For Run DMC it was unlaced Adidas. Whatever your brand of choice, trainers are essential footwear for budding b-boys and girls and their ilk. Street dance is a fairly loose term for what they do, encompassing funk dance, breakdancing (a misnomer), popping and locking. At the heart of it is the all-embracing term hip hop, as much of a philosophy as an often hugely commercialised music/dance/cultural genre.

Dance-wise it all started in the early 70s at block parties in the Bronx, where DJ Kool Herc noticed that the dancers loved the drum breaks in his funk records. He bought two copies of the same record and mixed them in a way that extended the break for the dancers — hence, breaking. He also came up with the term b-boy, which depending on who you consult means break boy, boogie boy, beat boy or Bronx boy.

Crews like the Zulu Kings and Dynamite Rockers would battle for supremacy, with rockin' fighting moves countered by downrockin'. Later, innovative West coast styles like locking, popping and boogaloo caught on, especially after Michael Jackson went robotic while singing Dancin' Machine on national TV. (He lifted the moonwalk from hip hop, too.) The moves gradually grew more acrobatic, with Crazy Legs and Frosty Freeze from the Rock Steady Crew showing off their backspins, headspins, windmills and the suicide in Central Park.

B-boy went truly mainstream, and global, in the 1980s thanks, in part, to the film Flashdance. After a dip in popularity there's been a steady revival in interest, with hip hop jams at clubs and festivals across the UK and Europe. Hip hop has featured in major stage shows like Jam on the Groove and Bounce.

Donald Hutera