This book is a comprehensive, historical bible on the subject of urban street dance and its influence on modern dance, hip hop, and pop culture.Urban street dance-which is now referred to across the globe as "break dance" or "hip-hop dance"-was born 15 years prior to the hip hop movement. In today's pop culture, the dance innovators from "back in the day" have been forgotten, except when choreographic echoes of their groundbreaking dance forms are repeatedly recycled in today's media. Sadly, this is still the case when dance moves that were engendered from 1965 through the 1970s on the streets of Reseda, South Central Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, and Fresno, CA; or in the Bronx in New York City, are utilized by modern performers.In Underground Dance Masters: Final History of a Forgotten Era, an urban street dancer who was part of the scene in the early 1970s sets the record straight, blowing the lid off this uniquely American dance style and culture. This text redefines hip hop dance and the origins of a worldwide phenomenon, explaining the origins of classic forms such as Funk Boogaloo, Locking, Popping, Roboting, and B'boying-some of the most important developments in modern dance that directly affect today's pop culture.

AcknowledgmentsPrologue1. Forgotten Era-An Initial Spark2. 1965 and Soul Boogaloo3. The Oakland Funk Boogaloo Generation4. The Next Evolution in Oakland5. South Central Los Angeles6. Chain Reaction-The Valley Evolution7. Posing to Punking8. Oakland to San Francisco9. Oakland Funk Boogaloo to Popping10. The Bronx to the Burroughs11. Reduced to the Level of a ToyEpilogueNotesIndex