"Clowning" And "Krumping" (Information About These Two African American Originated Hip Hop Dance Forms)

Caffeine, May 24, 2021  

Get to know Thomas Johnson, the king of clowning, the godfather of krumping, and the leader of the T-Squad

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Konkrete vs Ruin | The ARK 2015 | @OneRoundCrew

Swarm Culture,  Jun 3, 2015

Konkrete vs Ruin at The Art of RAW Krump on May 23rd 2015

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Edited by Azizi Powell

Latest revision - May 2, 2024

This is Part I of a three part pancocojams series about the African American originated Hip Hop dance forms "clowning" and "krumping".

This post showcases one video of clowning and one video of krumping.

This post also presents information about the Hip Hop dance forms that are known as "clowning" and the Hip Hop dance form that is known as "krumping".

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2024/05/blog-post.html for Part II of this pancocojams series. That post showcases seven videos of the Hip Hop dance forms "clowning" and "krumping".

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2024/05/marge-simpson-krumping-video-clip.html for Part III of this pancocojams series. That post showcases a video clip of Marge Simpson krumping. That post also includes information about The Simpsons television series as well as information and comments about that particular episode of The Simpsons.

The content of this post is presented for historical, cultural, and entertainment purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to Thomas Johnson, also known as "Tommy The Clown", who created the "clowning" dance form. Thanks also to Ceasare "Tight Eyez" Willis, and Jo'Artis "Big Mijo" Ratti who created krumping.Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. Thanks also to all those who are featured in these videos and thanks to the publishers of this videos on YouTube.

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PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT OF THIS EMBEDDED VIDEO 
This is a partial transcription of the auto-generated English language transcript that accompanies the YouTube video that is given at the top of this post. I removed the time stamps and added punctuations and capitalizations for this transcript.  Additions and correction are welcome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0-3QHN2xBQ "History of Tommy the Clown - The Godfather of Krumping", published by Caffeine, May 24, 2021  

Transcript:

"Feel the music and you got to let yourself go. I look for people that know how to take music
and make music talk with your body.

[…]

It's your boy Thomas Johnson aka "Tommy the clown". I've been around since 1992.
They call me the Godfather of krumping.  They call me the father of clowning...being the originator,
being the one that started this whole atmosphere this whole wavelength…

Clowning and krumping-it's a similarity. 

Krumping -sometimes you can slow the music down.. There's a slower paced rhythm of aggressiveness of different type of energy moves and a wild factor.

When you come to clowning. I like to keep them smiling, keep it fun.  I like to keep it energetic. It's just like-We're clowns and we do birthday parties for kids and I feel like at a birthday party you don't
have to be so mean and so aggressive.. You can still put that energy out ".…

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OTHER ONLINE EXCERPTS ABOUT CLOWNING AND KRUMPING
These excerpts are given in no particular order and are numbered for referencing purposes only.

ONLINE EXCERPT #1
From https://www.facebook.com/CBMdancestudio/videos/celebrating-black-history-krumpingkrumping-is-a-street-dance-the-evolved-from-cl/272429618362794/ "Celebrating Black History: Krumping", posted by Casco Bay Movers, February 20, 2022 
"Krumping is a street dance the evolved from Clown Dancing or C-Walking.  It originates in Los Angelas, California in the South Central neighborhood.  It is impossible to talk about Krumping and its history without mentioning Clowning.

Clowning started in 1992 when Tommy the Clown started attending birthday parties as entertainment.  He was the hip-hop dancing clown.  He had kids young and old alike droppin’, poppin’,, and rollin’ with it.  Tommy is a ghetto celebrity that helped his community by being a role model and acting as a father figure for many young dancers.

The clowning movement took off and today there are over 50 clowning groups.  There are the House of Clowns, Cartoon Clowns, World Wide, No Comparison, Titanium, and Rice Track to name few.  A clown group entertains, shows up to parties, and performs in shows.  These clown groups feel they are doing something positive in a place where there is a lot of negativity.

Krumping came about when young Clowns got older and started to drift away from Tommy the Clown and his philosophy.  They wanted something new and original, something they could call their own.  They wanted to express themselves and felt they needed something different than “commercial hip-hop” that was gaining more attention in the media.

For a lot of Clowns and Krumpers it is the dance that they felt kept them alive.  They use the dance as an outlet.  Rather than joining a gang kids will join a dance group.  When people see Krumping they often think it is violent.  A Krumper said they are not fighting and in fact that is the last thing on their minds.  You can get pushed in your dance or battle but you don’t think anything of it.  It is just a part of the dance.  The dancers feel safe when they Krump.  Dancing is a comfort for those who have grown up in a violent neighborhood.

Tight Eyes is one of the most famous Krumpers."

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ONLINE EXCERPT #2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krumping
"Krumping is a global culture that 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] The people who originated krumping saw the dance as a means for them to escape gang life.[2]

Origins

The root word krump came from the lyrics of a 1990 song and is sometimes explained as a backronym for Kingdom Radically Uplifted Mighty Praise,[3] which presents krumping as a faith-based art form.[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]

Spread and influence

David LaChapelle's documentary, Rize, explores the clowning and krumping subculture in Los Angeles… 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.[1]

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.

Krumping has since spread to many countries around the world.

Style

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.”…
-snip-
This Wikipedia page also includes a “Vocabulary” section on terms used in krumping“.

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ONLINE EXCERPT #3 
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=KRUMP

[These definitions of  krumping are a small sample of those which were submitted to urban dictionary by the website's readers. These definitions are given in chronological order.

a)
definition submitted bycaroline June 27, 2005
"A style of dancing consisting of various chest pops, stomps, and arm swings. It is used to express one's feelings towards another through dance rather than violence. Please don't confuse krumping with clown dancing.

(See krumping)

The wobble ain't no krump move!"

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b)
definition submitted by Gabo Guerra July 26, 2005
"Krumping (also clown dancing or clowning) is a style of dance that originated in the African-American community of South Central Los Angeles, California. It involves elaborate face-painting and freestyle dance moves usually performed in competition with other crews.

The first clown dancer was Thomas Johnson aka Tommy the Clown, a former spokesperson for Gray Davis. He began in 1992 by using the dance to enhance birthday party clown acts. Soon he had a crew of followers gathered around him, who called themselves the Hip Hop Clowns. The underground movement soon spread beyond its point of origin, South-Central L.A. and Compton, to the rest of California and beyond. Currently there are around 50 clown dancing groups. It has entered mainstream hip hop culture by the performance of krumping in various music videos.

Krumping is intended as an outlet for anger and as a nonviolent alternative to the street violence widespread in many of the areas where it is performed. Consequently, its dancing style is fast and aggressive. It usually involves physical contact between dancers, which can often look like a fight to outsiders. However, the participants understand this to be part of the dance. In this respect, there is a certain parallel with the mosh pit in rock music (at least the good natured pits that don't get violent). While reminiscent of sped-up breakdancing, it transcends that genre, bringing in influences from diverse sources, the predominant one being African dance. A competition structure has developed as dancers vie for championship belts at contests like the original Tommy the Clown's Battle Zone. The dancers are organized into cliques (or tribes) that engage in face-painting. The cultural significance of this painting has moved beyond the clown image to symbolize ceremonial African war or dance paint.

Filmmaker David LaChapelle's short film Rize, which offers an intimate portrayal of the clown dancing subculture, was featured at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. He says of the movement: "What Nirvana was to rock-and-roll in 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."

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c)
definition submitted by Lady Active December 31, 2005
"krumping

A positive outlet for anger, a way of spiritual dancing and praise,a popular and fast growing style of hip-hop dance. It originated in the African-American community of South Central Los Angeles, California. It is free, expressive, and highly energetic, and is the newest form of the "Urban" Black dance movement

Rize shows how the homies are krumping and getting buck"
-snip-
Read my comment about the term "getting buck" in the comment section for this pancocojams post.

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https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=KRUMP&page=2

d)
definition submitted by Flatliner_me May 25, 2007
"krumping

Krumping is a form of dancing that originated in the African-American community of South Central Los Angeles, California and is a relatively new form of the "Urban" Black dance movement. It is free, expressive and highly energetic. Most people paint their faces in different designs.

When you are krumping you need to let out all of your anger and just go with the flow."

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ONLINE SOURCE #4
From https://www.steve-won.com/video/the-art-of-krump/ "THE ART OF KRUMP"

KAIZEN PICTURES, 2. May 2013
"The KRUMP dance event EBS hired me to create a video recap to get more attention about their event. The idea was to put the cretaor of KRUMP Tight Eyez and his brother Enforcer (R.I.P.) and their interpretation of KRUMP in the focus of this video.

The video gained a huge viral success.

Krump is a freestyle dance form popularized 2001 in the streets of South Central, Los Angeles (USA), that is characterized by free, expressive, exaggerated, and highly energetic movement.

The youths who originated krumping, ‘Tight Eyez’ and ‘Big Mijo’, saw the dance as a way for them to escape gang life and to release anger, aggression and frustration in a positive, non-violent way. This was an opposition to street violence, which was prevalent due to violent gangster activities.

With the cinema documentary ‘RIZE’ (2006) by the Hollywood Director “David LaChapelle,” Krump has spread all around the world.

Today, Krumping has world wide influence in the dance culture, but Krumping still has difficulty gaining acceptance by our society as an art form. Primarily, because people do not understand this dance form and its spirit."...

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ONLINE SOURCE #5
From https://www.quora.com/What-is-krumping-How-did-it-come-about-as-a-dance-form
"What is krumping? How did it come about as a dance form?
answered by Jagadish K, 2017, krumper for 2 years
"Krump (Kingdom Radically Uplifted Mighty Praise) is the dance,Art created by Ceasare Willis AKA Tight Eyez along with his best friend Mijo. It all started in the streets expressing the anger. You can see it widely in the Movie “Rize”.

As days passed, the culture developed worldwide like other dance styles and now there are many people around the world following Krump. There are different Krump Families around the world. Krump helps to express our feelings. It can be anger or joy. You can create your very own concepts to express yourself with the moves. Basically the moves are very powerful and you need extra stamina to Krump for a long time. Thanks to the creators for this beautiful Art."

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ONLINE SOURCE #6
From https://www.reddit.com/r/StreetWomanFighter/comments/17z0sqc/why_buckey_stopped_krumping/

r/StreetWomanFighter
summerinoz, 2023
"Why Buckey Stopped Krumping

DISCUSSION

I just watched Buckey's live and I remembered the reaction of some male dancers during SWF 1 as well. Dancing is such a small and tight knit community but there is also some gatekeeping esp within street dance and it makes me sad thinking abt it.

Buckey shared more details on why she distanced herself from Krump on her ig live today. People (I assume dancers) were saying what she was doing wasnt "real" Krump and even targeted her students so she and her students slowly distanced themselves from the genre. She was tearing up while talking about this so it must have really been a difficult time. During the worst dancer battle she really was contemplating until the last minute whether to Krump. Fans gave her the courage to Krump again during the mega crew and she's glad people want to see her do it so I hope she is able to do the genre again.

This is very summarized. The full ig live is still up on her IG if anyone want to watch and translate the whole segment."
-snip-
ig= instagram

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ONLINE SOURCE #7
Numbers are added for these comments for referencing purposes only. All of these comments are from 2023.

https://www.reddit.com/r/StreetWomanFighter/comments/17sr3v9/why_didnt_bucky_krump_on_the_show/
1. archyie1
"She said she hate but also love krump. Never mention the actual reason; however, we can speculate why in her speech when she went to her birthday café. She said she had been scold by others that she was TOO MASCULINE since the ratio of men is much higher than the women in the circle of krump. At that time, she went to tan her skin, to make herself more stronger. After doing these movements to make her more masculine, she started to think that was it the time to live more feminine? Then she considered she shouldn’t be like that(masculine) anymore, so she wanted to be prettier, and then started to learn make up, to care about her appearence. “Was it enough feminine? Was it enough to pleased others? Yes, it was.”

There’s other post of Buckey liked on instagram of talking about the thought of Buckey transformed to choreo by a Buckey fan( I’ll translate it if I have time)."

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Reply
2. fangirl24601
"Wow. I had no idea that she went through such a thing. While I'm glad that she learned how to doll up (because she's so pretty and I admire her beauty), it's kind of sad that she had to give up something she was passionate about just because of stereotypes/norms."

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Reply
3. Fragrant-Draft-9722
"Wow thanks for the insight! That's really sad that her dance specialty made her struggle with her self image :( "

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Reply
4. Tokio990
"Interesting, I would have love to see Bucky and Emma krump together though."

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5. hyejuhaseul
"I'm so sorry but why do 90% of swf2 watchers write "Bucky" pleaseeeeee its BUCKEY"

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6. watermelonchild801
"In mannequeen mega crew mission there is a segment where she krumps"

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7. [deleted]
"She currently does a primarily kpop style with Krump elements. Her usual style is like the “all we got all we got” section for their battle against 1 million when she’s the centre and the chorus section (I’m so bad bad but I’m so good good) of their second team battle vs Ladybounce which interestingly she’s also the centre for"

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8. stanTWICEstan
"Even if she does choreo now, most of her pieces involve krumping in some way which I love seeing. I think that's what makes Buckey's choreos unique to look at. Even if she's doing a more feminine style now, it still has that grit and power which is so refreshing to see."
-snip-
Click https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66wZ5Y7t_Ok for a 2012 YouTube video of Buckey krumping.

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This concludes Part I of this pancocojams series.

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