B-Boying

  B-boying, often called "breakdancing", is a is a style of street dance that originated as a part of hip-hop culture among African American and Latino youths in New York City during the early 1970s.^] Fast to gain popularity in the media, the dance style has gained popularity worldwide, especially popular in countries such as South Korea, France, Russia, Japan, Brazil, the United States, as well as many other nations.

While extremely diverse in the amout of variation available in the dance, the dance notably consists of four primary elements: toprock, downrock, power moves, and freezes. B-boying is typically danced to hip-hopbreakbeats, although modern trends allow for much wider varieties of music along certain ranges of tempo and beat patterns. Following after styles of funk dance such as popping and locking, b-boying has also seen influence from R&B and tap dance. and especially

A practitioner of this dance is called a b-boy, b-girl, or breaker. Although the term "breakdance" is frequently used to refer to the dance, "b-boying" and "breaking" are the original terms used to refer to the dance. These terms are preferred by the majority of the art form’s pioneers and most notable practitioners.

B-boying terminology underwent changes after promotion by mainstream media. Although widespread, the term "breakdancing" is looked down upon by those immersed in hip-hop culture as a media term used to sensationalize breaking. The term "Breakdancer" may even be used to disparage those who learn the dance for personal gain rather than commitment to hip-hop culture. The dance itself is properly called "breaking" according to rappers such as KRS-One, Talib Kweli, Mos Def, and Darryl McDaniels of Run-DMC.Purists consider "breakdancing" an ignorant term invented by the media that connotes exploitation of the art. , separate funk stylesCalifornia. Furthermore, the term "breakdancing" as opposed to “breaking” or “b-boying” lacks specificity as an umbrella term that may incorrectly include popping, locking, and electric boogaloo developed in

The terms b-boys (sometimes known as break-boys or bronx boys), b-girls, and breakers are the preferred terms to use to describe the dancers. These terms originally arose to describe the dancers to DJ Kool Herc'sbreakbeat, but Herc has commented that the term "breaking" was a slang of the time, also meaning "getting excited", "acting energetically" or "causing a disturbance".The term breaker is gender neutral. breaks, who were described as “breaking” to the beats. The obvious connection of the term “breaking” is to the

Most authentic sources prefer the terms “b-boy”, “b-girl”, and “breaker” when referring to these dancers. B-boy London of the New York City Breakers and filmmaker Michael Holman also refer to these dancers “breakers”. Frosty Freeze of the Rock Steady Crew says, “we were known as b-boys”, and hip-hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa says, “b-boys, [are] what you call break boys... or b-girls, what you call break girls. In addition, co-founder of Rock Steady Crew Santiago "Jo Jo" Torres, Rock Steady Crew member Mr. Freeze, and hip-hop historian Fab 5 Freddy use the term “b-boy”, as do rappers Big Daddy Kane and Tech N9ne.