2007 Hot Issue

HOT DANCE: Footworking

You know an underground movement is heading above-ground when Verizon wants to use it in an ad. Such is the case with footworking, an urban dance born in Chicago twenty years ago. It's now going global thanks to a viral video featuring the dance for "Watch My Feet," a song by the hip-hop group Dude 'N Nem. The moves are similar to the frenzy of krumping, but leg-centric. "It's mental -- your mind really controls the body," says Charles Parks, a.k.a. "King Charles," Chicago's footworking battle champ, whose crew, Creation, is in the video. The style started back when house music began and kids mixed it with hip-hop; the result could get as fast as 140 beats per minute. Dude 'N Nem's Upmost terms their sound "outer-delic -- even though we come from the rough side of town, we do feel-good music." Parks agrees: "Footworking supports not fighting. It gets people off the streets." Parks and Creation will soon launch the first Web site devoted to the dance, footworkingz.com, and will appear at the San Francisco Hip Hop Dancefest in November. "Kids are thinking differently about it," says Parks. "They realize that it could be their career."