Critical Reflection Essay (3 pages, APA)

F O U N D AT I O N

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FOUNDAT ION B-Boys, B-Girls, and Hip-Hop Culture in New York

J O S E P H G. S C H L O S S

1 2009

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Schloss, Joseph Glenn. Foundation : b-boys, b-girls, and hip-hop culture in New York / Joseph G. Schloss. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-19-533405-0; 978-0-19-533406-7 (pbk.) 1. Hip-hop dance–New York (State)–New York. 2. Hip-hop–New York (State)–New York. I. Title. GV1796.H57S34 2008 793.309747′1–dc22 2008029439

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Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

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Contents

Acknowledgments vii

1. Introduction 3

2. “The Original Essence of the Dance”: History, Community, and Classic B-Boy Records 17

3. “Getting Your Foundation”: Pedagogy 40

4. “We Have to Be Exaggerated”: Aesthetics 68

5. “In the Cypher”: B-Boy Spaces 94

6. “I Hate B-Boys—That’s Why I Break”: Battling 107

7. From Rocking to B-Boying: History and Mystery 125

8. Conclusions 155

Notes 159

Bibliography 167

Index 173

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Acknowledgments

This book is based primarily on my experiences in the New York City b-boy scene between 2003 and 2008. That community, like all communities, is built on relationships. This book, on every level, is a product of these relationships and the individuals who work to maintain them, and I would like to take a moment to offer my thanks.

One of the running themes of my work is that hip-hop did not “just hap- pen,” that it was the result of specifi c innovations and choices made by specifi c people in specifi c times and places. And even if we do not know—and may never know—all of their names and the exact nature of their contributions, we do know that they existed. So I would fi rst like to thank all of the pioneers of hip-hop, both known and unknown, who created this remarkably complex and vital series of art forms.

Second, I would like to thank all of the b-boys, b-girls, rockers, deejays, and others who have spoken with me, on and off the record, about hip-hop dance. The individuals who are quoted here represent neither a statistical cross-section of dancers in New York, nor an exclusive list of the most signifi cant b-boys and b-girls (though the list includes many I am honored to know). They are the people I have met as part of my experience. My relationship to each of them is slightly different from all of the others, and while everyone I spoke with was extraordinarily supportive and gracious, I would like specifi cally to acknowl- edge several of them.

MiRi Park, aka Seoulsonyk, has had a profound infl uence on this book as a friend, sounding board, reader, and consultant. While I accept full responsibility for any factual errors or general foolishness to be found in the pages that follow, her insight and critique has allowed me to substantially reduce both, and for that I will always be thankful.

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Ralph “King Uprock” Casanova ran a free, open b-boying practice every Thursday afternoon in the gymnasium of P.S. 93 in Ridgewood, Queens, for much of the time I was researching this work. He also sponsored monthly battles in the same venue. These events provided a kind of home base for my research, offering me not only opportunities to meet people, but also a chance to estab- lish continuity in my relationships with them. I am clearly not the only person who owes him a debt of gratitude, as there are very few contemporary b-boys and b-girls in New York who did not spend some time there at one point or another, benefi tting from both his knowledge about rocking and his organiza- tional skills.

One of the people I was honored to meet at one of Casanova’s battles was the photographer Martha Cooper, who was one of the fi rst outside documenters of hip-hop (the book that she coproduced with Henry Chalfant, Subway Art [1984], is considered not only a classic study of early graffi ti but also a signifi cant infl u- ence on the subsequent development of hip-hop culture). She soon became a friend, valuable critic, and connection to many of the more senior b-boys whom I was able to interview, including Alien Ness and Ken Swift. She also provided several of the photos for this book. Thanks, Marty!

The b-boys, b-girls, and others whose voices appear here are, of course, the heart of the book, and my appreciation for their help is boundless. My thanks go to Character, Phantom, Rob Betancourt, BOM5, Buz, Anthony Colon, DJ DV- One, DJ E-Rok, KaoticBlaze, Ken Swift, Kevski, GeoMatrix, Michael Holman, Eddie Luna, Mr. Supreme, Pedro “Pjay71” Martinez, Amigo Rock, Ru, Richard Santiago, Emiko Sugiyama, Tiny Love, Trac 2, and Waaak One. I would particu- larly like to thank PopMaster Fabel and Alien Ness, who have served as older brothers/gurus (a rare and underappreciated combination to be sure), helping me to understand the culture, challenging me when necessary, and keeping me going when my energy fl agged.

In this project, there were a huge number of b-boys and b-girls whom I spoke with informally or briefl y, but whom I was not able to formally interview due to time limitations. I would specifi cally like to thank Kwikstep and Too Sweet in this regard, and I apologize to any others who may fall into this category.

Beyond that, there have been a number of people whose advice, critique, and support have been essential to this manuscript. My editor at Oxford University Press, Suzanne Ryan, has been an ongoing source of energy, inspiration, and valuable advice, and I am deeply thankful. I would also like to thank Oxford’s anonymous reviewer, whose thoughtful critique contributed substantially to both the tone and nature of this work.

Other individuals whose valuable insight have affected the specifi c content of this book include Lynne Fredricksen, Kyra Gaunt, Jocelyne Guilbault, Benson Lee, Benjy Melendez, Wanda Melendez, Elizabeth Mendez-Berry, T. J. Desch

ixAcknowledgments

Obi, Marc Perlman, Raquel Rivera, Francis Rodriguez, Grete Viddal, Oliver Wang, and Christie Z-Pabon.

People who have provided less specifi c, but no less important, insight into hip-hop culture and/or life in general include Bill Adler, Harry Allen, Adisa Banjoko, Howie Becker, Mike Beckerman, Jane Bernstein, Andy Brown, Jalylah Burrell, Garnette Cadogan, Dan Charnas, Lisa Coleman, Njeri Cruse, John Elstad, Sujatha Fernandes, Marcella Runell Hall, Mae Jackson, Imani Johnson, David Locke, Wayne Marshall, Ivor Miller, Ingrid Monson, Sarah Montgomery- Glinski, Matt Morin, Mark Anthony Neal, Dawn Norfl eet, Deborah Pacini Hernandez, Lara Pellegrinelli, Holly Beth Plowman, Guthrie Ramsey, David Sanjek, Jay Smooth, Jason Stanyek, Chinua Thelwell, and Jessamyn West. I would particularly like to thank Jeff Chang, who has helped me to sift through many of the ideas in the following pages, and Joe Conzo, who provided an excellent photo of PopMaster Fabel.

Institutional support of both a material and spiritual nature has been provided by Tufts University, New York University, Baruch College of the City University of New York, the Experience Music Project, the Society for Ethnomusicology, and All-City Thinkers. And a special shout to all Flavor magazine alums.

Finally, my deepest thanks to my family tree: John and Suzanne Schloss, Sara Schloss Stave, Channing M.-L. Stave, and Stratton Stave, the b-boy of the future.

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F O U N D AT I O N

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3

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Introduction

Hip-hop is a problem. It is the cultural embodiment of violence, degradation, and materialism. Hip-hop is rappers exploiting women in videos and shooting each other in front of radio stations. Hip-hop is parties on $20 million yachts and Cam’ron claiming that he would never “snitch” to the police, even if he knew that a serial killer was living next door. It is a multi billion-dollar industry based on debauchery, disrespect, and self-destruction.

Yet, when I think of hip-hop, I think of shopping for rare funk records on a Saturday afternoon. I think of a 12-year-old girl defeating two older boys in a dance battle as her mother proudly videotapes her. I think of people from all over the world popping and locking in Manhattan’s Union Square as the sun sets on a hot summer evening. I think of Zulu Nation founder and deejay pioneer Afrika Bambaataa wandering around a jam, happily taking pictures of random strang- ers—including me—as if we were his nieces and nephews.

That, to me, is hip-hop. So why is the hip-hop I’ve been experiencing so different from the hip-hop

that I see on television and read about in books? After all, it’s not as if the hip- hop portrayed in the media doesn’t really exist; it does. But hip-hop, as both a community and an art form, is far more heterogeneous than it is given credit for. Should that make its more troubling aspects immune to criticism? Not at all. If anything, hip-hop’s conceptual diversity actually encourages criticism: that’s what battling is all about. And just as it would be an insult to refuse to battle someone, it would be an insult to refuse to critique them. It would mean that you didn’t take them—or their point of view—seriously. When it comes right down to it, the most sincere, most effective, most passionate critic of hip-hop has always been hip-hop itself.

But to understand hip-hop’s powerful self-critique, we need to understand hip-hop on its own terms. Not only because it has interesting symbolic, political,

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and social implications (although they are important), not only because it con- fi rms our theories about the work of art in the age of electronic reproduction (although that’s valuable, too), but simply because the way hip-hop sees the world is itself a legitimate and consistent and fascinating intellectual system. And dance is a crucial part of that system.

For most people, “breakdancing” belongs somewhere between parachute pants and Rubik’s cubes, a Reagan era fad that lingers only as a punch line, if it lin- gers at all. From that perspective, the idea that the dance could have a serious contribution to make to the discussion of hip-hop’s infl uence in American cul- ture may seem laughable. But to its adherents, b-boying (its correct name) is no joke. It is a profoundly spiritual discipline, as much a martial art as a dance, as much a vehicle for self-realization as a series of movements. “Ultimately, in so many ways, I just feel like b-boying is . . . a metaphor for life,” says MiRi Park, also known as b-girl Seoulsonyk, a dancer and writer in her late 20s. “And the culture . . . is a culture that the world should aspire to be. . . . Hip-hop, just its ide- ology, allows you to be the best person that you can possibly be, which is not what I get from mainstream culture” (Seoulsonyk, interview). Even hip-hop’s staunchest defenders may have to take a moment to digest such a statement. It is relatively easy to rationalize hip-hop as a necessary evil whose value lies pri- marily in its role as a diagnostic tool for the ills of America. But few would go so far as to say that hip-hop in and of itself can actually make you a better person. Few would say that America should not only accept hip-hop grudgingly as bitter medicine, but actually embrace and support it as something valuable for its own sake. So how can we explain this discrepancy?

A large part of the confusion is semantic. The term hip-hop is used to refer to three different concepts, which—although they do overlap—are distinguish- able from each other. In the fi rst sense of the term, hip-hop refers collectively to a group of related art forms in different media (visual, sound, movement) that were practiced in Afro-Caribbean, African American, and Latino neighborhoods in New York City in the 1970s. The term, when used in this sense, also refers to the events at which these forms were practiced, the people who practiced them, their shared aesthetic sensibility, and contemporary activities that maintain those traditions.

Perhaps the most important aspect of this variety of hip-hop is that it is unme- diated, in the sense that most of the practices associated with it are both taught and performed in the context of face-to-face interactions between human beings. To some degree, this constitutes an intentional rejection of the mass media by its practitioners, but to a great extent it is just the natural result of the practices themselves. Activities like b-boying and graffi ti writing are simply not well suited to the mass media. Although in both cases, brief attempts were made to

5Introduction

bring these forms of expression into mainstream contexts (b-boying in a series of low-budget “breaksploitation” movies in the early 1980s and graffi ti as part of a short-lived gallery trend around the same time), neither developed sub- stantially in those environments. This, it has been suggested, was not so much because the forms lacked appeal, but because—on an economic level—b-boy- ing was an advertisement with no product.1 This reality is refl ected in the phrase that is often used to refer to this branch of hip-hop: “hip-hop culture,” which suggests something that is lived rather than bought and sold.

The second sense of the term hip-hop refers to a form of popular music that developed, or was developed, out of hip-hop culture. This hip-hop, also known as “rap music,” resulted from the interaction between hip-hop culture and the preex- isting music industry. As we would expect, this hip-hop features elements of both sensibilities. My students are often surprised when I point out that, even when hip-hop lyrics seem to reject every aspect of mainstream culture and morality, the one thing they almost never reject is a strict 16-bar verse structure derived from Tin Pan Alley pop music. But this should not be surprising. This hip-hop, in con- trast to hip-hop culture, is deeply intertwined with the mass media and its needs, largely because it does have a product: records, CDs, MP3s, and ringtones.

Although the concept of hip-hop as popular music is commonplace now, it was far from self-evident that such a thing would emerge. It is often forgotten that hip-hop existed as a culture and performance context for at least fi ve years (1974–1979) before it became a genre of popular music. For many in that era, the idea of hip-hop as a product was literally unthinkable. “I did not think that it was conceivable that there would be such thing as a hip-hop record,” Chuck D of Public Enemy told writer Jeff Chang. “I could not see it. . . . I’m like, record? Fuck, how you gon’ put hip-hop onto a record? Cause it was a whole gig, you know? How you gon’ put three hours on a record?” (Chang 2005:130). Chuck D’s comments point up the broad chasm between hip-hop as an experience (hip- hop culture) and hip-hop as product (rap music). It is worth emphasizing that I am making the distinction between “hip-hop culture” and “rap music” on practi- cal grounds, not moral or aesthetic ones. The “rap music” category includes all commercially recorded hip-hop, both “mainstream” and “underground,” from the most culturally uplifting to the most destructive.

Finally, the term hip-hop is increasingly used as a kind of loose demographic designation for contemporary African American youth, regardless of whether or not they have any overt connection to rap music or to other hip-hop arts. This is the sense of hip-hop that is evoked by such phrases as “hip-hop attitude” and “the hip-hop generation.” Hip-hop, in this sense, is usually invoked to empha- size age and class over race when singling out young African Americans, either for praise or criticism. At its best, this makes social distinctions more precise without sacrifi cing their relevance to readers. Used more opportunistically, the

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term allows writers the freedom to generalize broadly without appearing to traf- fi ck in racial stereotypes.

The demographic sense of the term can be seen in a Chicago Sun-Times op-ed piece titled “Hip-hop Attitude Leads to Mayor’s Downfall,” in which hip-hop is blamed for the misbehavior of Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick:

Kilpatrick’s real mistake was in believing the hype that is hip-hop. It’s a culture stuck in perpetual teendom, where artists, trends and music constantly morph into new states of hipness to maintain credibility. To the extent to which this evolution creates better art, great. But the pressure, for example, for young girls to eschew their natural beauty in favor of the Lee-Press-On-Hair good looks of the newest video ’ho, well, there’s something morally corrupt in that. That young men know droopy jeans origi- nated in prison culture yet still embrace that look in the name of coolness is corrupt.

Hip-hop has a jewel-encrusted veneer that covers some pretty rotten values. We see rappers surrounded by scantily clad women sipping Cristal by their pools, as fl aunted on TV reality shows. We see a generation of young women determined to use their feminine wiles to get ahead instead of valuing the education they can put in their heads. (Oh, why is Flava Flav even a phenomenon?) We’ve even embraced a woman who once called herself SupaHead. Illegal drug use, marijuana, is encour- aged. (Douglas 2008)

Similarly, in an online column, Jason Whitlock blames hip-hop for the lack of discipline among contemporary football players:

Hip hop is the dominant culture for black youth. In general, music, especially hip hop music, is rebellious for no good reason other than to make money. Rappers and rockers are not trying to fi x problems. They create problems for attention.

That philosophy, attitude and behavior go against everything football coaches stand for. They’re in a constant battle to squash rebellion, dissent and second opin- ions from their players. . . . What we’re witnessing today are purposeless, selfi sh acts of buffoonery. Sensible people have grown tired of it. Football people are recognizing it doesn’t contribute to a winning environment. (Whitlock 2007)

More positive versions of the demographic sense of the term hip-hop have been produced by Bakari Kitwana, who coined the term “hip hop generation” (Kitwana 2002), and Jeff Chang, who writes:

Kitwana grappled with the implications of the gap between Blacks who came of age during the Civil Rights and Black Power movements and those who came of age with hip-hop. His point was simple: a community cannot have a useful discus- sion about racial progress without fi rst taking account of the facts of change. . . . My own feeling is that the idea of the Hip-Hop generation brings together time and race, place and polyculturalism, hot beats and hybridity. It describes the turn from politics to culture, the process of entropy and reconstruction. It captures the collec- tive hopes and nightmares, ambitions and failures of those who would otherwise be described as “post-this” or “post-that.” (Chang 2005:2)

7Introduction

It is clear, then, that many misunderstandings about hip-hop stem from a confusion of terms, or perhaps a deeper confusion between the concepts that those terms represent. The three kinds of hip-hop—hip-hop culture, rap music, and hip-hop attitude/generation—are closely related to each other, but they are not the same thing. If, for example, one were to apply Douglas’s sense of the term hip-hop (“scantily clad women sipping Cristal by their pools”) to Seoulsonyk’s comment above (“Hip-hop . . . allows you to be the best person that you can possibly be”), Seoulsonyk would appear misguided to the point of psychosis. In reality, however, Seoulsonyk (who holds an Ivy League graduate degree) is using the term hip-hop to refer not to a world of poolside debauchery, but to the discipline and aesthetic principles associated with a traditional form of Afro-diasporic competitive dance that she learned directly from one of its early practitioners, Richard Santiago. Taken in that context, her words seem entirely sensible.

I am not suggesting that any one of the three senses of hip-hop is inher- ently more legitimate than the others. Quite the opposite: hip-hop’s strength lies precisely in the diversity of its concepts and practices. Trying to weed out the good hip-hop from the bad (or, more commonly, the “authentic” from the “com- mercial”) sets up a loaded and almost completely useless distinction. And when that distinction is applied to scholarship, it can distort the work in any number of ways. The most obvious of these is the romanticism that so often accompanies the campaign for moral legitimacy in hip-hop. Academic scholars’ tendency to ascribe the loftiest motives to the most mundane choices made by hip-hop prac- titioners is the main reason that most hip-hop scholarship is considered laugh- able by the hip-hop community. At the same time, this tendency has also created a kind of backlash. The fact that many academics have overstated hip-hop’s profundity may tempt others to actually understate profundity where it really does exist, just to avoid being associated with academic romanticism. This ten- dency exerts a particular infl uence on works, such as this one, that attempt to address the unmediated, cultural aspects of hip-hop. Finally, the overemphasis on morality positions the good-versus-bad question as the defi ning factor in any individual or group’s attraction to any given aspect of hip-hop. This, in turn, presumes that interest in certain aspects of hip-hop, and not others, is based pri- marily on moral grounds. Other possible motivations, such as personal aptitude or pure aesthetic appreciation, recede into the background.

As I have discussed elsewhere with regard to sampling, the disproportionate emphasis on questions of morality—positive or negative—in hip-hop has tended to distort its portrayal in both scholarly and popular writing:

I believe that the main reason that the indigenous discourse is overlooked is that it is not primarily concerned with the issue that most sympathetic researchers are interested in: justifying the use of sampling. By this I mean that most scholars seem

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concerned with demonstrating ways in which sampling, despite its rejection of live instrumentation, is consistent with more conventional value systems, whether those be social, political, musical, or otherwise. Hip-hop producers, by contrast, are rarely interested in such moves because for them sampling doesn’t require justifi cation on any grounds; it is the foundation of the musical form. (Schloss 2004:66–67)

Academic writers are often consumed with hip-hop’s moral or artistic legiti- macy, a pursuit that necessarily focuses on the relationship between the subject of their study and the standards of whatever outside authority the argument is appealing to. This naturally tends to downplay the artistic discourse going on within the community. While this is true for discussions of all varieties of hip- hop, it takes specifi c forms when it comes to b-boying.

Perhaps the most obvious of these is a hesitancy to focus on the body in dis- cussions of the arts of the African diaspora, for fear of implying that the activity is not intellectual. While that fear is based on Eurocentric mind-body distinc- tions that have long since been debunked, the issue remains sensitive. As Kyra Gaunt has written:

The tendency to accentuate the “positive” (the artistic) and diminish the negative (embodiment, sexualized dancing, unequal gender relations within black culture) has led to fi xations on the analysis of musical sounds and textures at the expense of the embodied and gendered social relations expressed in black music practices. (Gaunt 2006:7; emphases in original)

Another reason that the internal discourse of b-boying has been overlooked is that most academic hip-hop scholarship still operates within the framework of literary analysis and culture studies. Literary analysis naturally tends to emphasize forms of expression that are specifi cally concerned with the art- istry of language, while culture studies tends to emphasize forms of expres- sion that are deeply engaged with the mass media. Both naturally make use of modes of inquiry that are well suited to those areas of study, in particular the abstraction of processes into texts and their subsequent analysis as such. But this approach has two negative effects when it comes to studying the practice of b-boying. First, it puts the theory in the hands of the scholar, thus implying that b-boys and b-girls do not have their own theories about what they do, which is clearly not true. And second, in doing so, it relieves the scholar of the obligation to actually engage with the community. In the case of something like rap music, which is intended to be experienced by people who have no personal relationship with the artist, this may not be a substan- tial liability. But in the case of b-boying, which is intended to be experienced in person, such an approach can distort its subject to the point of invisibility. Unmediated hip-hop, by defi nition, cannot be understood without becoming personally involved in it.

9Introduction

In retrospect, it seems strange that I didn’t become interested in b-boying until almost 20 years into my relationship with hip-hop. But then, on the other hand, why would I have? B-boying doesn’t really exist in the mass media. Like most b-boys and b-girls, I was introduced to it by people I met along the way, and if I had never met them, I would probably still be largely unfamiliar with it. In fact, b-boying’s unmediated character has profoundly affected its relationship to other aspects of hip-hop, in several ways.

Foremost among these, as I mentioned earlier, is its connection to the role of the body in the experience of other aspects of hip-hop. While many hip-hop scholars acknowledge the signifi cance of dance and physicality, very few actu- ally address the body in any depth (one notable exception, very infl uential on the present work, is Gaunt 2006). In reality, dance and movement are indispens- able to the understanding of hip-hop culture, since physical movement underlies virtually every element of its expression. As I mentioned, this is part of a larger tendency among writers—scholarly and popular alike—to focus on the product of hip-hop over the process. This is primarily due to hip-hop’s collision with the popular music industry in 1979. That interaction resulted in a mass-produced physical product, the rap record, becoming the most widely known aspect of hip-hop culture. In response, writers, critics, and scholars developed ways of looking at hip-hop that were designed to analyze a mass-media object. But those approaches tend to focus on the result, the recording, rather than the process that created it. The physicality inherent in that process—the way a producer moves as he hits the sample pads or nods his head when trying to “lock up” a beat; the way an emcee shifts her weight back and forth to the rhythm, emphasizing her words with broad slashes of her hands—receded into the background. But a more inclusive view of hip-hop shows the mind-body connection to be at the very core of its aesthetic.

An introduction to the practice of graffi ti writing, for example, actually pres- ents a series of yoga-like training exercises that students are expected to com- plete before even picking up a spray can:

These exercises are suggested to all writers as a way of maintaining the body’s painting abilities, and of keeping the essential painting body actively engaged in physical and kinesthetic activities related to spray-can use. . . . One must learn how to use the entire body for painting. The painting stance has often been compared with fencing. The body must be able to bend low, reach high, and make adjust- ments, all within the frame of its physical ability to do so. (Raven 2007:232)

And in his discussion of deejay battles, Mark Katz devotes a substantial amount of space to the deejays’ movements:

In addition to the verbal and instrumental aspects of a routine, the physical element can be just as crucial. Part of the appeal of a successful routine is the sight of the

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swift and intricate motion of the DJ’s hands; in fact, it is sometimes hard to appre- ciate the diffi culty of a routine without seeing it. . . . To make their virtuosity clear to audiences and judges—and in fact, to make their routines even more demand- ing—DJs often employ what are called “body tricks.” These moves do not—or should not—affect the sound of the routine, but add to its visual appeal and level of diffi culty. This may involve spinning in place between beats, or scratching or juggling the records with the hands under the legs or behind the back. Sometimes DJs will use any part of the body other than the hands (which can lead to rather lewd gestures). Body tricks often act as self-imposed hurdles for the performer to overcome, though sometimes they’re purely for show. (Katz 2004:126)

Since dance, quite naturally, is the aspect of the culture in which physical movement is the most thoroughly abstracted, analyzed, and realized, its prin- ciples in many cases can be productively applied to the physical aspects of other hip-hop arts. In fact, since beginning this project, I have started to make students in my hip-hop classes dance at the beginning of each meeting to the music we will be discussing that day. I have found that there are things that one can learn about a song instantly by dancing to it, which might take hours to articulate verbally. When you discover what kinds of movement can be performed to a song—and what kinds cannot—you discover a wealth of information about the social and physical environments in which it was intended to be heard, how the musicians viewed those environments, what their priorities were, and so forth. One of the most profound experiences I’ve had as an educator was when stu- dents in my spring 2007 Hip-Hop and American Culture class at Tufts University insisted on ending the semester by dancing together. I plugged in my iPod and dropped the sureshot “Scenario” by A Tribe Called Quest, as the entire class spontaneously formed a circle and students took turns in the middle showing off their best moves. The fact that, to this day, I am unable to articulate the power of that moment in words only proves my point.

Another area of hip-hop into which b-boying can provide deep insight is the role of competition and the specifi c ways it can affect one’s outlook toward cul- tural production. This is an important factor in any discussion of hip-hop culture and one for which b-boys and b-girls have developed a highly sophisticated analysis. Battling is foundational to all forms of hip-hop, and the articulation of strategy—“battle tactics”—is the backbone of its philosophy of aesthetics. And, again, since these tactics are part of the process, and thus largely invisible in the fi nal product, they are frequently overlooked. This is particularly the case as many battle tactics address the things one shouldn’t do, strategies that leave one open to attack. But of course the casual observer can’t see the things that an artist doesn’t do, so those things—crucial as they may be—often go unnoticed. When Eminem fi rst came to prominence, for example, several emcees told me that the most surprising thing about him was that he insulted his own mother, a

11Introduction

move that was not only morally suspect but also the battle equivalent of forfeit- ing. The strategic avoidance of this subject on the part of other emcees, to my knowledge, had never been noted by any writers. B-boying, since its primary expressive environment is the battle, is more explicit than most other elements in articulating its battle strategy, at least if one is inclined to ask. Like its articu- lation of physicality, b-boying’s articulation of competition can also provide a valuable perspective for other elements of hip-hop.

B-boying also illuminates another of hip-hop culture’s most distinctive fea- tures: it was designed not only for teenagers, but by teenagers. The original hip-hop culture, taken as a whole, includes almost everything an adolescent could be interested in: music, dancing, sports, vandalism, fashion, various games and pastimes, art, sexuality, the defi nition of individual and collective identities, and numerous other activities. But what’s even more striking is that, rather than leave these pursuits behind as they entered adulthood, many of these teens simply made them more elaborate and sophisticated as their mentality matured. The result is that the pioneers of this art form have been refi ning their aesthetic for upward of three decades, are still a vital part of the community, and are barely even in their 40s. During the course of my research in New York City, I regularly saw DJ Kool Herc at hip-hop events and enjoyed pointing him out to friends: “See that guy sitting on the picnic table over there? He invented hip-hop. No, seriously.” The result is that young adherents who live in New York cannot help but have a deep sense of history, even if they don’t consciously realize it. The vast majority of serious b-boys and b-girls in New York have studied directly with the elders of the art form, and even those who haven’t are still affected by the presence of these individu- als in their environment.

Waaak, a b-boy and graffi ti writer in his mid-20s, for example, notes that one of his infl uences in rocking—a hip-hop dance form closely related to b-boy- ing—was a mysterious, possibly homeless, man that he met one night while writing graffi ti in Bushwick, Brooklyn:

So we’re walking with the guy. We’re drinking 40s.2 . . . And we’re talking. And we’re walking down Knickerbocker Avenue, and he’s like a old Spanish guy. . . . And he’s just blessing me with history on Bushwick, you know? He’s blessing me with some stuff I didn’t know.

And . . . he said something about dancing and we made some comment about rocking. . . . So the guy hands my boy the 40, and he starts [dancing]. Next thing you know . . . the sun is coming up. We stop painting. And I stood on the corner with this guy, rocking with him for like a hour. You know what I’m saying? Like, some random drunk dude . . . I’ve never seen him in my life! But he was, like, doing some shit I’d never seen. . . . I was seeing shit from this guy that was: “Oooooh, shit!” Like, “What?”

Foundation12

And the guy was being a little vague, and he wasn’t giving too much [information]. . . . He really didn’t understand why or how important it was to me. But . . . [just] seeing him getting down. And seeing such a different rocking style from what I had been knowing the last three or four years, was incredible.

So, yo: New York. I’m fortunate enough to be in the right places and in the right time, and just, like, take these opportunities to build with these dudes. So I always tell the young kids nowadays, “Yo, talk to those elders. One day they’re not gonna be there.” Get that information. Get those jewels. You know what I’m saying? That’s why they’re there. (Waaak One, interview)

These kinds of experiences have, in turn, deeply affected the stylistic con- cerns of the New York b-boy community. The self-policing inherent in having the elders present has led to New York b-boying taking on a noticeably tradition- alist approach, as compared to other b-boying communities around the world. Since the ’90s, in fact, there has been an ideological split in the b-boy world between those who favor more acrobatic “power moves” and “air moves” and those who favor the more traditional, intricate, and rhythmic style. As a com- munity, New York comes down fi rmly on the fi nesse side of the debate.

Of course, to even have such a debate in the fi rst place, both sides must be in conversation with each other. In reality, New York is only one node of a community that is truly international. Dancers from around the world visit New York regularly, while b-boys and b-girls from New York routinely travel to other states and countries to compete, teach workshops, and judge competitions. Yet there remains a unique sense of history in the New York b-boy scene—a mixture of the past with the present—that does not exist in other places. For better or worse, this book is deeply informed by that perspective, starting with its title.

Foundation is a term used by b-boys and b-girls to refer to an almost mystical set of notions about b-boying that is passed from teacher to student. In addition to the actual physical movements, it includes the history of the movements and the form in general, strategies for how to improvise, philosophy about dance in general, musical associations, and a variety of other subjects. The idea that a core b-boy philosophy should be so important that it requires a special term says a great deal about the dance and why it is so signifi cant in the lives of its practitioners.

In “ ‘The Original Essence of the Dance’: History, Community, and Classic B-Boy Records,” I look at the role of music in preserving the dance’s cultural traditions. Specifi cally, the chapter addresses what I have termed the “b-boy canon,” a recognized repertoire of songs that b-boys and b-girls are expected to be able to dance to. I look at the many ways that the negotiation of such a canon—which songs are included and why, how specifi c musical fi gures encour- age certain kinds of movement and discourage others, etc.—can create and defi ne a community.

13Introduction

In the following chapter, “ ‘Getting Your Foundation’: Pedagogy,” I address the relationship between the teaching philosophy expressed by b-boys and b-girls and the content that they transmit. Again, “foundation,” a concept that combines the physical knowledge of specifi c movements with a profound his- torical and philosophical context in which to place those moves, is essential to the process. This chapter also explores the ways that gender is implicated in the teaching process and thus in dancers’ identities. Finally, I briefl y discuss the term b-boying itself along with some of the discourse in the community regard- ing the use of that term.

In the next chapter, “ ‘We Have to Be Exaggerated’: Aesthetics,” I discuss the artistic principles of b-boying. Specifi cally, I look into the many ways in which the dance provides an opportunity to engage with social issues on a more abstract level than might otherwise be available. These include such areas as the choice of a b-boy or b-girl name, the way individual and group identities are expressed through clothing choices, and the aesthetic values and formal structures of the dance itself. The form of b-boying, in particular, provides a narrative structure that gives meaning to the specifi c moves. Each performer begins with toprock (rhythmic upright dancing that introduces a dancer’s style and character) before dropping to the ground and engaging in footwork (disciplined, fl owing moves that display rhythm, fi nesse, and creativity), power moves (displaying strength), and air moves (acrobatics). Each dancer’s turn ends with a freeze, a concluding pose that summarizes his or her statement. Every time b-boys or b-girls return to their feet, they have made an assertion about who they are, and the group has accepted or rejected that assertion.

In the fi fth chapter, “ ‘In the Cypher’: B-Boy Spaces,” I address these issues with specifi c regard to the spaces in which b-boying has developed and takes place. This discussion includes exploration of the physical surfaces on which the dance has developed, the musical and spiritual environment in which it is performed, and the socially constructed dance space known as the “cypher.” This term, drawn from the lexicon of the Nation of Gods and Earths (also known as the Five Percenters, an African American spiritual movement that developed in Harlem in the 1960s), refers to the circle of onlookers in which the dance is performed. While the concept of a circular, more or less participatory audience is found in many traditions of the African diaspora (and elsewhere), it has devel- oped a unique character and set of associations in the context of b-boying.

The sixth chapter, “ ‘I Hate B-Boys—That’s Why I Break’: Battling,” concerns the most fundamental context for the dance. In looking at the ways that both the idea and reality of competition affects the lives of b-boys and b-girls, we can see the way that b-boying teaches specifi c skills for dealing with confl ict in other contexts. In this chapter, I also take some preliminary steps toward looking at b-boying through the lens of recent work on the martial arts traditions of the African diaspora.

Foundation14

“From Rocking to B-Boying: History and Mystery” attempts to forge a criti- cal engagement with b-boy epistemology by exploring the ways that b-boys and b-girls think about the history of their dance. In this chapter, I suggest that the b-boy community’s model of historical inquiry is itself a kind of battle, based on the same principles as the actual dance battle: respect, personal honor, and giving credit where credit is due (as opposed to the kind of broad social analysis that one might fi nd in an academic study). In order to explore this issue, the chapter focuses on a specifi c debate within the hip-hop community: the his- torical relationship between “rocking,” a battle dance associated with Latinos in Brooklyn, and b-boying, whose origins are associated with African Americans in the Bronx. In so doing, I attempt to fi nd ways to reconcile an academic approach with that of the community, as opposed to simply replacing one with the other.

Such reconciliations have implications for the study of hip-hop that go far beyond b-boying. Frankly, it is rare to see academic scholarship that takes hip-hop’s own intellectual principles seriously (as opposed to taking hip-hop seriously as an object of intellectual inquiry). As I suggested earlier, this is pri- marily due to the fact that the vast majority of academic hip-hop scholarship has focused on commercial recordings of hip-hop music, a subject which does not necessarily require a substantial engagement with the intellectual principles of its creation. But for aspects of hip-hop culture where appreciation is bound up in face-to-face relationships, it is far more likely that the conceptual principles of the art will be articulated at some point. That has certainly been the case with my research.

Ethnography—participant observation—is the foundation of this study, and it has deeply affected the nature of my approach. I attended virtually every major b-boy event in New York City between 2003 and 2008, studying the dance both formally and informally. As in any fi eldwork situation, the personal nature of my relationship to this community means that my quest for knowledge about its ways has also been very personal.3 In other words, in addition to the gen- eral commitment to objective inquiry and self-criticism that should be part of any ethnographer’s approach, I am particularly devoted to accuracy because the information is also important to me for its own sake. B-boying (to the limited extent that it can be practiced by a relatively sedentary, 40-year-old college pro- fessor) is a part of my life.

This book is based primarily on my experiences in a specifi c time and place, New York City in the early and mid-2000s. The people who are quoted here represent neither a statistical cross-section of dancers, nor a list of the most signifi cant b-boys and b-girls. They are the people I have met as part of my experience. The nature of the way they are quoted, I hope, refl ects this. Some are elders and teachers, some are contemporaries, some are friends. My personal relationship to the New York b-boy scene is also manifested in choices I’ve

15Introduction

made about how to write about what I’ve learned. I have dealt elsewhere with many of the issues involved in writing about hip-hop, particularly the poten- tially jarring juxtaposition between my academic writing style and the transcrip- tions of my consultants’ comments, which were delivered improvisationally and without preparation (Schloss 2004:11–12). I feel that the best way to address this issue is simply to point it out and to ask the reader to keep in mind that the differ- ences that appear are primarily differences of style and expressive context. One thing that I especially love about b-boy discourse is the way it uses aggressive, raw, and often profane language to talk about the most abstract issues of aes- thetic philosophy. This juxtaposition, as exemplifi ed by Ken Swift in particular, is itself an important part of the b-boy aesthetic.

Perhaps the most daunting obstacles I’ve encountered in terms of writing are also the simplest: the terms b-boy and b-boying. As I discuss more extensively in the third chapter, the term is clearly gendered, which leaves a writer who wishes to refer to dancers of both genders with a substantial stylistic challenge. One option is to refer to “b-boys and b-girls” in each case, which can become unwieldy. Although I actually prefer this option and have tried to use it as much as possible, there is a point at which its repetition begins to overwhelm the other aspects of any given sentence. Another option is to use the non-gender- specifi c terms dancer and breaker, which I have also done, mainly in cases where I can no longer stand to repeat the phrase “b-boys and b-girls.” The negative aspect of this choice is that these terms, while used in the community, are not the norm, and their overuse—to me at least—starts to read as ostentatiously gender- neutral, to the point of being judgmental. Also, of course, the term dancer doesn’t refer specifi cally to dancers in this style, so its use here is imprecise. The fi nal option is to simply use the term b-boy, with the explanation that this is widely viewed in the community as a generic term that includes women. While this may appear to be begging the question, I would argue that the ambiguity of the term refl ects an actual social ambiguity: to what degree, and in what senses, is a b-girl a kind of b-boy?

Another signifi cant issue has been the relationship between b-boy culture and ethnicity. Clearly, ethnicity and its expression through culture are major themes of most scholarly writing about hip-hop. But b-boying presents some complex challenges in that area, for several reasons. First, a central theme of b-boy ideol- ogy is that the culture is a meritocracy. The assumption of unbiased competition is the basis of almost all b-boy philosophy; the idea that such a competitive practice should favor individuals of one ethnicity over another runs directly counter to the ideals of the dance. Of course, this is not absolute: aesthetic ide- als such as “fl avor” and “soul” implicitly have a cultural element to them. As I will discuss, the expectations of b-boying clearly derive from an Afro-diasporic world view, but one need not be of African descent to understand or follow

Foundation16

them. Moreover, even if that issue is put aside for the moment, the relationship between the African diaspora as a general concept and the infl uence of specifi c ethnicities is far from clear.

The conventional narrative among dancers is that b-boying was invented by African Americans, but was only popular in that community for a few years. By the late ’70s, it had been adopted by Latinos, who became its primary practitio- ners. And, while the ’90s saw an infl ux of dancers from a variety of ethnicities, Latinos remain by far the most dominant ethnicity in b-boying to the present day (at least in New York City). If, just for the sake of argument, we say that b-boy- ing was invented and performed primarily by African Americans for 5 years, then developed and maintained primarily by Latinos for 30 years, which group does the dance really “belong” to? This question is signifi cant not so much for its answer (I have no idea), but for the issues it raises: what does it mean for a dance to belong to an ethnic group? Why is it important that b-boying should be cred- ited to one and only one ethnic group? If Puerto Ricans and African Americans are both peoples of African descent living in the same neighborhoods and par- ticipating in the same culture of hip-hop, in exactly what sense do they constitute different ethnic groups?

Part of the power of b-boying is that it complicates these questions; it has drawn its foundational movements and concepts from African American cul- ture, the cultures of the English and Spanish Caribbean, and Africa itself. B-boying is truly and deeply a dance of the African diaspora. Even the music that gave birth to the dance is notable for its fusion of cultural elements drawn from both African American and Latino musical traditions, including Latin percussion and song structure, African American melodic and vocal techniques, and an overall aesthetic that speaks to the struggles and aspirations of urban youth of the early 1970s. And the fact that the musical soundtrack to b-boying is still primarily drawn from recordings produced between 1969 and 1974 suggests that this fusion—and the tradition it gave birth to—is still highly valued almost four decades later.

17

I was introduced, basically, to James Brown, Jimmy Castor Bunch, and the rest of my life listened to that music and enjoyed that music and did the dance that went along with it. . . . I believe it’s important to learn to that, to break to that, because that’s the original essence of the dance. It was inspired by that music. So, I think, in order to have the original style, you would have to be able to rock to that. And make it look good. All the intricacies of the horns and the snares and the toms and all that. If you can’t fi nesse those basic sounds, then . . . you’re not really b-boying. You need to be able to do it. It’s important to do it. It’s keeping the culture alive by doing it. You gotta keep doing it. . . .

We were passed down those records, and now it’s our time to pass those records down. —Phantom (Ready to Rock, Mighty Zulu Kings), a b-boy in his mid-20s

Every hip-hop deejay knows the cuts that b-boys favor: a few energetic, bongo- laden tracks from the early ’70s: “Apache” (1973), “Give It Up or Turnit a Loose” by James Brown (1969), “T Plays It Cool” by Marvin Gaye (1972), “It’s Just Begun” by the Jimmy Castor Bunch (1972), “The Mexican” by Babe Ruth (1972), and a handful of others. These songs can be heard at any b-boy event, on the soundtrack to virtually any video that shows b-boying, and on a variety of b-boy-oriented mix tapes and compact discs.

They are not hip-hop songs. They are the rock and funk songs that b-boying’s originators danced to in the half-decade between hip-hop’s emergence as a sociocultural movement around 1974 and the development of an associated musical genre in 1979. For those who see hip-hop as a wild, anarchic expression

2

“The Original Essence of the Dance” History, Community, and Classic B-Boy Records

Foundation18

of youthful abandon, brutal materialism, criminality, or even political change, this may seem odd. Could today’s rebellious b-boys really be so mindful of history—so culturally conservative—that they insist on dancing to the exact records that brought the form to life 35 years ago, long before most of them were even born?

In both scholarly writing and the popular press, hip-hop culture is often pre- sented as a response to the disruption of a tradition, a kind of cultural scab that formed over the wounds of African American and Latino youth in New York. An implicit corollary of this premise is that any social or cultural coherence that can be found in hip-hop is primarily a result of a common opposition among practitioners to some outside force. Whether these strange bedfellows are using their shared aesthetic of disjuncture to address concerns in the social (Erskine 2003; Rose 1994), musical (Krims 2000; Lipsitz 1994; Walser 1995), or ideological (Perry 2004; Potter 1995) spheres, the essential mechanism remains reactionary. In cases where active cultural continuity is emphasized, it is to be found in hip-hop’s rela- tionship to broader cultural patterns, such as gender (Gaunt 2006), Afro-diasporic identity (Keyes 1996, 2004), and Latinidad (Rivera 2003). But hip-hop culture is now over three decades old: does it not have its own internal continuities?

If it does not, then hip-hop constitutes not only a new musical genre, but truly a new kind of cultural practice. But if it does—and it does—we should not shy away from applying conventional methodologies and theoretical models to its study. Nor should we retreat from the commonalities that such methodologies may reveal between hip-hop and other expressive practices around the world. In other words, the question is not so much whether hip-hop has developed its own conventions, stylistic norms, and historical self-consciousness, but how it has done so. In this chapter, I will argue that the establishment of an honored repertoire of records that b-boys prefer to dance to—in effect, a canon—is one way in which hip-hop has developed its own set of cultural traditions.

B-boy songs hold several elements in common: they tend to date to the early ’70s, feature Latin percussion (especially bongos), have relatively fast tempos (110 to 120 beats per minute), use horns and guitars in a percussive way, use stop-time at various points in the song, and feature a formal structure that builds to decisive musical peaks. But, most important, they have breaks.

B-boying began with the break, the part of a song where all instruments except the rhythm section fall silent and the groove is distilled to its most fun- damental elements. In the 1970s, when kids began throwing rebel street parties in the Bronx, people from different neighborhoods came together for the fi rst time since the gangs had taken over, and there was one thing they all agreed on: the break was an opportunity. It was a moment on a record that was so power- ful that it could actually overpower day-to-day reality and become an environ- ment unto itself. The power of the break was so evident that DJ Kool Herc even

19History, Community, and Classic B-Boy Records

began to play two copies of the same record on separate turntables, repeating the break over and over again, giving the dancers more time to showcase their most devastating moves. Before long, Herc and other pioneering deejays like Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash were playing nothing but breaks. And the dancers responded by creating a new dance form that was nothing but devastat- ing moves: b-boying. Some even began dropping to the ground and spinning around. Hip-hop music and b-boying were born as twins, and their mother was the break.

By the mid-’70s, the musical break in the song had taken on a new life as a historical break between the end of soul culture and the beginning of hip-hop culture. It became a psychological break between the b-boy’s pre- and postdance identities. And it became a break from everyday life, allowing the dancer to enter a heightened world where ideas about time and space and spirituality and style could be addressed through raw physicality. The break is the original essence of the dance and the seed of its tradition (it is also where the much-disputed term breakdancing comes from).

In discussing a somewhat different phenomenon, the syncopation of samba rhythms, Barbara Browning has articulated a fundamental aspect of the rela- tionship between movement and “suppressed” elements of a composition. “This suspension leaves the body with a hunger that can only be satisfi ed by fi lling the silence with motion,” she writes:

Samba, the dance, cannot exist without the suppression of a strong beat. . . . In fact, the breaks in rhythmic structure, the ruptures in the pattern are the points at which the full complexity of the original pattern becomes evident. But the break pre- cisely points out all that was inherent or potential in the texture before the tear. (Browning 1995:9–10; emphasis added)

Browning is addressing a rupture in rhythm created by suppressing particular beats, while the break is a rupture in form created by suppressing particular instru- ments (and, by extension, their melodic and rhythmic contributions to the groove). In both cases, the suppression serves to accentuate musical absences, creating a sense that a contribution is required from listeners to restore the music to its proper state. In both cases, that contribution takes the form of dance. B-boy records are songs that have breaks which—in a visceral way—impel b-boys to dance.

A version of this process that is closely related to hip-hop occurs in many musics of the African diaspora, especially mambo and salsa music. In his autobi- ography, for example, legendary rock promoter Bill Graham refl ects on his experi- ence dancing to Machito, Tito Puente, and Tito Rodriguez during their legendary tenure at New York’s Palladium in the late 1950s: “In the middle of a song, the orchestra would suddenly stop playing except for the bass line,” he remembers. “But nobody would stop dancing. We’d all clap our hands and keep the clave beat and everybody simply surrendered to the passion of the music—thousands of us.

Foundation20

We’d keep perfect time till the solo was over and the entire band would come back in and take it on home. Thousands of us. And everybody felt good. Everybody felt so good” (Graham 49).1 The fact that Graham, who was not Latino, would single out this element of the performance for special mention suggests that the break, whether called by that name or not, was appreciated by New York dancers for at least several decades before hip-hop emerged.

Latin music was also infl uential on a more immediate level. In the ’60s and ’70s, notes pioneering Bronx b-boy Trac 2, “There was no ‘dusk to dawn,’ when the parks were closed. You would hear that conga—boom boom boom, boom ba-boom—and the people jamming. ’Cause that’s what was called a ‘jam’ back then. It was an outdoor music session” (Trac 2, interview).

As Raquel Rivera explains, “The long-standing tradition of street drumming among New York Puerto Ricans and Cubans—in which African Americans also have participated—strongly infl uenced the music that was recorded as soul and funk, which was later played as break-beats at hip-hop jams” (Rivera 2003:35; emphasis in original). If one views this infl uence from the dancers’ point of view, Rivera may even be understating the case. Since early hip-hop jams took place in the same spaces as street drumming—sidewalks, parks, public beaches, and schoolyards—the experience of dancing to an extended, Latin-style per- cussion break played by a deejay in a park would have been extremely simi- lar to the experience of dancing to live drummers in that same park. It would have been surprising if youths who suddenly found themselves dancing to an extended recording of congas and bongos extracted from the center of a James Brown song didn’t turn to the Latin drumming experience for guidance. Such moments—combining the street drumming environment with funk records— represented a cultural activity that fi t equally well into both Latino and African American traditions.

Ned Sublette sees the increased prevalence of conga drums in the African American music of this era—one of the foundations of the break, and thus of hip-hop itself—as itself refl ecting such a fusion sensibility:

[In the 1970s], conga drums had become one of the signature sounds of African American musical nationalism, ultimately even acquiring a faux-African pronun- ciation unknown in Cuba: kungaz. Along with the one-chord groove tune that the conga helped defi ne, the instrument was an important part of the sound of another of America’s great cultural achievements: funk.

When I asked Bobby Byrd (James Brown’s music director in the glory days) about funk, I had expected that, being a pianist, he might say something about the harmony—the insistent use of sevenths, or something like that. Instead, he told me: “It was the syncopation of the instruments—everybody playing a different part. Okay now we winded up with a seven piece band, but everybody had a dif- ferent part to play. That’s where the funk part of it became. Everybody playing a different part and it’s all fi tting together like a glove.”

21History, Community, and Classic B-Boy Records

That’s exactly what Latin bands did, and exactly what American bands up until that time did not do. Funk polyrhythmicized the R&B combo the way the mambo had earlier polyrhythmicized the jazz band. But then, Bobby Byrd and James Brown, like Chuck [Berry] and Bo [Diddley], like Elvis [Presley], came of age in the mambo era. The example of Cuban music was everywhere in those days. (Sublette 2007:91)

The break, then, is an interruption of an integrated groove. In a very real sense, by inviting the dancers to “fi ll the silence with motion,” the break is reach- ing out to the listener. And by interacting with the dancers in this way, the break provides a way for recorded music to serve many of the same functions as live music. There is a general sense among b-boys that, despite being prerecorded, a good b-boy song can be animated by the way its rhythms interact with dancers, to the point where it almost does become a live performance.

Pioneering hip-hop promoter Michael Holman describes James Brown’s b-boy classic “Give It Up or Turnit a Loose”—one of the songs Bobby Byrd was referring to in the above quote—as if it is intentionally helping dancers every time it’s played. “ ‘Give It Up or Turnit a Loose’ is designed to let you ride on it,” he points out. “To let you dance. It’s like it cuts your work in half, you know? It’s like a galloping anthem. I like to associate it to [the] William Tell Overture because they’re both anthem-like. And they’re just, like, this galloping, charging, martial music, in a way” (Michael Holman, interview).

Holman’s use of the word martial is no accident: part of a b-boy record’s job is to make dancers want to go to war. The tempo, intensity, and aggressive feel of these songs elicit battling rather than socializing. As Alien Ness, a b-boy in his early 40s who is president of the Mighty Zulu Kings (the b-boy divi- sion of hip-hop’s oldest and most respected cultural organization, the Universal Zulu Nation), states fl atly, “I can’t break to happy songs. My stuff has to be all down. . . . That’s what I like. I like down. I like ‘car chase’ music, you know what I mean?” “Now one of my favorite songs in the whole wide world is [the Jackson Sisters’] ‘I Believe in Miracles,’ ” he continues:

I will dance to that song all night. Let the deejay play it all night, I will dance to it all night. Will you see me breaking to it? Hell no. Why? . . . It’s happy. That’s how I feel when I hear that song. I feel happy. I feel good. I don’t feel like breakin’. . . . That’s not something I’m trying to rip somebody’s head off in a cypher2 on. (Alien Ness, interview)

One song that does feature the qualities Ness seeks is 1972’s “It’s Just Begun,” by the Jimmy Castor Bunch. “ ‘Just Begun’ is the epitome,” he stresses:

“Just Begun” personifi es the b-boy mentality. From the opening words to the fi nal words: “Watch me now / Feel the groove / Into something / Gonna make you move.” That’s gangsta. That’s exactly how you feel when you breakin’. I don’t

Foundation22

care what song you’re breakin’ to. But when you’re breaking, subconsciously you’re singing “Just Begun” in your head. Subconsciously, you understand what I’m saying. ’Cause it’s the b-boy mentality. (Alien Ness, interview)

Alien Ness. Photo © Martha Cooper.

23History, Community, and Classic B-Boy Records

Jorge “Fabel” Pabon, a popper, locker, and uprocker in his early 40s who is vice president of the best-known b-boy organization, the Rock Steady Crew, emphasizes the sheer intensity of the song’s musical setting, “ ‘Just Begun’ sounds like a bat outta hell! It’s like a car chase, you know? Like a crazy car chase! . . . So imagine trying to dance to that intensity!” (Fabel, interview).

Eddie Luna, a Queens-based b-boy in his early 40s, agrees that these songs are distinguished by the emotions they spark in b-boys. He says that the songs are so powerful that they can make b-boys dance when they don’t even want to:

That is the adrenaline. If you know b-boying, that’s like anthems, you know? This is where you stand up. This is where you gotta do what you gotta do. I mean, when I hear—to this day—the beginning of “Just Begun,” “Apache,” “The Mexican” during its breaks . . . and “Drummer’s Beat,” when it starts, when you hear those bongos going, it’s just—oh, man! It’s war time. It is. It’s just this rush. . . . Like, you don’t care no more, you just go ahead and do it. Doesn’t matter what it costs! You didn’t even practice this move! You’re at the point, I mean, whatever comes out is gonna come out, you know what I mean? You have a black eye or a scratched arm or whatever. Because the adrenaline rush that you get from the music. . . . “Apache”? Forget it! I can’t listen to “Apache.” I just—I start sweating, you know! And I get angry! And it’s like, I wanna hit the fl oor! (Eddie Luna, interview)

The vibrant relationship that b-boys and b-girls maintain with these songs belies easy stereotypes about the relative value of live versus recorded music. In fact, the “recordedness” of these songs—the way they seem to capture the time and place in which they were made—is an important part of their appeal. This sensibility is similar to that of hip-hop deejays and producers who value the sound of recordings over that of live instrumentation (see Schloss 2004:63–78).

Many b-boys feel that these emotions—and the environment that produced them—were literally encoded into the songs by the original social context in which they were recorded. As Richard “Breakeasy” Santiago, a Brooklyn-based b-boy in his early 40s who serves as a mentor to many younger dancers, explains:

If you were to go back in time and . . . listen to that record being played while the conditions and the environment are around at that moment in time, you [would] understand why is it that we move[d] the way we did. A lot of people, when they just hear the music, they don’t understand that that music is played by a group of people that were somehow affected by their environment to express that train of thought. The words, if there’s words. In the rhythms and beats, because the energy of that music can be hardcore, like just letting it all go out, or it can be a guitar just wailing and stuff, just to self-express and experiment or go into a zone. There’s so many different things involved in just that piece of music. . . . if you

Foundation24

understand that, you’re gonna ride that drummer going crazy ’cause he wants to vent it out. Then you’re gonna move your feet to that rhythm. (Richard Santiago, interview)

When the song is blasted through huge speakers—and properly danced to— that time and place are virtually reconstituted. The songs paint a three-dimen- sional picture of an environment that b-boys can then enter through the dance. By engaging with the music, the dancer can experience the emotions of the original musicians—and the original b-boys.

“When I really like a song—especially all these ill breaks, the classic breaks from back in the days—I feel like the artist put their heart and soul into it to deliver me that ill fuckin’ song,” agrees Waaak:

That ill, classic, timeless . . . piece of music. So when I go out there to dance to it, I gotta do it justice. So every time I go out and I dance to these songs that I like, I put emotion to it. Because, to me, I gotta match that level of that song. . . . I mean, when you’re hearing a ill piece of music, a masterpiece of music, and you’re watching somebody dance that song correctly? It’s what b-boying is. It’s pure. It’s beautiful. And I don’t throw that word around like that, but that’s what it is. (Waaak One, interview)

“I think that music is there just to remind people,” says Ru, a Brooklyn-based b-boy in his 20s:

That’s just basically what that music is there for. It’s just a picture book, you know, . . . to remind them of that world, but to have it in a way where they would feel it. You know what I’m saying: instead of actually seeing it on a picture. ’Cause [if] you see it in a picture, you’re like, “Wow, man, that was back in the days,” but you can’t feel why . . . they were like that. Why they were dancing. What made them tick. . . . Music’s mad powerful. It is. (Ru, interview)

“It’s not like a secret,” says Tiny Love, a Brooklyn-based popper, uprocker, and b-boy in his 20s:

But nobody talks about it. It’s the real deal: basically, these songs have a message. The ’70s songs, they talk about something that would change the world. . . . Those are classics and those beats have life. You see, we play the same music on and on and we don’t get bored of it. That means that, basically, it’s not going to our minds; it goes to our soul, you know? It’s gonna keep on moving, you know? We’re always gonna listen to that. Those beats have life. (Tiny Love, interview)

And yet there were other songs recorded in the early ’70s that had similar qualities, but which are not considered b-boy cuts (the song “A La Escuela” [1974] by Malo is a prime example—it even has a break). This is apparently a result of a series of lost decisions that were made by hip-hop practitioners at that time. In other words, we may not understand or remember why one song was included and another was not, but it’s too late to go back and change it

25History, Community, and Classic B-Boy Records

now. The fact that these choices are still adhered to more than 30 years later suggests a deep respect for the community that made those decisions, as well as the tradition that has preserved them over the ensuing decades. That, too, is encoded into the sound of the songs. As Philip Bohlman points out with regard to the European art music tradition, the reason that one would single out songs in the fi rst place is precisely to defi ne a vision of the past that has utility in the present. “Perceptible in a work of music,” he writes, “should be some model of the past, expressed as formal similarity, aesthetic context, or mythological purity,” all of which obtain in the case of b-boy songs (Bohlman 1992:204).

As Fabel refl ects, b-boys do view the use of these particular songs as a cultural tradition, an outlook that he explicitly ties to that of a broader Afro-Caribbean world view:

For the younger people, I think those who have had the privilege to watch older people get down to it, that’s a defi nite inspiration. The minute you see it, you’re gonna say, “wow, that makes sense.” Just like when you see someone doing real dope mamboing to mambo music, or a salsa dancer who’s right on. You know . . . it’s the native music of the dance . . . the old-timers do it and still love it and keep it alive, because, honestly, I think that it’s part of the ritual.

[Like] when certain drummers drum the same patterns, whether it’s guaguancó or whatever: for Afro-Caribbean communities and people who sort of keep folk- loric culture alive, there’s no questioning about, “Hey, are we gonna break the pattern?” Maybe they’ll build on top of the foundation, but the main base of it all is still the same. . . .

So I think the young people do it because they see the value in its tradition. (Fabel, interview)

The Dynamic Rockers’ KaoticBlaze, a New York b-girl in her 20s who has appeared as a kind of coach on the b-girl episode of MTV’s Made, confi rms this interpretation. “It’s important, in the aspect that it does have history behind it. And to think that you’re getting down to the same beats that the pioneers of the dance got down to before. Like the killa beats from back in the day . . . it’s important to remember not to forget songs like that. It’s history” (KaoticBlaze, interview).

B-Girl Emiko, a Philadelphia-based dancer in her 20s, expresses a similar outlook, despite (or possibly because of) the fact that she was not born when the songs were recorded and was raised in Japan, half a world away:

That gives me the . . . hypeness. Especially . . . “Just Begun.” It’s just one of the songs. Being the b-girl or b-boy, no matter where you’re from, once you listen to the song, you just get crazy! I don’t know the reason why. I didn’t live in the time when the music came, but I just feel it—feel that energy of the music. Just say “Aah!” Just start battle rock[ing] to each other. (B-Girl Emiko, interview)

Foundation26

DJ E-Rok also emphasizes the idea of tradition, comparing b-boy songs to folk songs:

Joe Schloss (author/interviewer): There’s probably a lot of tunes that you could b-boy to, but there’s like fi ve songs that people always play, you know what I mean? Why do you think that is?

E-Rok: You’re talking about, like, “Apache”? “It’s Just Begun”? I think those are just handed down from generation to generation. Say, like, if you’re a kid who’s b-boying, you’re looking up to the older generation, who you’re getting your learning from. And you’re watching how they dance. But then you’re also listening to the type of music they’re playing. You become accustomed to danc- ing to that particular song. So it’s almost like old folk songs handed down from generation to generation. (DJ E-Rok, interview)

Rock Steady Crew DJ DV-One suggests a more abstract idea of “energy,” which seems to confl ate rhythm and social history into single concept. “I’m sure there’s [other] upbeat songs that you can dance to or that you can break to, but it just doesn’t feel the same,” he notes:

If you’re on the inside—like, if you’re a hip-hop head—even a 15-year-old could feel the energy in “The Mexican” or in “Apache.” You know, you can feel that. I’m sure you can fi nd some, like, house record or even some R&B record . . . that has the same tempo or the same speed. It’s just not the same as b-boying to the original joints. (DJ DV-One, interview)

Note that DV-One specifi es that the listener must be “on the inside” to feel the “energy” of the b-boy songs. In other words, their value, while powerful, is not inherent; one must have some preexisting knowledge to be able to appreciate it. And part of what one is appreciating lies in the play between the practical value of the song as it’s being danced to right now and the historical value it carries as a hip-hop classic.

Again, it seems to me that a productive way to address this interplay is by viewing these songs collectively as a canon. As Edgar and Sedgwick observe, the term has several distinct connotations:

Typically, the term is used to encompass what are generally recognised as the most important works in a particular artistic tradition (most usually of literature or music). It is derived from its original use, dating from the fourth century, to refer to the authoritative and defi nitive books of the Christian Bible. Defenders of the notion of a canon would argue from the position that there are universal aesthetic values (albeit that these values may unfold over time, with the development of the tradition). Individual works are therefore included in the canon on the grounds that they best express these universal values. The canonical works are therefore the fi n- est expression of a particular language, and may indeed be taken as the expression of a culture’s or a nation’s identity. (Edgar and Sedgwick 1999:51–52)

27History, Community, and Classic B-Boy Records

There are a number of reasons that b-boy songs could be viewed as a canon. First, the group is a collection of specifi c songs, as opposed to a generic profi le or type of song that is good to b-boy to. Second, the songs are described via a discourse of quality; they are presented as being “the fi nest expression” of the b-boy song genre. Third, the fact that b-boys would want to specify the fi nest expression of the genre in the fi rst place requires agreement about both the val- ues of the community and, more fundamentally, the actual existence of a com- munity of b-boys. Fourth, the status of the songs is axiomatic. That is, elements of the canon cannot be questioned, because the criteria for what makes a good b-boy song are derived from these examples in the fi rst place.

If we view these records as being analogous to “texts,” Robert Alter’s com- ments on the biblical canon are useful:

A canon is above all a transhistorical textual community. Knowledge of the received texts and recourse to them constitute the community, but the texts do not have a single, authoritative meaning, however much the established spokesmen for the canon at any given moment may claim that is the case. After all, even within the community of traditional believers, the biblical canon has been imagined to endorse as a matter of divine revelation rationalism, mysticism, nationalism, uni- versalism, asceticism, sensualism, determinism, free will, and a good deal else. (Alter 2000:5)

What gives these interpretations both their power and their audience is their derivation from the canonical texts in the fi rst place. In other words, it is the canon itself that allows such a diversity of opinion to assemble itself under the single phrase “the community of traditional believers.”

Literary theorists in particular have made valuable analyses of the ways in which canons—particularly the Western literary canon—refl ect the social and ideological relationships between art and community (see Guillory 1993). In the case of the b-boy canon, negotiations are mainly embodied in, and mediated by, the relationship between b-boys and the disc jockeys who provide the music for them to dance to, many of whom are themselves current or former b-boys or b-girls.

Guillory’s comments with regard to the Western literary canon are particu- larly relevant to the question of how contemporary b-boying practice is related to the idea of a “classic b-boy songs” canon. “The canon is itself a historical event; it belongs to the history of the school,” he writes:

If there is now a need to rethink and revise what we do with the curriculum of lit- erature, this project will entail not only reading new works, or noncanonical works (both of which it should entail), but also reading in a better way, by which I mean reading works for what they say and do in their place and time, as well as reading the difference between those meanings and the meanings which have been imputed to them by virtue of their being canonical works. (Guillory 1990: 244)

Foundation28

The b-boy canon is ripe for such a reading because the idea of canonicity—of tradition—actually plays an integral role in the musical practice. That is partially due to the historical factors I discussed above and partially because b-boy songs operate as familiar “frameworks for invention” in a manner similar to the role that so-called standards play for jazz musicians:

Lee Konitz has performed standard compositions “like ‘All the Things You Are’ for over forty years now” because of their unlimited substance as frameworks for invention, inspiring him to probe ever more deeply into their “possibilities.” And Charlie Parker explained to Red Rodney that he routinely practiced formulating solos “on the blues, ‘Rhythm’ and ‘Cherokee’ in every key.” Over artists’ lives, mastery of form resulting from the repeated performance of favorite compositions obviously contributes to their extraordinary fl uency as soloists. Konitz adds that improvising on familiar repertory also serves players “as a measuring device” for assessing their creative powers “at that moment” in relation to their recollection of their past improvisations on the composition.3 (Berliner 1994:226–227)

B-boy songs are valued as frameworks for the act of b-boying because they combine practical factors that facilitate the particular dance style (including fast tempos, loud drums, rhythmic horns, and breaks) with sociohistorical associa- tions that place any given performance in the context of b-boy history. A good deejay, then, is one who is able to properly deploy these factors to help the b-boys accomplish their goals for the dance. In other words, the interaction is not simply one of b-boys appreciating the deejays’ choices on an abstract aes- thetic level. Rather, it is the deejay giving the b-boys the tools to express them- selves and the b-boys validating the deejays’ choices by making use of those materials.

In addition to the pragmatic value of the rhythm fi tting the steps of the dance, which I will discuss in a moment, a major part of a given song’s value as raw material for performance is that it is canonical, that it is known to be a b-boy song. This is especially striking when one considers that none of these songs was originally written or recorded for this purpose. Their status as b-boy classics was something that developed organically as a result of the relationship between deejays and b-boys. It is no exaggeration to say that hip-hop itself was a result of this relationship.

The earliest b-boys danced to these songs in their entirety, saving their best (or most hostile) moves for the break; that was why the deejays began to focus on the breaks in the fi rst place. This focus soon led to the innovation, credited to DJ Kool Herc, of using two copies of the same record on two turntables, a process which enabled the deejay to repeat a given break endlessly, by rewind- ing one copy while the other was playing. It was the deejays’ recognition of, and service to, the b-boys’ needs that prompted the birth of hip-hop as a discrete performance practice. As Nelson George has noted:

29History, Community, and Classic B-Boy Records

Records such as Jimmy Castor’s “It’s Just Begun,” the Incredible Bongo Band’s “Apache,” and Herman Kelly’s “Dance to the Drummer’s Beat” didn’t become hip hop classics in a vacuum. DJs played them, and often unearthed them, but it was the dancers who certifi ed them. It was their taste, their affi rmation of certain tracks as good for breaking, and their demand to hear them at parties that infl uenced the DJs and MCs who pioneered hip hop’s early sound. (George 1998:16)

One example of this “certifi cation” process is the case of the 1972 record- ing “The Mexican” (performed by the British rock band Babe Ruth), which b-boy and popper GeoMatrix explains is specifi cally “for” uprock, an aggressive precursor to b-boying in which an individual directly confronts an opponent who is dancing simultaneously. As he says, “ ‘The Mexican’ . . . [is] more for fi ghting. The Brooklyn uprock. . . . Really, people don’t really break to it, but they just uprock to it. . . . That’s the type of song, you just wanna uprock. Like when you doing ‘Mexican,’ man, you always wanna go out there and just fi ght. Like battling” (GeoMatrix, interview). Although the song’s performers had cer- tainly never heard of hip-hop or uprocking when they recorded it (since hip-hop didn’t exist and uprocking was limited to teenagers in a few neighborhoods in Brooklyn and the Bronx), “The Mexican” has become so associated with uprock that whenever GeoMatrix hears it, he is immediately fi lled with an aggressive competitiveness that compels him to perform the dance.

Shortly after conducting that interview, I attended the Universal Zulu Nation’s 30th anniversary celebration in Harlem.4 At one point in the evening, the deejay played “The Mexican,” and b-boys in the crowd began uprocking within fi ve seconds. This suggests that the association of this particular song with this par- ticular dance is literally embodied knowledge; when “The Mexican” is played, a b-boy or b-girl’s body is simply inclined to uprock.

The idea of uprocking as a preconscious—though learned—physical response to hearing “The Mexican” is consistent with Bourdieu’s notion of the habitus as a “system of dispositions” (Bourdieu 1977:82) or an “acquired system of generative schemes objectively adjusted to the particular conditions in which it is constituted” (Bourdieu 1977:95). Ken Swift, often described as “the epitome of a b-boy,” sees the development of this kind of b-boy intu- ition as the central value of designating a canon in the fi rst place: “I think it’s important to know those songs. I think it’s important to know those songs. ’Cause you never know when they’re gonna come up. . . . You don’t want to think about the song. You wanna react to the song without thinking about it” (Ken Swift, interview).

In Ken Swift’s opinion, the existence of an agreed-upon repertoire of b-boy songs allows dancers to develop the ability to react instantaneously to each in a manner that reproduces the aesthetic principles of the b-boy community. From the moment this ability becomes a part of any given dancer’s disposition, that

Foundation30

individual carries a piece of hip-hop history in his or her physical being and recapitulates it every time he or she dances. When he introduces “The Mexican” on his underground mix CD Throwback Breaks and Beats (Grandmaster Caz 2004), DJ Grandmaster Caz mentions neither the name of the song nor the art- ist.5 As the song begins, he simply declares, “If you don’t know what this is, you don’t need to know! You just wasn’t there!”

In addition to the general emotional power of a song like “The Mexican,” a good dancer also responds to the lyrics, interesting musical fi gures, and the pulse of the rhythm. “I dance according to what the music tells me,” says B-Boy Phantom, a New Yorker in his 20s. “So, if there’s a horn . . . that’s going on a quarter note, you’re gonna dance to that the way you hear it. That’s how I express my dance to the beat” (B-Boy Phantom, interview). The establishment of a discrete set of b-boy songs aids this process by limiting the repertoire of songs that dancers need to master, so they can direct their energies toward learn- ing the details of each.

On a more general level, encouraging b-boys to gear their dancing to a spe- cifi c song necessarily promotes the idea that the relationship between music and dance is important. This is by no means a foregone conclusion in the b-boy world. The rise of air moves and power moves (demonstrating acrobatic ability and strength, respectively) has led to a signifi cant portion of b-boying being arrhyth- mic. The underground b-boy DVD Power Moves, for example, contains instruc- tional material on how to perform these impressive feats, footage from three b-boy contests (including one called Chico Got to Get His Share, named after a lyric from “The Mexican”), and interviews with well-known b-boys and b-girls. But the video begins with the following voiceover: “It’s cool if you’ve got the most incredible power move in the world. That’s cool. That looks hot. But the shit gotta have neatness to it and structure. . . . Remember, this is a dance. . . . This is not a gymnastics event; you not being judged on your fl ips and how many fl ares you do. So remember, this is dancing” (Power Moves 2004). Trac 2, who is credited with the introduction of gymnastics moves to b-boying in the mid-’70s, could not be clearer about this issue: “I incorporated gymnastics into the dance,” he says. “I didn’t put the dance into gymnastics” (Trac 2, interview).

“You can’t really dance without listening to the music,” agrees Phantom. “It’s an acrobatic dance, yeah, but—exactly—it’s an acrobatic dance. You have to dance fi rst, then get acrobatic. People don’t understand that and it’s a shame. I tell this to people, ‘look, get some rhythm fi rst.’ Make your toprocks look good before you decide to jump into a windmill” (B-Boy Phantom, interview). The promotion of the b-boy canon works as the promotion of b-boying as dancing rather than gymnastics.

In addition to this general sensibility, the b-boy canon also works to promote the use of specifi c rhythms. Many b-boy songs share the same implicit rhythmic

31History, Community, and Classic B-Boy Records

pattern. Like the clave in Latin music, from which it may well be derived, this pattern is sometimes articulated in the music, and sometimes not. But it can always be felt by the dancer. And while there is no standard term for it, several b-boys have described it to me with a phrase from KRS-One’s 1993 song “Boom Bap,” which seems to serve as a mnemonic device: “Boom! Bap! Original Rap!” Essentially, it is a slightly modifi ed cha-cha-cha, a fact which is not insignifi cant. As Ned Sublette has noted, the cha-cha-cha pattern pervades postwar American dance music (Sublette 2007). (Here, and throughout the book, I will try to repre- sent rhythms as they are conceived by b-boys and b-girls.)

Rhythm mnemonic Cha-cha-cha

1 Boom! one

and 2 Bap! two

and 3 O-rigi- cha

and nal cha

4 rap! cha

and

The close association of this rhythm with the dance has two effects: it allows the dancer to lock in to songs that share the rhythm, and it makes it diffi cult to dance to songs that do not fi t the pattern, especially songs that are too slow. The speed at which gravity acts on the human body alone exerts a decisive infl uence over which songs can be used. As b-boy GeoMatrix notes, this is actually one of the reasons that the canon is so essential. “This type of music represent[s] breakin’,” he says:

When you play this type of music, people already know. And you could play, like, “Apache,” already the b-boys gonna say to themselves, “this is our music—we gonna go down.”6 ’Cause nowadays you can go to a party and you can’t break to hip-hop. And [if] you don’t give ’em this type of beat, the b-boys always gonna stay, like, just chillin’. But if you give ’em that beat, they’re like, “nah, nah, I gotta go for it!” (GeoMatrix, interview)

Due to the nature of the movements, the music cannot be signifi cantly sped up or slowed down without altering the form of the dance. In fact, when the tempo of hip-hop music began to slow down in order to better emphasize the words of its emcees, b-boys collectively decided that, rather than change the dance to fi t the new tempos, they would actually reject hip-hop music. To this day, danc- ers rarely break to contemporary hip-hop, a choice which has had two related results. First, it has reinforced the dance’s estrangement from rap music, and thus from the money and fame associated with it. Second, it serves to continu- ously reemphasize the stylistic relationship between the dance and the social world from which classic b-boy songs originally emerged: New York City in the ’70s.

Of course, tempo is important to almost all dance forms, but it is all the more so with b-boying since many of its moves consist of jumps, hops, and shuffl es that incorporate leaping or falling. For example, a sequence of movements is sometimes decisively concluded with a “blowup,” a category of move in which

Foundation32

the breaker leaps into a frozen position, usually one that requires a high degree of balance (the most common blowups involve variations on a one-handed handstand). For the blowup to be considered successful, it must be landed pre- cisely on the beat, a feat which requires that gravity be taken into account in two ways: the initial leap must be timed so that the dancer touches down at the right moment, and then the dancer must be able to balance in the position for several beats, returning to her feet at a rhythmically appropriate moment as well. The most successful blowups coincide with decisive beats in the song. At one battle I attended in 2005, the entire contest was won with such a move. The dancer leaped into a one-handed handstand and aimed an imaginary gun at his opponent with his free hand. The song to which he was dancing—chosen spontaneously by the deejay—contained a gunshot sound at exactly the moment he assumed the pose.7

Another example of how this works can be found in toprocking, the upright, rhythmic cross-stepping that precedes “going down” to perform breaking’s characteristic fl oor moves. The simplest toprocking step is known as the “Indian step,” and it consists of the following movements, beginning from a stance in which both feet are parallel, about shoulder width apart:

1. The right foot crosses in front of the left and takes the body’s full weight. 2. The weight is shifted back to the left foot. 3. The right foot swings back to a position parallel to the left and

takes the weight again. The dancer has now returned to the original position. The process is then repeated to the right side.

4. The left foot crosses in front of the right and takes the body’s full weight.

5. The weight is shifted back to the right foot. 6. The left foot swings back to a position parallel to the left and takes the

weight again.

The step is performed in double-time so the entire process (to both sides) fi lls one four-beat musical measure:

This rhythm makes physical sense, because it takes twice as long for the leg to cross over in front as it does to step back (on the 1 and the 3), since the crossing leg’s return trip is rhythmically divided by the other foot’s step. When I initially learned this movement, I was instructed to associate the rhythm of my steps with a “boom boom bap” rhythm. (When describing hip-hop’s rhythmic patterns, the

1 right left

2 right –

3 left right

4 left –

1 right left

2 right –

3 left right

4 left –

33History, Community, and Classic B-Boy Records

onomatopoetic “boom” is conventionally used to represent the sound of a kick [bass] drum, and “bap” is used to represent the sound of a snare drum.)

If we lay this rhythm on top of a typical drum rhythm from a b-boy song and the general rhythm mnemonic I discussed earlier, it is easy to see how they fi t together. Moreover, since the overall rhythm concept is held in the mind, the drum is heard in the ears, and the rhythm of the dance step is manifested in the body, the resulting groove—at its most potent—can actually integrate all three aspects of the dancer’s being:

Foot rhythm (body)

Drum rhythm (ears/music)

Rhythm concept (mind)

1 boom

boom

X

and boom

2 bap

bap

X

and 3 boom

boom

X

and boom

boom

X

4 bap

bap

X

and

This rhythm is well suited to the dance: it is sparse at the beginning, but then speeds up as it goes along, culminating in a decisive emphasis on the fourth beat of the measure, which is then followed by a short rest that allows both the dancer and the observer to absorb what has just happened before beginning the process again. This also creates a distinct call-and-response feel, with the fi rst half of the phrase building tension and the second half resolving it. Furthermore, once this pattern is established, the dancer can then work against it to create new tensions and grooves, a process known as “rocking the beat.”

As I will discuss extensively in chapter 7, the term rocking is an evocative one in the b-boy world. It has many senses, but perhaps the most potent is when it’s used to suggest that someone has used her creativity to demonstrate control over some area of life: a microphone, an audience, clothing, a beat. It repre- sents the nexus of creativity and power, an important intersection for hip-hop. So when dancers are said to be rocking the beat, the implication is that they are actually using their dance skills to wrestle with the song itself, to actually force the rhythm to conform to their desires.

Conceptually, this ties in to some of the deepest aspects of hip-hop philoso- phy. The idea that something as seemingly unalterable as a prerecorded piece of music could be changed by dancing to it requires an extremely abstract view of the situation. From the b-boy’s standpoint, however, the song is not the record- ing; the song is the recording being played by a particular deejay through a particular sound system in a particular room to particular people at a particular moment in a particular musical context. The song and the social experience of hearing it become one and the same. And that experience—like any social circumstance—can be rocked. The idea that one’s creativity can allow them to

Foundation34

change situations that might appear to be unchangeable is an extremely power- ful one. That b-boying should serve as a form of training in how to do this is an equally signifi cant concept, and I will discuss this process more thoroughly in the chapters that follow. What is important here, however, is that b-boy songs are chosen for their conduciveness to being rocked in this way.

The canon, then, is the site of mutual infl uence: b-boys who wish to maintain these steps as part of their dance will show a strong preference for b-boy songs. At the same time, the continued prevalence of b-boy songs preserves such steps as an integral part of b-boying. Issues such as speed, openness to improvisation, and the original conditions under which the songs were recorded all infl uence this process.

In addition to the rhythm and tempo, another factor that comes into play in the canon is the formal structure of the songs. On one level, the formal structure is used in much the same way as the rhythm itself—as something to be rocked. Major moments in a b-boy’s set, especially the moment when the dancer drops to the fl oor, will often be timed to coincide with signifi cant structural moments in a song, such as the beginning of a new verse. But song structure can also be signifi cant on a more general level. When Fabel discusses “Apache,” for exam- ple, it is noteworthy that the fi rst thing he mentions is his appreciation for its formal structure. “I love ‘Apache’ because it has a lot of buildups in the song,” he says. “The hype of anticipation, a lot of times, is what did it . . . knowing, ‘Oh shit—here it comes!’ And wondering what’s gonna jump off, a battle or what- ever. Or if anyone in the crowd that you don’t know is schemin’ on you, you know?” (Fabel, interview).

In his comments, Fabel places the specifi c formal characteristics of “Apache” within a broader social context: the sense of “anticipation” that arises as musi- cal peaks approach is based on listeners having heard the song before; other- wise, they wouldn’t know they were coming. Moreover, the knowledge that these peaks are signifi cant is based on the expectation that certain kinds of social interactions—“a battle or whatever”—will take place at that point in the song.

There is a general understanding that the high-energy point of the song “Apache” will be one of the most important moments of any given b-boy event. Anyone who has something signifi cant to do—debut a spectacular new move, resolve a long-simmering dispute with another breaker—will often wait until that point in the evening to do so. This, in turn, means that when the deejay chooses to play this song, the energy in the room will rise noticeably as b-boys look around and wait to see what will happen. The power of being able to deploy this song at the appropriate time is not something deejays take lightly.

When I asked deejay Mr. Supreme if there were specifi c moments when he knew “Apache” was called for, his answer was immediate. “Oh, for sure!” he said. “Certainly. I mean, just the other night was a perfect example. . . . I was

35History, Community, and Classic B-Boy Records

playing some salsa stuff, really, and it had a lotta Latin rhythm and percussion in it and these cats started b-boying. So I knew: ‘Yeah, OK, now’s the time.’ And it worked, you know?” (Mr. Supreme, interview).

From the deejays’ point of view, it is the song’s dance-fl oor effectiveness (“it worked, you know?”) that sets it apart. In 2002, for example, hip-hop journalist Smokey D. Fontaine zeroed in on the power of “Apache” to inspire b-boys when he listed the song as one of the best singles of the 1970s: “This cornucopia of psychedelic keyboards, conga drums, and spaghetti western–like trumpet playing became one of the main building blocks of the break-dancing movement. Thirty years later, every riff in this manic workout will still incite spontaneous acts of backspinning at a park near you” (Poulson-Bryant and Fontaine 2002:7).

The ability of this song to move b-boys is apparent, as Mr. Supreme continues:

That particular song is the b-boy anthem. The one. . . . I usually have that record with me, everywhere I go. Just because you never

know. It’s just one of those records that I always take with me. . . . It’s a powerful song, there’s lots of energy in it. The change-ups and the orchestrated [horn] hits and everything. . . .

It’s the energy of the song and the way that you feel the song. I mean, I’m an original b-boy, you know what I’m saying? . . . And it’s like, feeling that song within your body, when you hear it, the energy that just—it makes you wanna dance. More so than any other song.

Even, like, the other night, when I was spinning, these guys started b-boying. Everybody got all happy, they gathered around and there was lots of energy. But it seemed like—even though there was that much energy—when I dropped “Apache,” there was even more energy. It was like the turbo boost. (Mr. Supreme, interview)

Mr. Supreme cites many valuable aspects that “Apache” offers: its rhythm, its horn arrangements, its energy, and the way it seems to animate the human body. For the deejay, though, all of these aspects are subsumed to its functional value: it can be depended upon to make a good social situation even better, which is why Mr. Supreme specifi es that it is “one of those records that I always take with me.”8

The ability to bring forth fun, energetic social gatherings is the deejays’ stock in trade. Having canonical songs at their disposal is one tactic that is often utilized:

It all depends on the vibe of the moment, the spirit of the energy, and what’s happening at the moment. It’s kinda like a half-improvised and half set-up thing, the way that I do it. And I’ll bring some cuts that are defi nitely the classic joints, but then I’ll also bring a set of cuts [that] are kinda like warm-up cuts. Say, like, if I’m deejaying a b-boying [event], right? If I’m deejaying the whole thing, I’ll

Foundation36

defi nitely bring some warm-up cuts. Something not too hype, something just kinda like mid-tempo, but upbeat at the same time. Get everybody warmed up.

But, all of a sudden, when I feel and I see the b-boys getting really into it, and you see, like, two guys or two crews really getting into it and starting to battle, that’s when I’ll throw on the really hype cuts, the really serious cuts that the b-boys would really enjoy the break to. Whether it’s like “Just Begun,” “The Mexican,” “Apache.” It’s whatever song at the moment, what the b-boys are feeling. From then, I’ll just hit ’em with song after song after song, where it’s basically, you know, I just want them to lose their mind[s] when they’re breakdancing. (DJ E-Rok, interview)

It is useful at this point to compare the work of the contemporary hip-hop deejay to that of the “selector” in Jamaican dance-hall music, as described by Stolzoff (2000), from which the role of the hip-hop deejay is derived:9

Choosing what songs to play is no simple matter. Competent selectors think about tempo, key, texture, genre, mood, and theme, among other things, when decid- ing which record will follow the one they are playing. These “intelligent” selec- tors keep the crowd on its toes by the seemingly improvisational ordering of his selections, yet his selections have to “make sense” and are far from random. In actuality, the selector draws on both established sequences of songs as well as spontaneous gut feelings about what song should go next. (Stolzoff 2000:203)

As I mentioned earlier, the development of a framework of songs that is responsive to the needs of b-boys at any given moment is one of the major goals for deejays at b-boy events. Moreover, the ability to deejay b-boy events, once developed, can also be deployed strategically by deejays to bring the b-boy sen- sibility into other performance environments, such as nightclubs. DJ DV-One, for example, does this as a conscious strategy:

Part of being a deejay is being kind of in tune, or really responsive, to what your crowd is doing. So if you’re deejaying and then you see someone in the corner b-boying, maybe you play like two or three more b-boy cuts in a row, to see how many other b-boys are there. See who else is gonna start b-boying. Or, you could have people b-boying and come up to you and be like “Yo, play some b-boy cuts.” And then that would start off your b-boy set. (DJ DV-One, interview)

The deejay can use the symbolic power of b-boy songs to create an exciting environment in non-b-boy contexts. This is not insignifi cant. One of the hall- marks of good deejays is that the audience trusts their judgment with regard to which songs are appropriate to play at any given time; they know how to rock a crowd. Their understanding of how music serves various social needs is the primary reason that fans pay money to hear them. While other factors may come into play (e.g., institutional status, the size and diversity of their record collec- tion, whether they have a radio show), they are all secondary to the deejay’s ability to facilitate positive social situations in general, and a sense of group

37History, Community, and Classic B-Boy Records

cohesion in particular. Again, while a deejay’s actions occur in real time, his or her split-second decisions are informed by years of experience, as well as by conscious planning. This experience, it is worth noting, is the mirror image of the crowd’s experience. What has historically worked for deejays is, by defi nition, what crowds have enjoyed. And crowds enjoy watching b-boys and b-girls.

As I mentioned earlier, the different varieties of hip-hop often overlap. For those who view hip-hop as a cultural practice, there is a general understand- ing—originally developed by Afrika Bambaataa, the Zulu Nation, and the Rock Steady Crew—that hip-hop comprises four elements: deejaying, emceeing/rap- ping, b-boying, and graffi ti (Bambaataa subsequently added a fi fth element: knowledge). Adherence to the elements mythology is one of the primary factors that hip-hop traditionalists use to distinguish themselves from those whom they see as having a more superfi cial interest in the popular music aspect of hip-hop. Taking into account that, by its nature, graffi ti does not come into play in a musi- cal performance, it is worth noting that the pop music aspect of hip-hop (i.e., rap music) is composed of emceeing and deejaying (or some deejaying substitute). Therefore, an environment that contains only emceeing and deejaying is a rap environment and thus ideologically ambiguous from the point of view of tradi- tionalists. But an environment that contains emceeing, deejaying, and b- boying is a hip-hop environment, that is, one concerned with history, tradition, and community values. B-boying alone is enough to tip the balance. And canonical songs speak to and for the b-boys. A song like “Apache,” then, can actually alter the environment for all participants, even those who are not themselves b-boys or b-girls.

Moreover, not only do these songs promote b-boying and the environment it creates, but they are also fun for others to dance to as well. “The key to the whole hip-hop culture is built on the deejays playing for the dancers,” observes Michael Holman. “And not just the b-boys and b-girls, but . . . the club dancers. You can have a very good time dancing to ‘Give It Up or Turnit a Loose’ without having to breakdance. Believe me” (Michael Holman, interview).

These opportunities, while valued for their own sake, are also viewed func- tionally by deejays. If they can use the b-boy canon to create a sense of group cohesion in the moment, then they can count the evening as a professional success, a step toward greater respect and earning power. While most deejays believe their work can be art, they are well aware that an economic imperative may take precedence if confl icts arise:

In your club, you pretty much have to be really really selfl ess. You know, ’cause you can’t go to a club and play for a crowd of people and expect to play your personal favorites because, you know, a lotta people might not be feeling you. So you have to play pretty much what people wanna hear, and then you have to manipulate it in a way to where it’s the way you like to hear it. So, if it’s a song you

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don’t like, maybe you can juggle it. Or mix it with a different song or just speed it up, slow it down, however. But you pretty much have to be selfl ess and play to the crowd in a club-type setting. (DJ DV-One, interview).

But this does this not exclude the promotion of ideas about tradition; in the case of the b-boy canon, it virtually demands it. As DJ E-Rok puts it:

It’s defi nitely something like a ritual that you do. And it kinda keeps the culture alive. . . . These songs were very important songs of . . . hip-hop culture. And as a deejay you try to play those songs, and you try to educate that these were the songs that made a lotta noise during the golden age of hip-hop. And, basically, you wanna get a crowd response to that. (DJ E-Rok, interview)

The b-boy canon is a tool of tradition building as much as it is a result of it. The existence of a b-boy canon is one of the things that makes b-boying a single community. By dancing to “Apache” or “It’s Just Begun,” any contemporary b-boy or b-girl is arguing that communal values are shared by anyone who has b-boyed over the last four decades. The fact that such gestures are not unique to hip-hop is not a weakness on hip-hop’s part, but a strength. If hip-hop uses its historical consciousness to achieve the same goals as any other musical culture, that only gives us the opportunity to dig more deeply into the specifi cs of how it does so and what those choices can tell us about hip-hop culture, its values, and its concerns.

The existence of a b-boy canon represents a particular perspective on tra- dition and a particular way of engaging with it. Specifi cally, it advocates two general premises: that there should be a close relationship between music and choreography; and that this relationship should serve as a conduit that allows b-boys and b-girls to transfer the historical associations of the music to their dance and, by extension, to their bodies.

In terms of the fi rst premise—the advocacy of a close relationship between music and dance—several signifi cant themes emerge. The fi rst of these is the clear fusion of African American and Latino cultural outlooks. The recordings themselves are drawn primarily from African American musical genres, par- ticularly soul and funk music. But within that tradition, the chosen songs tend to be the ones with the most obvious Latin connections. Not only do the record- ings themselves contain many obvious Latin elements, such as the use of Latin percussion, but they also have a deeper conceptual foundation in Latin music, making use of such ideas as the cha-cha-cha feel and the clave concept. The use and signifi cance of breaks also points to a world view infl uenced by the experi- ence of dancing to Latin music. The fusion of Caribbean and African American approaches, in turn, suggests a broader, more Afro-diasporic approach to dance. The break’s invitation to fi ll the silence with motion and the idea of integrat- ing music, mind, and body through rhythm patterns both speak to a view of

39History, Community, and Classic B-Boy Records

performance that sees music and dance as being two facets of a single greater activity.

In terms of the second premise—the idea that these songs allow b-boys and b-girls to carry history in their bodies—a number of issues also appear, the most obvious of which is the historical signifi cance of the songs themselves. The fact that these specifi c songs are associated with the early history of b-boying is an explicit part of their appeal. But beyond that, there are other elements that come into play. The emotions that the songs evoke—particularly, aggressive- ness—provide a deep connection to that history as well. The form of the songs also serves to maintain the social form of the event. These songs have special moments in them, which are manifested in real time every time the songs are played. On top of that, b-boys and b-girls are encouraged to develop the ability to rock the beat of a record, in essence to interact with the original musicians in a way that transcends historical time. Moreover, the fact that dancers actively train themselves for these goals reinforces the effect. Developing a feel for how to dance properly to a specifi c song is to have the culture in your body.

To dance well to the chosen songs is to live in hip-hop history. The existence of a recognized group of b-boy songs from another era represents a relation- ship between individual skills and collective history. The b-boy canon serves as an almost spiritual connection between modern proponents and the historical essence of the dance, giving strength, energy, and legitimacy to modern devo- tees. Or, as Alien Ness puts it, “I think, just for the sake of spirituality, you should get into those beats. Because those are the beats that moved the original b-boys, and it had to be for a reason. Without a doubt. So just for spiritual rea- sons, you should try to get into those beats and really see what it is about that beat that moved people and moves you” (Alien Ness, interview).