The history of Hip – Hop begins in the Bronx, New York of the U.S.A at the end of the 70’s.

As the Godfather of Hip – Hop DJ Cool Herc started his famous parties in the Bronx at a small building apartment. Very soon the number of people participating was bigger than the space provided so he had to move those parties into basket ball courts before he got hired as a DJ in Clubs. He was putting on those parties because he loved the music and he wanted people to have fun in unity no matter what race or colour.

Afrika Bambaataa is in a big part the creator Hip – Hop culture and the one that came up with the name Hip – Hop (Hip as in cool and Hop as in the music that was surrounding it). Today he is known as the Godfather of Hip – Hop culture. In the 70’s he played a lot of Funk and European electronic music, mixing it altogether. Later he brought together the world known Zulu Nation which is based on Hip – Hop.

One of the elements of Hip – Hop is break dance that was known back then as bboying before the media gave it the popular name its got today. It was called bboying because it was mainly boys that were into this kind of dance in the beginning and they waited for the break of the record in order to get down on the dance floor. Bboyin started at one of DJ Cool Herc’s famous parties when a dancer went down to the floor and continued dancing in circular movements.

Bboying evolved through the need of the young generation for expression and to prove their ability to create in an anti-catastrophic way. Many of these young dancers were involved in gangs because of the bad living situations they were in so bboying and Hip – Hop became a part of their lives in order to stay positive and took out their frustrations on dancing battles with other dancers by creating something good and having fun at the same time.

The first stage of bboying was Up – Rock that looks like fighting a person with dancing steps using imaginary weapons and then came Top – Rock as another part of the upright part of the dance and Footwork which were the steps down to the floor. Event though it was the African – American dancers that set the foundations, it was that Latino dancers that made most of the spinning moves like: Windmill, Head spin, Hand Glides and so on.

When a few members of the Rock Steady Crew got featured in the movie Flashdance it was enough to make break dance famous worldwide. After the premiere of the movie more and more dancers were creating moves based on what they saw in that short scene in this movie. In Los Angeles, dancers created their own style of break dance focusing on power moves like Flares. Rock Steady Crew toured in many cities in the U.S and many different countries at the time making the art that started in the Bronx on the map.

When the Disco scene made its presence at the end of the 70’s a lot of show biz people tried to kill the break dance scene and in many parts succeeded in doing so. Breakers were giving up dancing either to go to college to make something of themselves or the path of crime to earn a living.

The era of bboying was coming to an end in the U.S when a few European breakers went to America seeking the foundation of the dance they got to love. Seen as the scene was on its final breath they showed the pioneers of this dance that in Europe not only the scene was alive but it was growing by the minute. That was enough to get a lot of dancers in the U.S back on track and out of trouble and gave re-birth to the dance. In the 80’s the break dance scene was re-born with new foundations and rules in order to evolve to what we see before our eyes today. 

In the element of DJing Grandmaster Flash is the pioneer that created the technique that DJs name today “Scratch”. DJs use to gather massive crowds in parks by playing breaks for people to dance to and extending the break of the songs by playing 2 identical records on their double decks thus enlarging that part of a song. The M.C (another element of Hip- Hop) would accompany the DJ on the microphone trying to hype the crowd by singing rap songs and giving respects to the DJ. 

Returning home from parties youngsters would paint murals on the walls of empty buildings, trains and subway stations with spray cans displaying their creativity and tagging their work with their nick name signatures. That art is the 4th element of Hip – Hop named Graffiti.

The commercial site of Hip – Hop dancing has its foundations in break dance but also on dance styles like Jazz, Tap, Contemporary, Ballet, Popping, Locking, Lindy Hop… This kind of dance has no steady foundation and almost anything goes as long as it’s kept into Hip – Hop Style Borders.