When it comes to choosing music for class, Popin Pete has one rule: “It’s always going to be something groovy,” he says. That’s because he doesn’t want students to just hear the music—he wants them to feel it. “It’s a difference,” he says. “That’s on any level, whether emotionally or spiritually or physically. That’s what music is there for.”
One of the pioneers of popping and an original member of the Electric Boogaloos, Pete says most of the music he naturally gravitates to for class playlists is the music he grew up with—R&B and funk tracks from the 1970s and ’80s. But he also makes a point to keep up with current music trends, so he knows the songs that teenagers and young adults are listening to today. “I’m not that person from the older generation that knocks anything new,” he says. “I hear something that’s rhythmically pleasing, I put it on.”
More to the point, he also deliberately selects songs outside the box from time to time in order to give his students in both private and group classes what he calls “music challenges.” “Sometimes I put on classical music just to see people’s interpretation of movement to that music,” he says. He knows that as a working dance artist, you don’t always get to choose the music you perform to—you’re at the mercy of whatever the project is, and if you can’t pull it off, you won’t get the job. “You can’t come in there with your own music,” he points out. “If they say, ‘We’re using Western music’ or ‘We’re going to use heavy metal,’ I’m going to tell them, ‘Oh, yeah, I can do that.’ ” (Personally, he remembers one of his earliest dance jobs was popping to Beethoven’s fifth symphony.)
That’s why he strongly believes every dance student needs to be a student of music, as well. “If you’re going to be a dancer, study music,” he says. For instance, Pete says his brother, Sam “Boogaloo Sam” Solomon, taught him to analyze songs and distinguish each individual instrument when he was younger. “This is how I can dissect music so fast—because I learned to listen and pull out each sound. As I got older, I could dance off anything because now when I hear it, I’m already in it.”
Pete believes one of his biggest responsibilities as a teacher is to help students build this deeper connection to music. “A lot of people dance, or they sometimes just do movement, but not particularly groovement to the music,” he says. “People can teach you moves, but also they need to teach you music theory, musical movement, and how music is created, so you can understand it from that point of view.”
To help students better connect to what they’re dancing to, Pete sometimes has them speak the beat out loud as they dance. Other times, he’ll nix the music entirely in favor of having students dance to a metronome. “There’s a lot of people that dance off-beat,” he explains. “Some people are tone-deaf, and some people are beat-deaf.” By forcing them to vocalize the beat, or hear nothing but the beat, he says, their “musical inner clock” can better adapt to the tempo through their movement. “It becomes easier for them,” he notes.
These skills are essential because, for Pete, much of the joy of dance lies in the ability to bring music to life through movement. “I tell people often, as dancers, we’re just physical instruments. You have to become music.”
Here’s a playlist of Pete’s top 10 song choices for class, along with what he thinks about three of his all-time favorites.
“Ring My Bell,” by Anita Ward
“When I first heard that song I think I was 17 or 18, and I was like, ‘This is the jam.’ It became one of my all-time favorites. Not just for popping. It’s party dance music, too.”
“So Ruff, So Tuff,” by Zapp & Roger
“To this day, that comes on, I’m taking off. It just fills up my dance spirit.”
“Paint the Town Red,” by Doja Cat
“I love the structure of this song, using that ‘Walk On By’ sample, then putting the new beats with it. And Doja Cat used to be a popper before she got famous—you can see her in a battle on YouTube.” [Note: Save this song for your adult classes—the lyrics aren’t kid-friendly.]
