This is easily one of the best b-boy features I have ever read.

Jeff Chang of “Can’t Stop Won’t Stop” fame interviews everyone from Bang Rock to C4 to Cros 1 to Ken Swift to Benson Lee to piece together a pretty comprehensive history of the Korean b-boy community based around R16.

I especially enjoyed it because it sheds a lot of light on some issues raised in our feature with Benny Ben.

Be sure to pay attention for some really neat tidbits about a lot of big-name Korean crews as well as some demystification about the Korean culture and government’s changing relationship with b-boying. It’s chock-full of great quotes like, “The b-boys, it’s not like they’re the most highly educated kids, but they’re good at what they do, and they put as much effort into practicing as the other kids do into the Korean SATs,” as well as the following passage:

While some fans on the message boards for “America’s Best Dance Crew” still don’t know what a “b-boy” is, the word in South Korea has become synonymous with national pride. B-boy contests around the world attract mostly young males, but the R16 Sports Complex is full of grandparents, high school couples and teenage girls in their school uniforms. When one holds up a sign that reads “I (Heart) Physics!” she isn’t referring to her college-prep curriculum, but to the 24-year-old, Bogart-faced, elbow-spinning star of the Rivers crew, Kim “Physicx” Hyo-Geun.

In South Korea, b-boying rules. The question even Americans are asking is, “How did this happen?”

Good stuff. This is the sort of thing that keeps me inspired to do what I do.

Check it out here.