Popping was invented by Boogaloo Sam and the Electric Boogaloo Lockers. At first, popping wasn't very popular, because though the Lockers were already a prominent dance group, b-boying was much more popular during the 80's. The media referred to most hip-hop dance styles as "break dancing" in an attempt to cover the broad subject of hip-hop dance, but this only focused on b-boying more than anything else.

Finally, popping broke through with the beginning of the funk era, which perfectly placed popping, locking and the boogaloo into their own categories. The early funk era also included disco, which was a dominating style, and fast popping was very effective to upbeat tempos like disco. Electric funk and DJ Afrika "Bam" came later on.

At first, people made the assumption that all West Coast funk styles were called popping. In fact, popping is a unique dance style characterized by hits and pops (jerks/twitches created by rhythmically flexing muscles) that create a cartoonish, robotic feel.

In 1969, Don Campbell took the spotlight in Los Angeles for his creation of a new dance, the "Campbellock". Essentially, the Campbellock mimicked the Robot in its need for complete control and exact stops and starts, but it also incorporated sudden out-of-control movements from tap and flash dance. With the comical facial expressions required to lock, the locker would appear to be a clown-like collapsing-then-standing toy soldier.

Campbellock proceeded to patch together a group of dancers which he named "the Lockers". Their outfits consisted of loud colours, platform shoes, striped socks, pegged pants, bright satin shirts, bow ties and white gloves. These choices of clothing made the fun intentions of locking indeed apparent.

Some very common locking movements include twirling of wrists, drops into box splits, stops-and-gos and high-fives. For crowd interaction, lockers would also do "Uncle Sam points" to the crowd, a move which can be most associated with Michael Jackson.

Break dancing was developed in New York in the late 60's, mostly within the African American community. The style was introduced to the public mainly through Rock Steady Crew in the late 70's. Though break dancing's borrowing of martial arts technique is evident, but music actually had the greatest impact on break dance.

James Brown's music had the heaviest influence on break dance, especially his smash hit "Get On the Good Foot" in 1969. DJ Kool Herc coined the terms "b-boy" and "b-girl", and DJ Afrika "Bam" encouraged breakers to bring "downrocking" to the streets in the 70's, releasing insane floorwork including hand-gliding, back-spinning, windmills, flares and headspins.

Organized breaking crews often battled each other too. Such battles often involved cheekiness and wit so that a crew could not only outdance their rival, but also humiliate them. Today, break dancing is becoming mainstream as it is making its way into music videos, movies and dance schools.

Interestingly enough, the word "krump" is actually acronym for "Kingdom of Radically Uplifting Mighty Praise". It is an agressive dance style that is meant to help the dancer express anger and frustration through various movements (foot stomps, arm swings, etc.) which can easily appear improvisational, but are actually techniques required to reach the first (and highest) level of krumping.

In fact, krumping was part of a movement trying to keep gangs from violence, as expressing rage through dance was much subtler than shootings and deaths. Krumping became popular after the documentary "RIZE" (which was about Southern California street dance) was released.

Most of the creation of krumping can be credited to Tommy the Clown, who introduced clowning (a style similar to krump, but less aggressive) in the early 90's. The newest form of krumping was developed by Lil' C, Tight Eyez and others, who especially popularized the term krump term "buck" - meaning to be able to "hit moves really hard".