The crip-walk, also known as C-walk, is an American dance style. The crip walk originates from Los Angeles gangs in the 1980s and only became suitable for the media at the end of the 1990s. It began as a symbolic ritual dance through which the members of various gangs communicated with each other, and by the late 1990s it had developed into a well-established dance style of American hip-hop.
The crip walk was developed from a gesture of members of the "Crips", one of the two main African-American youth gangs in Los Angeles, who "wrote" letters, mostly their names, or typical terms of the gang scene, with their feet. The name of the opposing gang, the "Bloods", was also represented in this way and then crossed out.