Entry · catalog no. 9423
popping
/ /ˈpɑpɪŋ/ /POP-ing
noun · Fresno, California · 1970s
✓ Verified
1.
A street-dance style in which the dancer contracts muscles on the beat to produce sharp jerks, called hits.
“He was popping so clean the crowd went quiet.”
2.
To dance in this style.
“We were popping in the parking lot after school.”
Origin & Attribution
Developed in 1970s Fresno, California, by Boogaloo Sam (Sam Solomon) and the Electric Boogaloos, who drew on funk music, Soul Train, and earlier Black dance traditions. The style was named for the muscle hit, and Fresno is credited as its home in KQED's reporting on the dance. It spread through California and onto film, television and music video.
1970s
Boogaloo Sam and the Electric Boogaloos develop popping in Fresno
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The West
Fresno, California · 1970s
Spoken by
Black Fresno dancers, street-dance community
$POPPINThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady51 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
65/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1975
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@bayarea
Oakland, CA
@ladi
Los Angeles, CA
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
KQED, 'The Hip-Hop Dance Craze Born in Fresno: Popping'
web
■
The Electric Boogaloos, Wikipedia
web
■
+ Cite a sourceTropics of Meta, 'Straight Outta Fresno: How the Popping Dance Movement Empowered Youth of Color', 2017
web
See also