BREAKDANCING
BREAKDOWN - UK
from The Bomb Hip-Hop Magazine Issue #46 (April/May 1996)
A considered opinion by Fluent-C, Suspense, Toze, and Zia
B-Boy crews received top billing at Hip-Hop
jams and block parties, but that was long ago
and far-away. The time was the very late 60's
and early 70's. The place was New York.
Between then and now a lot has happened to
Hip-Hop, B-Boys and Breaking. All have
wanned and waxed in popularity during the
past quarter century, especially breaking. But
now Breaking is back and itıs time to remind
ourselves of its roots in the United States and
its chequered history in Britain.
The Seventies
Whether it began on the left or right side of
America remains open to debate. Here in the
U.K. we prefer to think both Los Angeles and
New York contributed to its development. In
New York, it was Kool DJ Herc, the very
first Hip-Hop DJ, who coined the phrase
B-Boy in 1969. The Jamaican-born performer
had developed a technique of mixing records
so that the dancing sounds never stopped. His
particular skill, later copies by legions of
others, was to meld the percussion breaks
from two identical records, playing the break
over and over, switching from one deck to the
other. Kool Herc called these 'Cutting Breaks'.
When he performed to Breaks at crowded
venues, such as the Hervalo in the Bronx, he
would shout loudly 'B-Boys go down!' and this
was the cue for dancers to cut and jump their
gymnastics. Even today nobody is quite clear
what Kool Herc meant by his phrase. Some
suggest B-Boys stands for 'Boogie Boy' while
others insist it means 'Break Boy'. The later
has become the favored choice. But who were
the original B-Boys and where had they
learned their skillz? Again the answer is fairly
straight-forward. They had simply adapted
what they had been doing on the ghetto streets.
The pioneers were members of New York and
L.A. street gangs who had taught themselves
martial arts - in particular a Brazilian style - to
defend themselves from attacks by rivals.
Because of this many dance moves appeared
aggressive and extremely violent during the
early years. For instance, 'Uprock', performed
correctly, can look very much like a scene
snatched from a old Kung-Fu movie. 'Uprock'
was probably the first form of Breaking. From
it springs many other moves to continue the
dance on the floor as a single rhythmic activity.
It was so convincing that many over-zealous
night club managers and their bouncers
interpreted the dance as a real fight in the
making. The fact is that sometimes is was.
While many youngsters learned quickly that it
was easier as B-Boys to receive approbation
from their peers and often earn large amounts
of money as well from their performances,
others still preferred to risk their lives and
limbs on the streets in the needless pursuit of
becoming gangstas. As a consequence some
dancers remained committed gang members,
determined to settle old scores and so
sometimes battles did erupt on the
dance-floors. Understandably the media
reported these incidents and very soon
Hip-Hop came to mean violence, crime and
general trouble-making in the public's eye,
although these negative qualities were found in
other entertainment areas as well.
Over on the West Coast, meanwhile, many
L.A. gangs were dancing in the streets too, but
each was trying to out-do the others by
showing off more complex and dynamic
performances, still influences by Kung-Fu.
What 'Uprock' was to New Yorkers,
'Locking' had become to the
Electro-Boogie-loving La-La youth. It had
been started by Lockatron Jon and
Shabba-Doo. Shabba was also responsible for
introducing New Yorkers to 'Popping', which
many claim to be the first, real hip-hop dance.
They even go as far as to say they were
performing it in 1969.
In New York local dancers added waves and
smoother movements to the 'Popping', and
that's the style which exists today. Soon it was
very popular in discos and part of the 70's
mainstream. At that time it was known as 'The
Robot' and a early exponent was Charlie
Robot who used to appear on American TV's
'Soul Train' program. He took his style and
added the pops and lock we recognize today.
'Locking', too, became part of the broad disco
culture and many dancers adopted Breaking
moves to expand their dance-floor routines.
We need to look no further than the movie
musicals of the 70's to underline the point.
Remember John Travolta's Saturday Night
Fever, 'Roller Boogie' and even the anodyne
Xanadu which starred the sweeter than sweet
Olivia Newton John, an Australian export
impossible to associate with Hip-Hop?
The Eighties
Everywhere new moves were being added to
the form and to popularize them Broadway
choreographers were sanding the raw edges
and trying to format moves into a style which
would not be out of place in 'Come Dancing'.
Mainstream pop artists were blatantly stealing
the B-Boy moves, claiming props for
originality, and offering themselves to the
suburban middle-classes as the ultimate in
street cred. Sanitized and safe, of course. The
ultimate 'lift' was probably used by Michael
Jackson in the 80's when he did the
'Moonwalk', thrilling pre-teens and their
parents, but the underground knew that the
man owed a debt to veteran funksta James
Brown. Brown had hatched the 'Goodfoot'
dance-style which led to 'Floating' which led,
yes, to the 'Moonwalk'.
'Popping', too, has been lost to its originator
and become part of the credit list of Jeffrey
Daniels, once with the hit-making group
Shalamar, while countless others assume Tik
& Tok invented 'Robotics'. Yet both moves
had been performed brilliantly by street kids a
decade earlier. Yet, without commerce kicking
its resources into Breaking, would it have
crossed the Atlantic and could it have
survived? We'll never know the answer, but
many underground crews earned a healthy
crust from show-business during the early 80's.
Record execs had found many of their artists
incapable of mastering the B-Boys moves and
decided instead to hire proper dance crews to
front pop records, made by session singers and
musicians to tease the public into believing it
was receiving the Coke of Hip-Hop, the real
thing. Rocksteady Crew, Breakmachine,
Uprock and the Motor City Crew were some
who sold their names and services for fronting
these releases.
Britain's first real sample of B-Boys and
Breaking came around 1982. It was handed
out by the last person anybody would have
expected, Malcolm Maclaren, who fathered
Punk and gave birth to the Sex Pistols. It
arrived as the full four DJing, MCing,
B-Boying, and Graf-Writing. A former art
student and today a shrewd money-maker,
Maclaren had released The Buffalo Girls. The
disc's video featured Breaking by none other
than The Rocksteady Crew, comprising Crazy
Legs and Frosty Freeze, a New York duo
who worked out in Central Park throwing new
shapes and often battling the likes of the
Incredible Breakers and Magnificent Force.
A bit later, The Rocksteady Crew appeared in
'Flashdance', the smash-hit movie of '83. They
also visited Britain and so impressed a bunch
of kids in Manchester that those kids decided
to become part of the Hip-Hop Culture and
call themselves Kaliphz, All this, coupled with
the label Street Sounds bringing out
electro-compilations, nourished the
underground and B-Boys began to pop their
heads above the sewer-covers to test the
climate.
All seemed good. Crews like The Furious Five
had made a hit with 'The Message' and Break
Machine was reaching out to the public at large
via 'Top of the Pops'. Jeff Daniels, dressed as
his alter-ego Colonel Pop, exposed Breaking
through the same show and his 'Popping'
astonished the home audience. At clubs, his
movements became the ones to copy if a man
wanted to impress his partner. It wasnıt easy,
but in south London, there were enough
devotees to fill a club whose members were
only Hip-Hop dancers. The club called itself
The Breakers Yard. 'Rap' and 'Breaking'
became familiar terms, if not always used
correctly - even by so-called Hip-Hop experts
at record companies (note: So nothing
changes?).
Young school kids - Black and White -
throughout the country were taking Breaking
to their hearts. Any chance to escape classes
and perfect moves was taken. Truancy was
the order of the day. For those who couldnıt
escape, school playgrounds were used to
practice. On the way home or downtown, it
was usual to see at least five other crews in
action. Sometimes youıd end up battling one of
them in a shopping center, only to be chucked
out for causing a disturbance if you were
caught by security staff. Later youıd chill with
your new-found friends, chat topics of mutual
interest and transcend the bull-shit barriers.
It all seemed so positive here in those days of
the mid-80's. If you were young, everybody
appeared to be involved in the Culture, either
as a Breaker, a Writer, Rapper, Beatboxer or
DJ. Perhaps you were a mixture of all.
Hip-Hop brought out the best in us. We saw
no reason why we could fail at anything if we
had the commitment. We would be able to
move our interest forward, improve them,
overtake what the mainstream offered. We'd
delve deep into Hip-Hop's history and give
respect to its creators. British crews were
receiving long overdue exposure on television.
There was Broken Glass on 'Get Fresh' and
The B-Boys on 'Saturday Superstore'. 'Blue
Peter' featured The London All-Stars and, in
'Rock Around the Clock', Rock City were
caught in the spotlight, breaking on chairs at
the word-of-mouth jam held in the Town &
Country Club.
Breaking was dictating the clothes people
wore, with name-brands thriving on the craze.
It began appearing on TV, not just in music
shows, but in soaps as well. There it was in the
'Eastenders' and in 'Grange Hill', not to
overlook the commercials for Carling Black
Label. Movie-makers were in on the act,
churning out their stuff, from 'Wild Style'
through 'Beat Street' to 'Breakdance'. There
were Electro Rock jams at London's
Hippodrome, Free-style '85 in Covent
Garden and UK Fresh '86 in the Wembley
Arena. And yet... Even the Royals were
getting into the act, although they may have
misunderstood the term 'Breaking' as
subsequent divorces suggest. The Buck House
Band had commanded The Rocksteady Crew
to entertain them at their annual hop, The
Royal Variety Show held in the company of
their friends, the enormously rich and famous.
Newspapers and magazines suddenly made
Hip-Hop respectable and so did the advertising
between the features. Everybody that thought
themselves sociological commentators
scratched and scribbed their thoughts, leading
to many futile intellectual debates where
experts circled themselves until they
disappeared up their bum-holes. The whole
thing had become blunted. There was no sharp
cutting edge left to the form. There was no
quicker way to kill an exciting street movement
than to have the Establishment join. Using
hindsight it's easy to see now that the whole
thing became too big, too quickly, and, as a
consequence, too loose. It became a source for
making easy money and no golden goose can
survive if it's force-fed to lay too many eggs,
too fast. In less than five years the bubble had
burst. Its mass appeal was lost. Once more it
went underground, kept alive only by a
hardcore minority. Before anything could
happen again, Hip-Hop and the British B-Boys
would have to get real.
The Nineties
A new generation took up the torch, Puma
States and Kappa track-suits. They studied
the culture and discovered groups like
Brooklynıs Stetsasonic, Eric B. & Rakim, a
duo from Queens who promoted a unity
between Rap, Rock and Jazz. 'I hold the
microphone like a grudge,' Rakim rapped, 'Eric
B. hold the record so the needle donıt budge.'
They were out to put the Funk back in
Hip-Hop.
And then there was Public Enemy. For the
Brits, here was a breathtaking crew, who
showed no mercy, took no prisoners. No
wonder they were dubbed The Black Sex
Pistols. Material by these groups was the kind
of stuff that stirred the hearts of young rebels,
but more was needed if the 90's were to see a
return of the B-Boys in strength with their
Breaking in the United Kingdom. Ironically it
wasn't an explosion of Rap and Hip-Hop that
was to do it.
It was sparked by the likes of Britain's Take
That, Euro-Poppers, Dr. Alban and
Germany's Snap who shot up the UK charts
with 'The Power', a clear case of hijacking
Chill Rob Gıs version. Snapıs video though,
along with those of the others, captured a lot
of Breaking and so raised its appeal once
again.
This 'new look' included new moves. 'The
Wop' and '2-Hype' free-styles became part of
the scene, popularized by the happy-go-luckly
Kid-n-Play in their 'Getting Funky' video and
the 'House Party' series of movies. True
Hip-Hop headz, however, were still turning
their backs on Breaking or, worse, abusing the
dancers. At some jams they even poured beer
on the floor to stop Breaking, claiming crews
were taking up their space and looking
ridiculous in their tracksuits. The breakers
persevered.
Now, in the decaying 90's, B-Boys are back.
There's massive interest in the dance form
within the context of British Hip-Hop culture.
The revival here is led by crews such as Born
To Rock, U.K. Rocksteady, Second To
None and others who have been featured
regularly at Hip-Hop jams up and down the
country. These days it's quite common to see
B-Boys advertised on flyers promoting Rap
and DJ acts.
Slowly the media has picked up these stories,
asked the right questions and reminded
readers, listeners and viewers how the scene
used to be. Some of the original Breakers have
been remembered and encouraged to
re-emerge from the underground to resume
their busting moves on Rap artists' videos.
Battles have resumed. The annual 'Battle of
the Year', for example, is an international
event held in Germany that is growing from
strength to strength. Recent contests have had
crews from several parts of Europe showing
off their skills. Last years battle was videod
and there are two versions on sale. In the 1996
Battle of the Year to be held September 6&7,
Born to Rock expect to find a place in the
finals, supported by DJ First Rate who works
with them at the jams. He rocks the house
with his cutting and Blemmer leads the
'Popping' routines.
After the wilderness years, Breaking is back,
again growing in respect as an integral part of
the Hip-Hop scene. Rap is no longer the only
representative of the culture upon which the
whole is judged. In south London, for
instance, the Ghetto Grammar Workshop has
introduced Breaking and Writing to its study
courses, alongside the existing Rap and DJing
classes.
What's strange is that while the majority of the
best jams are held in London, the elite
Breakers come from outside the capital. For
example, at a battle recently staged at the
Subterrania, both crews were from out of
town. Born To Rock was one, the other,
Second To None from Bournemouth. But it's
B-Boys like them who are taking the dance to
new levels and becoming more and more in
demand to perform at shows and Hip-Hop
jams. Once again they're the focus of
attention, making Hip-Hop more exciting and
complete. How long will the latest trend last?
Nobody knows, but weıre gonna enjoy it while
it does.
This article originally appeared in Downlow
Magazine issue #11. Re-printed in The Bomb
Hip-Hop Magazine by permission from
Downlow Magazine.
Email: pzb@usa.net
