Poppin in the 80's

As you all know, when you think of the dance known as poppin you automatically think of the 80's.In addition to that you think of adidas suits,cardboard,and kangol hats.The reason for this is because of the marketing of this dance back in that era.Back then this dance had it's main misconception of being called breakdancing.Even to this day, I can go poppin somewhere and somebody would automatically think I was from new york.Well that's because was the main area that marketed poppin back in the 80's.Now for those of you that can remember,let's take a trip down memory lane shall we?Remember the movies Beat Street and Flashdance?Those movies were filmed up north and gained an increase in popularity due to the breakdancing in those films.Now notice I said BREAKDANCING and not POPPIN.But see the thing is that New York Categorized poppin as breakdancing to market it to the mainstream.Way before this happened,poppin's main exposure came from Soul Train and very few music videos.New York did not create poppin at all but they did market it the most in the 80's

Back in the late 70's going into the early 80's,most breakers would learn how to pop from watching soul train.By 1983,they would eventually learn the dance from it's birth state in california as west coast OG's would travel to NY.Dancers such as Shabba Doo,Boogaloo Shrimp,Suga Pop,Poppin Pete,and Skeeter Rabbit would travel from Cali to spread knowledge about poppin in exchange for NY knowledge about Breakin.After the colaboration of knowledge between both regions, NY took their half and blew up with emergence of hip hop music.So basically you had Breakers from NY that would get exposure in Hip Hop videos for both dances.Commercials were coming out where u would see poppers dressed up like they are from New York.Lionel Ritchie's video "All Night Long"featured west coast poppers and happened around the same time NY learned how to pop.Another highlight in 83 was Michael Jackson's perfomance of the moonwalk on the Motown 25 anniversary special.

By 1984,the movies "Breakin"and "Beat Street"were released.Beat Street was based out the NY while Breakin was based out of Cali.The movies put an extreme impact on street dancing and had viewers excited.There were tours following up the promotion of these movies which hit worldwide success.Now u had every household poppin and breakin.And with the marketing of New York's version of poppin called "Electric Boogie,"it was still considered breakdancing.Around this time poppin on the west coast still had its share of mainstream success but not as much as NY.Now u see why poppin is often listed as breakdancing,

Poppin died down in the late 80's.It got to the point that if u got poppin somewhere, u would get clowned!!It's commercial success became an damaging aspect of the dance.To many people took it as just a fad and not an actual culture.A lot of the OG's began to see this and started working regular 9 to 5 jobs.In my opinion, the stratgies of marketing poppin were pretty clever but not genuine enough to truly recognize the dance for it's influence on street dance culture.I mean think about it.You had a whole state marketing this dance under the wrong name first.Due to mainstream hype in the 80's,I bet most of you never heard of west coast OG's like Skeeter Rabbit and Boogaloo Dana.Quite a few dancers in the 80's got false credit for creating poppin when all they did was innovate it.The 80's had its success with the dance which is a highlight to most people of today that experienced that era.However poppin was marketed wrongly as being called breakdancing in that era.