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Dance and Music

through the Ages

By: Mia Swafford

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Connections to Hip Hop Music and Dance

The Start of Dance and Music

Dance Styles and Techniques

The influence contained by Popular Culture

Cassette Vs. CD

Artists and their Racial Roles

Movies and its Dance content

Female roles in Hip Hop

“Spartan” From Fresno

Movement Lifestyle

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Ending

What Hip Hop means to me is inspiration, appreciation, motivation, and

love. All these factors have helped shaped my life into hip hop being a type of

passion to me. There have been many up and downs with how I feel about the

hip hop today, and what it’s transforming into. A few reasons that have

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allowed me to realize my overall recognition of this culture would be the dance,

and how it builds a path for enlightenment, and also ways paving a way for

expressing yourself emotionally. Dance has been around for many years and

has been an old pastime in history. Whether through tribal music or early Jazz

Swing, or to R&B and Funk, dance has grown to develop its own style using

individuals with a creative flair to discover new forms. To add, not only has

African Americans share this similarity throughout the years was due to the

ongoing segregation and oppression that led them to turn to music. Therefore

dance, and not only dance but music has also been very important because its

connection with African American culture and how it’s evolved throughout

many of the years

To start from the beginning the foundation in hip hop music comes from

African descent directly. As the songs would be sung on ships transporting

African slaves to different countries especially the United States they would

learn to unify songs and glorify chants. As it was their only means of finding

hope in a hopeless situation, they responded with songs because they were

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treated indifferently and harshly. Also “Jazz was born by mostly African

Americans with their traditions of blues, spirituals, rhythm and improvisation,”

and over the next few centuries as they entered the work force they would sing

“Work Songs”. Work songs would be sung to help “pass the time, make the

work more efficient, and would coordinate the workers” this would come to

possibly be “one of the ingredients to jazz,” as they formed “rhythm and

meter”. Moving further many white musicians would conquer the world of Jazz

but many female artists such as Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday would master

the vocal part of it. Moving further into the 20’s we see the Jazz Age boom, we

have the Harlem Renaissance coming into play, prohibition, also African

Americans in search of better employment. During these events we have

African culture creativity making use of music and creating what would be the

Charleston dance.

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Later moving onto the next movement which would be the 40’s, the most

entertaining time in history for music, dance, and nightlife would come alive. In this

era we have the style of the big band where not only would white musicians be playing

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but black musicians would be the predominate source of entertainment. We would

have famous musicians like Count Basie, Artie Shaw, and Cab Calloway. What would

them come into play would be dances like Jive, Lindy-hop, east coast swing, and

Harlem Shuffle. The Lindy-Hop would set the way for the hip Hop culture as they

would use old style from the Jazz era to help develop new and innovative moves.

Moving further along we enter the 70’s where we get the creation of top rockin,

focusing clearly on the transition from the East to the West coast. In Pop Master

Fable’s article it states that “In the early 1970s, the unnamed culture known today as

"hip-hop" was forming in New York City's ghettos,” and that “Some of the earliest

dancing by b-boy pioneers was done upright, a form which became known as "top

rockin'." But focusing more on the west coast we find their independence from east

coast and the opportunity to stylize and creative a form of their own. What would be

known as the “Funk” era we see the creation of the “Lock” by Don Campbell which was

“Combinations which would consist of a series of points done by extending the arms

and pointing in different directions.” Also to add they would create the "lock" which is

a specific movement which glues together combinations of steps and moves similar to

a freeze or a sudden pause.” Additionally popping was one of the core unique styles

that they Poppin Pete described as “muscle contraction executed with the triceps,

forearms, neck, chest and legs”. Overall this music dance relationship would inspire

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youth through one of the most important

times for hip hop which were the late 80’s and

90’s.

Although I have had many obstacles, dance and music have, and will forever be a part

of my life. It started with music and the cassette, and you look back and think about

the cassettes and the walk man, and we literally moved from that to CD’s. We barely

even use CD’s now a days, it’s been such a transformation in technology even when I

was a kid, and I’m only 24 years old. As we see today music has been completely

accessible online just by a click of a button. We have even merged into being able to

pirate and download music illegally. In the late 90’s just on the brink of “y2k” we

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found ways to listen to music even if we didn’t have the money. At that time it was

really stressed that the artist would be affected in some way because as it was said,

“once you steal a song, you steal that song from the artist”, and they “don’t get paid”.

To look back when hip hop music really affected me was during a hot summer day in

the San Fernando Valley, and my aunt played Wreckx-N-Effect “Rump Shaker”, followed

by Salt-n-Peppa “Whatta Man” ft. En Vogue, and mind you these were just a few songs

in 93’ that were popular. I would also come to discover Bell Biv DeVoe, and MC

Hammer not too long after. It was a time from transitioning to Disney songs and kid’s

sing-a-longs to hip hop music. I remember thinking this was cool music, the type of

music that gets stuck in your head and you want to keep playing over, and over again.

I wasn’t really allowed to listen to artists like Snoop Dog or Ice Cube yet at that time

because it was too angry so my mother would argue with me. When I was little music

didn’t really influence my judgment on race, gender, or sexuality, so in a sense it was

my time of innocence where I would just listen to the beats and Chorus and would

think it sounded cool, but I would never really think about what the lyrics would say.

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What would follow my interests into the oncoming years would be the good ole

MTV channel 52. This would be the only form of entertainment since it was before

YouTube, and applications such as social cam. Michael Jackson played a part in my

MTV music videos obsession. What was always good about Michael Jackson was that

they would play his music videos even if it was over 5 years old, that’s how big he was.

The Michael Jackson videos I remember the most was videos from the Dangerous

album like “Black or White”, and “Jam” which was so cool because Michael Jordan was in

the video and Michael Jordan was so big then. The one that my brother and I loved

watching the most was “Scream” with Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson. We loved the

song, we loved the video, and when we would visit Mexico for our long summers, they

only sold Michael Jackson CD’s there, so he was our only savior back in the day. He is

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honestly what drove me to try to dance because his moonwalk was so impressive. I

remember watching moonwalkers because it had one of my favorite scenes which

would be smooth criminal. Why Michael was so smart for his time was because he

took some of the most famous classic dancers such as Fred Astaire and used their

ideas to incorporate into his own. Michael Jackson was the king of pop he influenced

many hip hop dancers from his music, and that’s why I hold him in a close relationship

towards Hip Hop and its culture.

What would then come next in my life would be my teen years, middle school

through high school. I would discover artists like Eminem, puff daddy, Jay Z, Snoop

Dog, Busta Rhymes, 50 cent, and D12. I felt as though even though some of this

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music was commercialized there were some underground aspects to it. This to me

was the beginning of a new generation. To society at that time it was a symbol of

rebellion, where the word Explicit was truly “Explicit”, and they started to put that on

the CD labels. I remember going to Wal-Mart to buy a cd and everything was what we

use to say “clean” versions. It was during the time where sensory was at its peak, and

people such as parents would hold riots and signs against artist like Eminem. I would

like to use Eminem as a good example at taking a look at the role of how race, and

gender plays. It was almost as if black male artists were expected to be what they use

to say a “gangsta rapper” but when a white person tried to rap he had both side of

society to deal with. He had the black community saying “white boys can’t rap”, and he

had the other side which was mainly white people saying “he makes white people look

bad”. It states in a biography that “although at the time rap music was almost

exclusively produced by black people, Eminem, who has pale white skin and bright

blue eyes, nevertheless entered into the Detroit rap scene as a frequent competitor in

rap "battles". I remember my mom liking Eminem and "8 Mile". For my mom to like

Eminem says a lot, she still to this day will ask me to put Eminem on her Mp3 player.

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My next focus will be on the strong female roles present in movies. Movies will

always be considered a part of my life because it was always a type of hobby. Some

movies that kind of influenced and motivated me to dance were movies like Flash

dance, Saved the last dance, and even up until recently the Step Up movies. What I

liked about these movies and why it inspired me was the happiness that was reached

trying to pursue their dreams. Aside from the movies, in real like instances I feel as

though there was hardly any focus on female dancers. What would be present in many

Rap music videos would be black females dressed promiscuously. I also feel that this

would really be the only reason why females would be featured in rap videos, to

suggest sexual ideas and desires, and not base it on actual talent. It still goes on

today as Sharply and Whiting discuss the use of female strippers and how they are

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scouted for music videos. Continuing with the absence of quality female dancers in

the 80’s and 90’s, I thought not only were they not big in the dance scene, but they

weren’t that big in the rap scene. All that I can recall which was popular would have

been Queen Latifah, and Missy Elliot. They were only popular because they were

accepted into popular culture. Now we have dancers that I follow closely that have

made themselves known to the hip hop world, a few worth noting would be Mariel

Martin and GiGi Torres who have made themselves known in the music and dance

world not just by their talent but by their creativity as well. Mariel Martin is known to

put classic dance styles and and incorporate it into Hip hop dance, and Gigi Torres is

always pushing her dances on youtube and for contests in special music videos. They

are worthy in looking up to because of their accomplishments.

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One person I decided to interview would be Miguel Wilson also known as “Spartan” I

had come to find that there were many connections to what we learned and applied to

dance and rethinking of the b-boy. As I started the interview I realized how really

knowledgeable he was and wondered why I never really asked him questions. To start

with his dancing career, he started dancing at the age of 6 years old doing Michael

Jackson impersonations. He always had danced in between that but really started

taking it seriously at the age of 17 where he would meet a few people from the

underground world that would be important. “Locksmith” Rudy Salazar, and Charles

Montgomery also known as B-boy Goku were legendary B-boys from the central valley

group known as Climax Crew/Soul control. How these groups worked was that they

really held close to the star wars culture and philosophy of having a master and a padi

wan learner. So Miguel became a student to Locksmith at the age of 17. At this time

as Miguel states it was a state of enlightenment where at the time people “ate, slept,

and drank hip Hop culture.” He described the 4 elements as being “Djing, Mcing,

graffiti, and breaking, and the hidden 5th element beat boxing”. What come next was

characteristics of this popular culture, dance, music, and art and he states that “we

would have black books in which we would be drawing 24/7 and we wouldn’t listen to

radio music, only underground music which was “Real Hip-Hop”.” Some of the

influential pushes which allowed some of these dancers to turn to dancing were that

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they grew up in low income projects, which he lived in when he was a child. So the

remedy in this upbringing was to “put on the music and get down in garages to keep

out of trouble.” As he would practice he had still not yet reached his battling stage,

and his mentors would always say to keep practicing because the battle scene was

intense. What would be a next major page in his dance career would be going to

“Radio Tron” an Annual event where he would come across what would be known as a

Cypher. Not really described as a battle event but more as a friendly dance where all

people join in and share moves. As he joined the circle he would later discover that he

would be dancing with some pioneers of west coast hip hop, such as one arm bandit,

Poppin Andre, Junior Bugaloo, and Pandora. He would soon grab the name “Spartan”

after seeing the movie “300” and being compared as a warrior with relentless strength

and skill. Later after this he would join the West Coast Pop Lockers, and would

accomplish many goals such as landing an audition for Deftone and landing a part in a

music video. With such accomplishments he still dances and teaches to this day

enjoying every aspect of dance and still always allowing himself to learn from his

experiences.

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Turning from the music scene, dance played a major role as to why hip hop has

musically affected my life with positive outlooks. First of all my teenage years wasn’t

the best years of my life, I struggled with many family problems. What always seemed

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to make it better was dance. I remember dancing to music videos when I was younger,

and getting into after school dance programs. I wasn’t the best dancer to start off with

and I was actually very intimidated when other people would watch me dance. I knew

that even if I didn't dance for some periods at a time that I would still go back because

I knew that it was something that I loved and it would always be my roots. There was a

good period that I wasn’t dancing for quite a while, up until I met one of my friends in

college name Miguel “Spartan” Wilson. He showed me the different aspects of hip hop

which are poppin’, lockin’, and breakin’. I really never knew the difficulty that these

styles had until I met him. He is a very good follower of other dancers such as Lando

Wilkins from Box cutters, Gigi Torres, and Shaun Evaristo. All of these dancers are

from a very good dance organization called Movement Lifestyle. They are still very

inspirational dancers to me even if they aren’t popularly known. As far as gender and

race are concerned I feel as though the hip hop dance world is very versatile as far as

women and men of many races participating in it, which is good for our generation to

recognize that.

Overall I feel as though Hip hop music has really affected my life positively, as it

was an outlet for all the obstacles I faced. Heartache, depression, happiness, joy, was

all mediated with music. It was an answer to all my problems even if it didn’t fix them

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physically. Mentally It was my best friend, my back up, and also my childhood.

Although it changes every so often, it’s inevitable because change is constant. All we

can hope for is that the future generation notices the roots of hip hop and realizes how

to appreciate it. Now that my knowledge of hip hop has expanded I think I’ll learn to

appreciate it a lot more.

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Citations

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