 1970’s by young males in the Bronx and Manhattan. It became a way to prove one’s self and to be accepted into certain groups. It was also a way to get woman’s attention and try to impress them.
Graffiti came form Philadelphia and it was a way for poor people to express themselves. The more places a person or group could get their mark the better they were, and a popular thing to graffiti was subway trains. Subway trains were popular because they moved all over the city so everyone would see them.
Rapping came about by people starting to put lyrics over beats. It was another way for people to express themselves in how they felt and what they wanted society to see them as. The beats that rappers rapped over came from DJ’s (disk jockey’s). DJ’s became popular because they could take small parts from a song and mess with it. They would spin the record, scratch the record to make a new sound, and switch between two different records to create music.
When breakdancing started on the streets it was a way to challenge some one without getting in a fight. Once it started to gain recognition is when it started to move into the clubs. The circle became a very important thing, it is when people form a circle all facing inward and someone dances in the middle. It is not just something some can fool around in, it has an energy that break dancers take very seriously and a level of skill so a person doesn’t look like a fool in the middle. Also having a breakdancing group or “crew” was popular and naming that group was important because it represented and gave the crew an identity.
A very important figure in bringing dancing and music to popular culture was Michael Jackson. He was a child star singing on TV with his four other brother in the Jackson Five. But where his true stardom came from was when he became older and produced hits like “Thriller”. Not only did Michael Jackson make himself famous he made MTV famous. MTV was a new TV channel in the 1980’s that would show three minute clips of people and groups dancing and sing. The channel was being criticized for not showing black people or groups and in general the channel was just not that popular. But then they play three famous songs/music videos by Michael Jackson, a black man, one of them being “Thriller”, and both Michael Jackson and MTV became instant successes. Michael is talked about more in the Important People page.
MTV now being popular, it was a source for dancers and singers to get recognition and a medium for the public to view the music and dance culture.
The reason I made my background MTV, is because it had a very important part in making hip hop music and dance popular. But MTV itself has changed and now mostly plays reality show with a having little influence on hip hop or modern forms of music and dance.