Home History & Culture for the Hip Hop Generation excerpt

In 1975, the b-boying was a phenomenon in vogue among teenagers blacks in the Bronx, still too young to get into the club. Let's talk about some sort of private practice, a ritual consisting of stylized steps, learned in a friend's house or in the halls of the palaces of their neighborhood, to be shown during the party house but only because of the 

jam in the parks became a youth phenomenon of mass. The jam led the b-boying to a new level: it was the opportunity to be seen and show everyone the originality of his style. While the DJs invented new techniques to extend the duration of the break to infinity, the b-boy could extend the life of their routine, having more time to invent and experiment with new steps. The original form of dance practiced by the pioneers of the b-boying was performed in a standing position, from which the name toprocking. The structure of the toprocking embodies a blend of different styles such as uprocking, the tap dance, lindy hop on the good foot, salsa and Afro-Cuban dance and the 

Native Americans. One of the first crew appeared on the scene with a lot of hip hop b-boy following are the Herculords, the crew of DJ Kool Herc. During his party atmosphere was full of adrenaline and the center of the room there was always the circle - cypher - within which we faced. In its ranks Herc could boast renowned dancers such as Nigger Twins (Kevin and Keith Smith) and Clark Kent. In 1975, a group of young people who were part of the Zulu Nation Afrika Bambaataa formed the Zulu Kings. The members of this crew were Pow Wow (now, after MC in Soul Sonic Force), Amid Henderson, Zambu, Aziz Jackson and Kusa Stokes. The Zulu Kings were the first to organize themselves: they moved from one part of the Bronx to challenge other crews, even the less well-known. Inside the Zulu Nation there were also the Shaka Zulu Queens, and Queens, b-girl crew. In the area of Crotona Park, the crew hustler Salsoul counted among its members the first b-boy Latin. Between 1975 and 1976 the b-boying became the most popular dance among young blacks and Latinos in the Bronx and every place was good to confront not only the parties but also schools, halls of palaces, parks and docks the subway. Given the highly competitive nature of the dance and the environment in which he was born, where it exists only if it manages to stand out, it was not long before the b-boy childeren to their repertoire also close to the ground as the footwork and freeze .5 A b-boy entered the circle with some steps toprocking, he dropped to the ground, to embark on a very fast footwork, crystallized its action with a freeze before returning to the upright position and exit. Who was faster in footwork or freeze resulted in the most spectacular winner of the clash. "From toprocking and uprocking, dance has moved to the ground. They were introduced elaborate games of legs, then freeze, and then were mixed elements of toprocking and floor rocking. The style has evolved rapidly, "he says from C2" we were looking for the moves to display at the next party. Why are all the best b-boy would be there to compete. It's all to impress with a 

very personal style. "[6] The footwork took the name of footwork or floor rocking and in a short time he was created a vast vocabulary of terms to describe the new steps and freeze most imaginative and dynamic . The toprocking was not replaced by the floor rocking: basic and became complementary forms of the dance - the foundations. Even the style of the drop, the transition between top and floor rocking, it became very important: more 

fluid was the descent, most stylish way. The importance of taking the same entry and exit from the freeze, used to tease and humiliate your opponents. In the second half of the seventies the phenomenon began to involve more and more teenagers Latin and, specifically, the young Puerto Ricans who, although should approach the dance with a slight delay, in many cases showed a love more sincere than many bboy 

blacks. The young Puerto Ricans, fascinated by the dance, they were totally immersing into the new culture, contaminating, not without difficulty, the traditions of their land. Many pioneers of Puerto Rican b-boying were bitterly criticized for "deep attachment to the culture of the Negro." Despite this forcefully inserted themselves in the scene, becoming famous for the high levels of complexity athletic and acrobatic reached. Between 1976 and 1979, new crew began to proliferate in the Bronx involving a growing number of young Puerto Ricans. There were The Bronx Boys, Sure Sho Crew, Seven Deadly Sins, Rock Steady, East Side Junior, Rock City Rockers, Def City Boys, Floormaster Dancers, Universal Crew, Cold Crush Crew, Salsoul, Rockwell Association, 

Star Child La Rock Crew and Crazy Commanders with Spy, the man of a thousand moves (the man with a thousand moves.) 

In 1978 a new dance called the freak before, and subsequently Spank became fashionable uptown, and in 1979 if you were still with the intrippato b-boying were definitely out of fashion, danced something old, forgotten. Many teenagers who a few years earlier challenged to dance steps, without thinking about anything else, they were now teenagers with sexual feelings and a rebellious culture, and left the b-boying.Trace2 the crew TBB says: "In 1975, when I started, I was thirteen, seventeen in 1979. I grew up and I had seen the phenomenon lose importance. It seemed to me that the bboying was now out of fashion.Ourselves as adults, we tried to meet girls and some of us were 'lost' in the crime. Eravano immersed in the club scene in the disco scene. You would never go with a suit to dance to the ground in a club. What girl would have been in a stylish venue with a guy completely sweaty not worthy of a look until defeated opponents? At one point, many of us began to consider the b-boying as a thing of the ghetto, inelegant. So 

we stopped ". [7] For 1979, many of the original b-boy had disappeared from the scene and a new generation was laying the foundations of the phenomenon of breaking of the eighties. Richie "Crazy Legs" Colon, a boy who in 1977 was too young to be part of Rockwell Association, dedicated himself for over two years perfecting the fundamentals of b-boying becoming competitive enough to challenge anyone, just in the moment of greatest crisis phenomenon, many considered themselves too old to continue dancing on concrete, others had more serious problems to think about. The legends, the warriors were fading and major metropolitan crew were melting. When Colon moved from the Bronx to Manhattan, the situation became dramatic local teenagers did not even know what it was the b-boying! Despite the total isolation, he remained a 

de vote b-boy whose only dream was to form their own crew. He began to travel far and wide to Manhattan in search of challenges available. I met some people in the park between the 98th and Amsterdam Avenue: "I met Ty Fly first. He introduced me to Ken Rock, Frosty Freeze, Doze, Mania and Take One. I fought with each of them. But this is well known, because then it became my crew ". [8] The determination of Crazy Legs allowed him not only to train a crew, Jimmy Dee and JoJo, the original founders of the Rock Steady Crew, accepted them as a section of Manhattan's RSC. The new crew became a magnet for all those b-boy who had practiced the dance style popular in the Bronx: a sort of supergroup second generation. As well as the Rock Steady Crew,