If the beat makes those women move, and they get a lot of money for their dancing, that’s a good record right there” (Kyles). “The hook and the beat, that’s all that matters.
This technique of leaking music to strip clubs is one that is embraced by well-known producer Collipark who states “It doesn’t take months or even weeks to see if you have a hit,” says Collipark, who goes to strip clubs to check out crowd reaction. Artists began to tailor make songs for the strip club because it was a good way of finding out if your song would be successful, something that should trouble us as a nation, but nonetheless it is the truth. This constant barrage of sexual songs opened doors in other industries, such as the strip club industry. As these hyper sexual songs came out it became more and more normal for people and youth to hear songs with these types of messages. Songs like Ol Dirty Bastard’s “Shimmy Shimmy Ya”, Eazy E’s “I’d Rather Fuck You”, or 2 Live Crew’s “We Want Some Pussy” started to come out, which put the sometimes hidden or construed theme of sex right in the listeners face. Songs began to become hyper sexualized and targeted towards young men. This marked a big shift in lyrical and visual content in hip-hop music. As the years went on break dancing and choreographed routines remained the popular way of dancing to hip-hop.Īs people became bored with the same hip-hop dance style and as the culture became more sexually explicit “the implementation of the ‘Parental Advisory’ label in 1994, artists were basically able to talk about anything without having to worry about legal backlash” (Burgess). Soon it was just the same moves and same dancers doing the same thing. As break dancing began to slow down, fewer and fewer influential dancers broke out onto the scene. Soon they found themselves played out or hurting for jobs and found the need to grow up.
As hip-hop matured, so did the leaders of break dancing crews. Chang explains, “…the only thing that put a stop to the dance was it’s marketing overkill” (Chang 203). “…Every kid across the country wanted to breakdance and every city council and shopping mall official wanted to ban it” (Chang 203).īreakdancing had sprung to popularity through the use of movies and music videos, but soon found its downfall from the very thing that had birthed it. As hip-hop culture expanded, the commodification of hip-hop dance started. “After the unexpected success of Rock Steady’s Flashdance – which featured Rock Steady Crew members b-boying to “It’s Just Begun” and body-doubling in Jennifer Beal’s climactic Hollywood audition – Hollywood decided to cash in, and 19 saw a number of teen-targeted Hip-hop exploitation flicks” (Chang 192). Soon you had dance crews sprouting up all over cities and even gaining the attention of millions through the use of the television. The dance crew marks a special point in hip-hop dance culture because it began to be recognized on a bigger scale. Soon the knowledge of these moves was passed on to more people, who made way for the next step in Hip-hop dance, the dance crew. Locking involved “quick movements similar to a freeze or pause” (Pabon).Īs hip-hop began to spread to different parts of the world, so did the culture and dance. A dance style that was born out of New York is Brooklyn Up-Rocking which “depended on quick wit, humor, and finesse as opponents attempted to humiliate each other” (Pabon).Īlong with that, a dance style born out of the funk of West Coast hip-hop was Locking. Many dance movements were involved in break dancing such as Top-Rocking, freezes, popping, locking, and spins.
B-boys and B-girls would attend parties anxiously waiting for the break of a song to show off their moves. Hip-hop dance started in New York as a part of an underground movement. Hip hop dance has seen many different stages and has been influenced from all around the United States, but today the most popular style has emerged from a strip club culture founded in Atlanta, Georgia. Currently, the popular way of dancing to hip hop has changed to incorporate extremely sexual movements leaving parents troubled and hip hop artists like Too Short, The Ying Yang Twins, and Lil Jon cashing out.
With the help of commodification and the influence of strip club culture, break dancing saw its way out within the early years of Hip-hop which made room for the modern style of Hip-hop dance – grinding. The most popular form of hip hop dance, which was once break dancing, has changed to a hyper sexual dance craze called grinding or freaking. Hip-hop dance has taken an interesting journey throughout the years.
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