A Party dance and FUnkstyle created by Sam Solomon aka Boogaloo Sam, out of fresno, California in the mid 70's with the West Coast Funk movement.
The quick tensing and releasing of muscles, often the arms,legs,back,chest and neck which creates a POP effect, designed initially to be done on beat to Funk.
A dance style that hails from California from which the originators are many, which is not to be confused with or to be related to boog aka boogaloo who's originator was Boogaloo Sam aka Sam Solomon, boogaloo is not popping as a whole. There are many different styles of popping that have many different originators most of which resided in Cali when the popping movement first took off in the U.S. making it also harder to distinguish when popping actually started to become popping.
A dance made up of the contraction of certain muscles to the beat of music combined with isolation movements performed to funk music. Popping as an umbrella term for Popping, Boogalooing, Strutting, Sac'n, Open Hand, ZigZag, Twisto-flex, Ticking, Waving, Snaking, Backslide, moonwalk, etc...