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Krumping is a global culture evolved through African-American street dancing popularized in the United States during the early 2000s, characterized by free, expressive, exaggerated, and highly energetic movement. [1] Dance artist who started krumping saw the dance as a means for them to escape gang life. [2]
The root word krump came from the lyrics of a 1990 song and is sometimes spelled K.R.U.M.P., which is an acronym for Kingdom Radically Uplifted Mighty Praise, [3] and presents krumping as a faith-based artform. [4] Krumping was created by two dancers: Ceasare "Tight Eyez" Willis, and Jo'Artis "Big Mijo" Ratti in South Central, Los Angeles, during the early 2000s. [2] [5] [6] Clowning is the less aggressive predecessor to krumping and was created in 1992 by Thomas "Tommy the Clown" Johnson in Compton, California. [1]
In the 1990s, Johnson and his dancers—known as the Hip Hop Clowns—performed clowning for children's’ birthday parties and other general-public functions. [7] In contrast, krumping focuses on highly-energetic battles and dramatic movements which Tommy the Clown describes as intense, fast-paced, and sharp. [7] CBS News compared the intensity of krumping to that of moshing. [8] Although krumping was not directly created by Tommy, it was inspired by his “clowning”. [1] [6] [9] Originally, Willis and Ratti were clown dancers for Tommy, but as their dancing was considered too "rugged" and "raw" for clowning, they left and developed krumping. [2] Tommy eventually opened a clown-dancing academy and started the Battle Zone competition at the Great Western Forum where krump crews and clown crews could come together and battle each other in front of an audience of their peers. [8]
Expression is a must in krump because krump is expression. You have to let people feel what you're doing. You can't just come and get krump and your krump has no purpose.
—Robert "Phoolish" Jones;
Krump Kings [5]
David LaChapelle's documentary, Rize, explores the clowning and krumping subculture in Los Angeles. He says of the movement: "What Nirvana was to rock-and-roll in the early '90s is what these kids are to hip-hop. It's the alternative to the bling-bling, tie-in-with-a-designer corporate hip-hop thing." [10] LaChapelle was first introduced to krumping when he was directing Christina Aguilera's music video "Dirrty". [2] After deciding to make a documentary about krumping, LaChapelle produced a short film titled Krumped, [2] which was screened at the 2004 Aspen Shortsfest, and gained more funding to produce a longer version as a result of the positive response. [2] In 2005, the longer version was released as Rize and screened at the Sundance Film Festival, [11] the Auckland International Film Festival, [12] and several other film festivals outside the United States. [13]
Aside from Rize, krumping appeared in several music videos including Missy Elliott's "I'm Really Hot”, The Black Eyed Peas' "Hey Mama", Chemical Brothers' "Galvanize" and Madonna's "Hung Up". [7] Krumping is also demonstrated in Skinny Puppy's "Pro-Test" video, and displays several other aspects of krumping.
Krumping has also appeared in the movies Bring It On: All or Nothing , Stomp the Yard and Climax ; the television series Community; and the reality dance competitions So You Think You Can Dance , Street Dance of China, and America's Best Dance Crew . Russell Ferguson. The original web series The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers also featured a krump dance in season one during the fifth episode, "The Lettermakers." It has also spawned "Marge Krumping", a 2016 meme taken from The Simpsons episode "Little Orphan Millie," where the character Marge tries to cheer up Bart by krumping, albeit unsuccessfully.[ citation needed ]
Krumping has since spread to many countries around the world.[ citation needed ]
There are five basic moves in krumping: stomps, jabs, chest pops, jumps, and arm swings. [5] Krumping is rarely choreographed; it is almost entirely freestyle to a song (improvisational) and is danced most frequently in battles or sessions rather than on a stage. Krump is stylistically different from other hip-hop dance styles such as breaking and turfing. [7] Krumping is very aggressive and is danced upright to upbeat and fast-paced music, but it does not promote aggression or fighting – moves are meant to take up space and challenge other dancers to feed off and return the energy, whereas breaking is more acrobatic and is danced on the floor to break beats. The Oakland dance style turfing is a fusion of popping and miming that incorporates storytelling and illusion. Krump is less precise, and more freestyle, than turfing. Thematically, all these dance styles align under the term street dance as they all share common attributes of their street origins, their freestyle nature and the use of battling.
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