While in Richmond last week, I got clued in on a new trend within the Hip Hop community. There is nothing but line dancing going on in clubs right now.

It seems that the no-name kids in Suburbia are becoming big Hip Hop artists by doing two simple things: inventing a dance and releasing it on youtube. This shatters the traditional model of the music industry. While looking into this new trend of dancing, I came across this article. This author states that:

Several years ago two interesting things started happening, at the street level, kids stopped fighting in the clubs, stopped buying cheap knock-off jewelry to look like the rap superstars and simply started battle dancing. Look at the number of rap videos today that don’t have any scantily clad women in them. All of Al Sharpton’s protests don’t really matter, the free market has a funny way of solving even complex social issues.

At the same time, many of the most influential DJ’s in the world (largely influenced by Diplo and Lowbudget’s seminal Hollertronix project Never Scared) took an interest in Baltimore (the genre, not the city) and mashing genres on top of heavily hip-hop influenced tracks.

I think these two trends are true but I would add a new twist to what the author says. It’s not about individualistic battles between groups anymore. No more “you got served” but more about the collective group dancing. Back to the roots of the line dance, etc. Most of these dance moves are so easy to replicate. Check them out for yourself.

Watch my Feet

Crank Dat Spiderman

Sponge Bob

Crank Dat Batman

Errbody on D

Lion King Dance