African Praise Dance

Connection to Krump:
While Krump is a fairly new dance style, a lot of the moves are derived from African Praise Dance. Many of the arm gestures and body movements of Krumpers come from African Praise Dance. The African tribes would use dance as way to physically worship their gods and to compete within their own tribes. Like Krump, this polycentric dance uses different parts of the body to create the motions that come together to become dance.

Purpose of Drums:
In African Praise Dance the drums are one of the key parts to the dance. The drums are drums of praise, they are drums of worship. They are part of the tradition to send a message to those that they are worshipping. They are the equivalent to our church bells. Each different drum beat represents a different message for the people who hear the beat. One message could be a village alarm clock and another could mean that it was time to return from work.

Modern day Dance:
The performances of praise dance are vibrant examples of the traditions and customs of Africa. Only now-a-days more and more people are becoming bitter from the loss of these customs and the changes that are happening. Many of the tribe's youths are starting to stray away from traditions because of Western influences.

Sources:

"history of krump." The History of Krump from LA to the rest of the world.... 15 Jul 2008 <http://www.krumpup.com/history_of_krump>.

Lowell, Piper. "Dancing to the Drums of Praise." (1995): <http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/1995/may15/5t6058.html>.

Image Sources:

LemonCat, "Botswana @ Epcot - 2." Flickr. Feb 18, 2008. 28 Jul 2008 <http://flickr.com/photos/lemoncat1/2275536394/>.-Permission to modify and use this image was granted on LemonCat's web page by Creative Commons License