You may not see him, but you can see what effect he has on b-boys.

If you wanted to, you could probably make a pretty good argument that a lot of b-boy jams nowadays look more like workout sessions at gyms. You stretch. You warm up. You do some physically demanding stuff. You go home.

Not so for The Notorious IBE, says DJ Skeme Richards (who we wrote about here, and who wrote some dope stuff himself here).

According to Skeme, who’s attended the event twice, IBE is more like a shopping center than a gym. A really, really dope shopping center.

“It’s kinda like a mall with different stores going on,” he says via a phone interview. “It encompasses a bunch of other events, and it’s not all under one roof. There are various buildings within a thirty second walk away. Each thing is going on all at the same time.”

This year, one such thing will be a discussion led by Skeme along with DJ Renegade. Skeme says discussion topics will include the state of DJing, solutions for DJ problems at jams, and unqualified DJs.

But of course, no mall is complete without some b-boys trying to sneak in a session in a corner of the food court. Skeme says IBE brings out the globe’s grimiest.

“They don’t blow things too far out of proportion as far as the glitz and glamour,” he says. “Its more so like, we’ve got footwork battles. And it’s really the top footwork guys there. It’s not like this is the popular guys. These are like, underground guys you might not have heard of, but the illest around. These are raw competitions in this event. They keep it real down to earth, with a wholesome feel.”

Wholesome. Raw. Un-gym-like. Word.