Although there seems to be some debate about it, I thought that the LXD’s performance at the Oscars was pretty fun, especially the part set to the UP theme music.
Of course that could have been due to me shouting out the name of every dancer I recognized under the assumption that it made me look cooler.
What did you think?
The Adidas track suit has been inextricably linked to b-boying since the battle at the Roxy in Beat Street. A group of guys in red track suits on the street can only mean one thing: TRACK MEET! B-BOYS!
Pat La Rock, the guy who brought us the Fog City Nights series (which ended recently with this dope last episode), put together this spot featuring some track suited b-boys getting down outside of an Adidas store, and then stealing someone’s wheelchair (in a nice way).
Thanks to Casanova Fresh for sending it our way.
The thing about talking shit… is that it’s hilarious.
What pisses you guys off in the b-boy scene right now?
We all hear it time and time again: b-boying started as a way for rival gangs to settle disagreements without violence. It’s a nice little idea. Even OG’s like KRS-One reference it in the video above with lyrics like, “We started breakin’ so we could stop fightin’.”
But something about it always seemed a little idealistic and borderline-sugarcoated to me. B-boying is now a worldwide phenomenon, yet scuffles and fights are still no rare occurrences at jams, battles and cyphers across the globe. How the hell, then, would have a group of pissed off, disenfranchised teenage minorities from the slums been able to stop a street fight long enough to settle through dance?
We can find the answer on Mr. Wiggles’s Misconseptions page:
HELL NAAAAA!!! SH#T WE GOT INTO MORE FIGHTS FROM BREAKING THAN ANYTHING. THAT WAS A MEDIA HYPE STORY THAT WE AS YOUNG BBOYS( WHO NEW THE TRUTH ) EVEN FELL FOR. DEFINITELY FAR FROM THE TRUTH
I’m pretty excited for this to come out. I don’t have a lot of knowledge about European b-boy history, so I’m glad that someone is out there trying to document it. Even if it is just one crew at a time.
I spend most of my days in front of a computer at work, and occasionally (all the time) I get to fool around and watch YouTube or browse some forums. Some stuff catches my attention more than others, so I figured why not share those things here. The following are some of the most interesting things I’ve come across this week.
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Powerful Pexster posted a pretty long rant on the Bboyworld.com forums calling for Alien Ness to be banned. The post was complete with different sized text and a video, and prompted some really interesting responses from both Alien Ness and Erwin.
I have a hunch that this is how b-boys look to some people.
Just substitute “Twistsonic Bust” at 18 seconds with the name of any powermove.
Okay, so there’s a total of maybe five seconds of actual b-boying in this. But what’s most striking to me is how seamlessly the dancing fits in with the rest of the video despite the fact that it’s not a conventional dance or hip-hop track.
In an age where most music videos use a quick powermove or freeze here or there as quick gimmicky eye candy, director Keith Schofield floods this video with every possible absurdity possible. And it works — or, at least, I think it does. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that it also features Charlotte Gainsbourg and Beck, two of the coolest people ever. What do you think?
At least it seems like every b-boy ever. Elizabeth Dell, producer of B-Girl, talked about this audition in our interview with her, her sister, and Lady Jules last year (see the 3:30 mark in the clip below), calling it “one of my top 10 days in my whole life.”
B-boys featured in this clip include Incredible Josh, Legacy, Spee-D, Flea, Venum, Luigi, K-Mel, Remedy, Do Knock, and Rainen. And probably some others I missed.
If you’re not familiar with Heelys, the first two definitions from Urban Dictionary do a pretty good job of covering the spectrum of possible definitions:
1. Sport shoes that have wheels housed in the heel that allow you to walk, run, and roll at any given moment.
I enjoy riding Heelys.
2. Pathetic attempt at an extreme sport, only little kids buy them to look cool to their friends, and for kids who gave up every extreme sport they tried.
If your seen in a skatepark with heelys chances are you’ll be beaten the shit out of
I talk about Rawbzilla a lot on this site, but it’s hard not to when his moves in a clip like this are still as relevant now as they were a decade ago.
In this recent interview with MikeyIce, the self-proclaimed “Lizard King” spends a lot of time talking about his inspirations and his thoughts on foundation, judging and biting. The audio and video quality aren’t the best, but depending on your level of patience and your willingness to sit and learn, this interview has the potential to be a game-changer.
Take, for instance, Rawbzilla’s stories about finding inspiration from carousels, cockroaches, Godzilla movies, the Grinch, and even tow trucks — apparently, after driving past a tow truck lift a car, he pulled over and immediately came up with a move on the concrete. “That’s zoning out and pretending you’re something you’re not,” he says.
UPDATE: You can watch the entire thing streaming online here (and it has an introduction by Maggie Gyllenhaal).
If we choose to believe Kool Herc (which is generally a good idea in my book [oh, and he was mentioned here in the New York Times today]), then the “b” in “b-boying” came as a result of the “break” in music that was looped and extended for the dancers.
Fast forward a few decades, and many those same breaks — whether sampled or otherwise — still get played as anthems for b-boys and for hip-hop in general. But how does that impact the original artists who played those songs?
What’s the deal with Pro-Keds? What about with Adidas Superstars? How do I keep my [insert material type here] sneakers clean? How do I match my sneakers to my outfit? Is it true that keeping your shoes clean is part of b-boying?
Ken Swift goes above and beyond by exhaustively answering the most trivial of these questions and more in this four-part (!) interview from reptank. No detail is overlooked, from the importance of light-colored midsole to improve footwork visibility to advice on keeping stitching and laces fresh. He even talks about using cologne to keep your Adidas stripes shiny. (Consider this fair warning that the average person will find this inexplicably boring, but I watched it all in one sitting.)
The interview itself is nothing too fancy, but there’s definitely something endearing about informal knowledge-dropping sessions like these. Factor in the fact that Ken Swift is still rocking floors, and it shouldn’t be much of a surprise to anyone that he’d be a shoo-in on our list of the top b-boys of the 2000s.
Hit the jump to see more of the interview.
I like Karmaloop, even though I don’t really have the money to buy from there very often. And I’ve been watching Karmaloop TV ever since I saw this crazy interview with Bigfoot One.
So I was pretty excited to see that they’d posted up an interview with Easy Rock from Rock Steady Crew. And even though I was disappointed at how short it was, I think he touched on some interesting and important subjects — most notably the fact that it’s alright to have hobbies outside of b-boying, saying:
“I’m not trying to be Mr. New York, Mr. Hip Hop or Mr. This, I’m just me and this is what we do. So there’s no fear of having to put yourself in one category. You can pretty much just do it all.”
Phew, now I don’t have to feel so self conscious about my floral-based stamp collection. I’M JUST BEIN ME!
Well, he didn’t feature a b-boy like last time, but it’s probably still worth getting exciting about this brand new stuff from RJD2. Why? His tracks “Bus Stop Bitties” and “1976″ are practically b-boy anthems, and he’s come back from doing more experimental vocal work to that funky stuff that b-boys and b-girls love.
Plus, it’s probably a safe bet that most dancers can relate to the dude in this video — getting pushed so close to the edge that you hit your “breaking” point.
And I can’t ignore the “horns” pun in the title — a bit reminiscent of another punny b-boy anthem, no? Expect his new to drop album on Tuesday, expect to catch him on tour through April, and expect to hear this song at jams from this point forward.
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