The History of the B-boy�
James Brown had this song named 'The good foot' and he had this crazy wild footage of dance to his song. People were beginning to take these moves and add some more to it and called the new dance the good foot. For a while they were dancing all around crazy like, it wasn�t until later in the 70�s that they started dancing only in the breaks. DJ Kool Herc started to call them the break boy�s cause they would wait for the break and then dance. In short term, the dancers were named B Boys as they still are called today.
When Chic released LeFreak, there was a dance to it called The Freak. Most of the B Boys stopped dancing and The Freak took over for a while.
Until later when the Rock Steady Crew picked it up again. The Rock Steady Crew began a phase of break dancing that would have B Boys competing for more and more advanced moves.
Kool Herc, an early DJ in New York, thought it was a shame that the breaks were so short. So Kool Herc then started playing the breaks over and over again so the breaks could last forever. He then started mixing the breaks together and would make them go on for a long time with different breaks mixed in. This way the dancers would now be in the spotlight.
In a way you might say that James Brown was one of the inventors of the Break Dance art. Not to mention that the art had inserts from Kung Fu, Campo era, acrobatic and other styles. The B Boys took the moves and advanced them, and it still expands today in new styles and wild power moves.
Before this there has been dances like The Twist, The Mashed Potato, The Frog and Hully Gully. (Ask your parents) All those dances were seen on Dick Clark's famous 'American Bandstand' show that had all the hottest dances and trends.
This all started in the 70's, in the Bronx, New York. People were dancing all around everywhere. One of break dancing histories most famous places was the 'Happy Warrior' playground. B Boys started hanging out at the �Happy Warrior� playground doing their practices and even battling each other. The Playground was on the 98th and Amsterdam, in the Bronx and became the lab from which B Boy scientists concurred rhythmic contortions, magical dance positions and lethal injections of deadly moves. Later the Happy Warrior Park changed its name to the Rock Steady Park.
Back in the late 1980�s some popular dances in Brooklyn were the Smurf and Inspector Gadget (both dances were named after cartoon characters). They don't have a lot of historical areas in Brooklyn regarding hip-hop. Hip-Hop started to take off in Brooklyn around the public schools. The public schools (P.S.) tend to have big playgrounds and a lot of rappers/deejays used to go to the public school playgrounds and have competitions. A popular school was P.S. 181 in an area of Brooklyn called Flatbush. A famous person that used to go there and chill was Grandmaster Flash. Also, a lot of competitions used to be held on Coney Island.
The B Boy moves were spreading by subway trips to different Jams an sessions.
There were a lot of gangs and violence and the troubles became worse and worse. Only a few people realized that there was no sense in it. One of them was Afrika Bambaata. So he formed a culture named Hip Hop.
He put together a lot of dancers, MC�s, DJ's & Graffiti into one community. There were a lot of B-Boys who practiced all day long to get ready for the battles in the evening. These battles usually took place at parties, which had been organized by Afrika Bambaata and the whole Zulu Nation. The battle scene between RSC (Rock Steady Crew) & NYCB (New York City Breakers) in "Beat Street" inspired so many people and made them crazy about breaking.
At the time when it became less popular in the USA (about '85, '86), it grew more and more in Europe.
Nowadays there are dancers all over the world and the scene in New York grows again. In Europe there are a few crews that have existed for many years, Second To None (England), Actual Force (France), Battle Squad (Germany/ Italy), Enemy Squad (Hungary). Not to mention a lot of crews that are continually changing among a whole lot of upcoming new breeds.
There are different styles of dancing in Hip Hop. Not only Break dance.
You got Breaking (well known)
Brooklyn Rock (Advanced Uprock)
Popping (More like Electric Boogaloo), and Locking. The Popping and Locking were invented on the West Coast while Uprock and Breaking were invented in the ghettos of New York.
From 1974, you could watch glimpses of locking, popping and the robot on TV shows like, Soul Train, The Big Show and What's Happening! In the late 70's there were only a few dancers who practiced these forms in New York, except for some dancers that had moved from the West to the East.
B Boying has today been used in several movies, TV shows and commercials like, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Burger King, BK Shoes and Panasonic.
In the beginning of B Boying or Break dancing, Pee-Wee Dance, a popular dancer in the early 70's got into hip hop and the hip hop dance called the good foot, after the James Brown song.
