Styles of Hip Hop Dancing

KRUMPING

"Krumping doesn't start with your moves or your character. It starts with your heart. It starts with what you feel. You gotta’ tap into this... It's more than just throwing arms out there on a certain beat, stomping on a certain beat. It has to come from somewhere."

—Ceasare "Tight Eyez" Willis

As I have already mentioned, my main style of hip hop dancing is popping. Popping is what I specialize in and what I deeply enjoy doing. However, a new style that has recently sparked my interest is the exquisite art of krumping. As it gains excessive popularity in the hip hop world, I become more and more determined to master it.

Krumping is an urban street dance form which involves free, expressive, and highly energetic moves involving the arms, head, legs, chest, and feet. The root word, Krump, is an acronym for Kingdom Radically Uplifted Mighty Praise. Ceasare “Tight Eyez” Willis, the youth who created krumping, grew up in South Central, Los Angeles, a place where crime and gang-violence were very big issues. Willis saw the dance as a way for him and his peers to escape gang life and other negative influences in their neighbourhood. Since the year of 2000, when Tight Eyez first introduced the brilliant style to the world, krumping has grown to become a major part of hip-hop dance.

Much like other styles of hip hop, krumping is entirely freestyle (improvisational). It is rarely, if ever, choreographed and is danced frequently in battles or sessions. Krumping includes four primary moves: wobbles, arm swings, chest pops, and stomps. In my opinion, krumping is the style of dance that requires the most amount of energy, which makes it one of the hardest to master. It is very difficult to practice over long periods of time without pushing yourself to absolute exhaustion, which is why I myself am struggling to perfect it. Currently, I am trying to teach myself through various tutorials posted on the internet. If you are interested in learning this exciting style of hip hop, click here for a beginner’s tutorial. Once you perfect those moves, you can move on to this tutorial for the more advanced moves. These are the videos that I am currently teaching myself with.

Hopefully in the near future, I will be able to master this unique style of hip hop. To catch a glimpse of what krumping looks when it’s nearly perfected, click here. My goal is to one day be on the same level as the remarkable dancers featured in the video.