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80-458: Rock Steady Crew is an American breaking and hip hop group which has become a franchise for multiple groups in other locations. The group's 1983 international hit song " (Hey You) The Rock Steady Crew " (from the group's first studio album Ready for Battle ) peaked at No. 6 on the UK Singles Chart , and reached the top 10 in many European countries. Members of Rock Steady Crew featured in

160-520: A Volkswagen Golf GTi commercial featured a partly CGI version of Gene Kelly popping and breakdancing to a remix of " Singin' in the Rain " by Mint Royale . The tagline was, "The original, updated." The dance shows So You Think You Can Dance and America's Best Dance Crew arguably brought breakdancing back to the forefront of pop culture in the United States, similar to the popularity it had enjoyed in

240-533: A Loose" by James Brown, "Apache" by the Incredible Bongo Band, and "The Mexican" by Babe Ruth to name a few. The most common feature of breakdance music exists in musical breaks , or compilations formed from samples taken from different songs which are then looped and chained together by the DJ. The tempo generally ranges between 110 and 135 beats per minute with shuffled sixteenth and quarter beats in

320-422: A break and use this technique. A break beat is the sampling of breaks as ( drum loop ) beats, (originally found in soul or funk tracks) and their subsequent use as the rhythmic basis for hip hop and rap . It was invented by DJ Kool Herc , a Jamaican who emigrated to New York. He is usually credited with being a pioneer of the technique of using two copies of one record so as to be able to mix between

400-545: A break is where all the elements of a song (e.g., synth pads , basslines , vocals), except for percussion, disappear; as such, the break is also called a "percussion break". This is distinguished from a breakdown , a section where the composition is deliberately deconstructed to minimal elements (usually the percussion or rhythm section with the vocal re-introduced over the minimal backing), all other parts having been gradually or suddenly cut out. The distinction between breaks and breakdowns may be described as, "Breaks are for

480-458: A breakdancing competition game show hosted by Jay Park , premiered in South Korea on March 18, 2022. A few video games feature breaking, including: Break (music) A solo break in jazz occurs when the rhythm section (piano, bass, drums) stops playing behind a soloist for a brief period, usually two or four bars leading into the soloist's first improvised solo chorus (at which point

560-410: A broad style classification itself called breakbeat . Hip-hop break beat compilations include Hardcore Break Beats and Break Beats , and Drum Drops . It was during the break beats of the song that break dancers and b-boys and girls would become the focus of attention and demonstrate their personal flair. DJ Kool Herc inspired local dancers to dance on the break beats, creating new sounds by combining

640-416: A competition, who influenced local breakers to adopt this shift in style. Notable crews of that time were Fresh Sox from Melbourne and SKB (aka Street Kulture Breakerz), from Western Sydney , who recruited Korean breakers B-Boy Blond and B-Boy Blue. SKB were continuing to compete as of 2023. The breaking scene was peaking around 2010, but dipped between 2013 and 2017. After it was announced that breakdancing

720-576: A deal with Fila Sportswear in 2004, the first B-boy to get a sneaker company to honor their crew; Rock Steady Crew got its own sneaker - the "Rock Steady Crew 77". Also in 2004 Mr. Freeze accepted the Rock Steady Crew's Key to the City of Las Vegas on February 21, and it was proclaimed that day to be “Rock Steady Crew Day” in Las Vegas. It happens annually every year. Rock Steady Crew was an honoree at

800-441: A defined dance style in the United States. These precursing elements began to take form in the early 1970s, as breaking began to grow at parties featuring DJs and instrumental records. It was at these parties that DJ Kool Herc , a Bronx-based DJ pioneer, developed rhythmic breakdown sections by simultaneously switching between two copies of the same record, creating " breaks ". By looping the records and their simultaneous breaks, he

880-521: A different country every week. I tell my story dancing... I've been all around the world, y'all been all around the world wide web... [my friend] Bebe once said that shit, and I co-sign that, Bebe said that. That wasn't me but that's the realist shit I ever heard anybody say. I've been all around the world, you've been all around the world wide web. Although there are some generalities in the styles that exist, many dancers combine elements of different styles with their own ideas and knowledge in order to create

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960-571: A disturbance ' . Most pioneers and notable practitioners prefer the older terms b-boying and breaking . Frosty Freeze of the Rock Steady Crew has said, "We were known as b-boys"; hip-hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa has said, "B-boys, [are] what you call break boys...or b-girls, what you call break girls." Co-founder of Rock Steady Crew Santiago "Jo Jo" Torres, Rock Steady Crew member Marc "Mr. Freeze" Lemberger, hip-hop historian Fab 5 Freddy , and rappers Big Daddy Kane and Tech N9ne use

1040-630: A hip-hop dance studio called the Hip-Hop Street College. Born in Thailand and raised in the United States, Tuy "KK" Sobil started a community center called Tiny Toones in Phnom Penh , Cambodia in 2005 where he uses dancing, hip-hop music, and art to teach Cambodian youth language skills, computer skills, and life skills (hygiene, sex education, counseling). His organization helps roughly 5,000 youths each year. One of these youths include Diamond, who

1120-616: A home in Tokyo's Yoyogi Park in Harajuku, which still remains an active area for breakdancers and hip-hop enthusiasts. As hip-hop continued to grow in Japan, so did breakdancing and the breakdancing communities. Following the introduction of international breakdancing competitions, Japan began to compete and were praised for their agility and precision, yet they were criticized in the beginning for lacking originality. The Japanese began to truly flourish on

1200-584: A point, when his upper leg described a great circle." The engraving shows a young man apparently breaking. The dance was called the Giesse Harad Polska or "salmon district dance". In 1894, Thomas Edison filmed Walter Wilkins, Denny Toliver, and Joe Rastus dancing and performing a "breakdown". Then in 1898 he filmed a young street dancer performing acrobatic headspins. Some authors claim that breaking and capoeira have common African origin, while others claim that capoeira directly influenced breaking. There

1280-403: A production point of view the style is visually arresting, instantly recognizable, and adducible to fast-editing, while the ethos is multi ethnic, energetic, and edgy, but free from the gangster-laden overtones of much rap-culture imagery. Its usability as a visual cliché benefits sponsorship, despite the relatively small following of the genre itself beyond the circle of its practitioners. In 2005,

1360-424: A record where only two minutes of the song was all it was worth. They wouldn't buy those types of records. The type of mixing that was out then was blending from one record to the next or waiting for the record to go off and wait for the jock to put the needle back on." DJ Kool Herc's innovative use of the break-beat came about through his observations of dancers and desire to give them what they wanted. In this case

1440-540: A regularly and nationally broadcast television show about Hip Hop—hosted by Sidney Duteil —with a focus on Hip Hop dance. This show led to the explosion of Hip Hop dance in France, with many new crews appearing on the scene. Breakdancing in Japan was introduced in 1983 following the release of the movie Wild Style . The release of the movie was accompanied by a tour by the Rock Steady Crew and many Japanese were captivated. Other movies such as Flashdance followed and furthered

1520-403: A simplified version of the dance that focuses on "tricks" instead of culture. According to dance researcher Harri Heinilä, “It has been clear that the 'Breakdance' and other Hip Hop-related dances at the very least resemble or even were inherited from earlier African American dances, which have been collectively called jazz dance since this term appeared by 1917 and was established by the end of

1600-496: A time would go and dance, similar to modern-day breaking. This dance also inspired competition, also seen in breaking, because better treatment would be given to the slave who intrigued their master. In the 1877 book Rob Roy on the Baltic , John MacGregor describes seeing near Norrköping a "young man quite alone, who was practicing over and over the most inexplicable leap in the air...he swung himself up, and then round on his hand for

1680-404: A unique style of their own. Breakers can therefore be categorized into a broad style, which generally showcases the same types of techniques. The musical selection for breakdancing is not restricted to hip-hop music as long as the tempo and beat pattern conditions are met. Breakdancing can be readily adapted to different music genres with the aid of remixing . The original songs that popularized

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1760-406: Is thought of as a break by a producer. In the words of DJ Jazzy Jay : "Maybe those records [whose breaks are sampled] were ahead of their time. Maybe they were made specifically for the rap era; these people didn't know what they were making at that time. They thought, 'Oh, we want to make a jazz record ' ". Like the song Stereo World By Feeder and Upon This Rock by Newsboys are example that have

1840-439: Is a more aggressive dance style commonly performed between two partners that feature intricate footwork and hitting motions, mimicking a fight. As a separate dance style, it never gained the same widespread popularity as breaking, except for some very specific moves adopted by breakers who use it as a variation for their toprock. Uprock is also stated to have roots in gangs, as an expressive medium used to settle turf disputes, with

1920-455: Is also evidence of a similar style of dancing in Kaduna, Nigeria, in 1959. B-boy pioneers Richard "Crazy Legs" Colon and Kenneth "Ken Swift" Gabbert, both of Rock Steady Crew, cite James Brown and Kung Fu films (notably Bruce Lee films) as influences. Many of the acrobatic moves, such as the flare , show clear connections to gymnastics. However, it was not until the 1970s that breaking developed as

2000-406: Is being shown in changing the traditional image of females in hip-hop culture (and by extension, breakdance culture) to a more positive, empowered role in the modern hip-hop scene. In 2018, Japan's B-Girl Ami became the first B-Girl world champion of Red Bull BC One. Although B-Girl Ayumi had been invited as a competitor for the 2017 championship, it was only until 2018 that a 16 B-Girl bracket

2080-455: Is called a b-boy , b-girl , breakdancer , or breaker . The terms b-boy ( ' break-boy ' ), b-girl ( ' break-girl ' ), and breaker were the original terms used to describe the dancers who performed to DJ Kool Herc 's breakbeats. The obvious connection of the term breaking is to the word breakbeat . DJ Kool Herc has said that the term breaking was 1970s slang for ' getting excited ' , ' acting energetically ' or ' causing

2160-555: Is known as the "Year Zero of Korean breaking". A Korean-American hip hop promoter named John Jay Chon was visiting his family in Seoul and while he was there, he met a crew named Expression Crew in a club. He gave them a VHS tape of a Los Angeles breakdancing competition called Radiotron. A year later when he returned, Chon found that his video and others like his had been copied and dubbed numerous times, and were feeding an ever-growing breaker community. In 2002, Korea's Expression Crew won

2240-512: Is my first manager, and she is also the first person to establish a hip-hop residency in the downtown scene. The names and places are legendary. The story of how this all came about should be mandatory reading for anyone who would like to learn about how hip-hop culture made it to the downtown scene and throughout the rest of the world..please share your thoughts on what you learn on this post. #hiphop #rocksteadycrew #davidbowie #hiphophistory #knowledge — Crazy Legs , current President, OG founder of

2320-488: Is regarded as Cambodia's first b-girl. There are several ways breakdancing came to Canada. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, films such as Breakin ' (1984) , Beat Street (1984), and the immigration of people from Chicago , New York , Detroit , Seattle , and Los Angeles introduced dance styles from the United States. Breakdancing expanded in Canada from there, with crews like Canadian Floormasters taking over

2400-438: Is typically set to songs containing drum breaks , especially in funk , soul , and hip-hop . Its modern dance elements originated among the poor youth of New York during the early 1980s. It is tied to the birth of hip-hop, whose DJs developed rhythmic break for dancers. The dance form has expanded globally, with an array of organizations and independent competitions supporting its growth. Breaking became an Olympic sport at

2480-421: Is unfair to make a sweeping generalization about these inequalities because women have begun to play a larger role in the breakdancing scene. Some people have pointed to a lack of promotion as a barrier, as full-time b-girl Firefly stated in a BBC piece: "It's getting more popular. There are a lot more girls involved. The problem is that promoters are not putting on enough female-only battles." Growing interest

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2560-674: The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris , as per a December 7, 2020 decision by the International Olympic Committee , after a proposal by the World DanceSport Federation . The origin of the term breakdance is unknown. It was used by hiphop pioneer and breakdancer Kurtis Blow in a 1980 profile by Bill Adler in the New York Daily News . The term is frequently used to refer to the dance in popular culture and in

2640-591: The Universal Zulu Nation to further his message. Some breakers argue that because uprock was originally a separate dance style it should never be mixed with breaking and that the uprock moves performed by breakers today are not the original moves but imitations that only show a small part of the original uprock style. In the music video for 1985's hit single " I Wonder If I Take You Home ", Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam 's drummer Mike Hughes can be seen "rocking" (doing uprock) at 1:24 when viewed on YouTube . By

2720-399: The back-up played on the banjo for a mandolin 'break' may differ from that played for a dobro 'break' in the same song". According to David Toop , "the word break or breaking is a music and dance term, as well as a proverb, that goes back a long way. Some tunes, like 'Buck Dancer's Lament' from early in the nineteenth century, featured a two-bar silence in every eight bars for

2800-534: The "robot" style. In the early 1990s, the country experienced a severe economic and political crisis. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union , the breakdance craze was over and breakdancing became dated. The next wave of interest in breakdancing in Russia would only occur in the late 90s. There are four primary elements that form breakdancing: toprock, downrock, power moves, and freezes. … because everybody watches

2880-502: The 1920s." For example, in 1942, ‘The Mills Brothers' short film The Caravan featured a dance sequence that bears a striking resemblance to modern breakdancing. The dancer entered the center of a circle formed by spectators, starting with movements similar to the Charleston, echoing the style of Toprocking/Uprocking. He then executed a backflip, dropped face down to the ground, and transitioned into spins, rotating his body horizontally with

2960-557: The 1980s. The American drama television series Step Up: High Water , a series focused on breakdancing and other forms of hip-hop dance, premiered on March 20, 2019. Since breakdancing's popularity surge in South Korea, it has been featured in various TV dramas and commercials. Break is a 2006 South Korean miniseries about a breakdancing competition. Over the Rainbow is a 2006 South Korean drama series centered on different characters who are brought together by breakdancing. Showdown ,

3040-526: The 2004 VH1 Hip Hop Honors Event. In 2008 The Borough president of The Bronx presented Rock Steady Crew with a Citation of Merit. Breakdance Breakdancing or breaking , also called b-boying (when performed by men) or b-girling (women), is a style of street dance originated by African Americans and Puerto Ricans in the Bronx . Breakdancing consists mainly of four kinds of movement— toprock , downrock , power moves , and freezes —and

3120-810: The 80's scene, and New Energy opening for James Brown in 1984 at the Paladium in Montreal. Leading into the 90's, crews like Bag of Trix, Rakunz, Intrikit, Contents Under Pressure, Supernaturalz, Boogie Brats, and Red Power Squad, led the scene throughout the rest of the past two decades and counting. In the 2024 Paris Olympics men's gold medal showdown, Canada's Philip "Phil Wizard" Kim swept 3 rounds against France's Danis "Danny Dan" Civil with judges voting 23–4. Although social media such as YouTube cannot be used in China, breakdancing in China has been popular. Many people copy breakdancing videos from abroad and distribute them back to

3200-472: The BC One competition became Bboy Issei in 2016. Issei is widely regarded by many as the best Japanese breakdancer currently and in the eyes of some, the best worldwide. Female bboys, or "bgirls", are also prevalent in Japan and following the introduction of a female BC One competition in 2018, Japanese bgirl Ami Yuasa became the first female champion. Notable Japanese bboy crews include FoundNation, Body Carnival, and

3280-486: The Floorriorz. Notable Japanese bgirl crews include Queen of Queens, Body Carnival, and Nishikasai. Japanese B-girl Ami won the first ever Olympic gold medal for breakdancing at the Paris 2024 Olympics . Breakdancing was first introduced to South Korea by American soldiers shortly after its surge of popularity in the U.S. during the 1980s, but it was not until the late 1990s that the culture and dance took hold. 1997

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3360-862: The Manhattan branch of Rock Steady Crew August 08, 2024 In 1992, Gregory Hines was the 1st to stand & clap at the mention of Rock Steady Crew's “So, What Happens Now?" the musical, soon the audience at the Kennedy Center Honors joined him. President George Bush , Gregory Peck and the Nicholas Brothers were all in attendance. Rock Steady Crew were the first B-boys to perform at Carnegie Hall on Jan 19, 2001. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in 2003, proclaimed July 26 to be “Rock Steady Crew Day” in New York City during Rock Steady Crew's 26th Anniversary Celebration at Pier 54 . Crazy Legs signed

3440-689: The Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism. Famous breakdancing crews from Korea include Morning of Owl, Jinjo Crew , Rivers Crew and Gamblerz . In the 1980s the Soviet Union was in a state of the Cold War with the countries of the Western Bloc . Soviet people lived behind the Iron Curtain , so they usually learned the new fashion trends emerging in the capitalist countries with some delay. The Soviet Union first learned of breakdancing in 1984, when videotapes of

3520-483: The Olympics were b-girl Raygun (36-year-old university lecturer Rachael Gunn ), and 16-year-old b-boy Jeff "J Attack" Dunne. Neither made it out of the round-robin stage, and Raygun was widely mocked online for her creative "kangaroo hop" moves, with a video clip of her performance going viral, as well as discussed in the press. Both entrants chose to wear their team tracksuit rather than street clothes. Ismael Toledo

3600-598: The breakdance craze. Crazy-A, the leader of the Tokyo chapter of the Rock Steady Crew, was dragged to see Flashdance by his then girlfriend and walked out captivated by the dance form and became one its earliest and one of the most influential breakers in Japanese history. Groups began to spring up as well, with early groups such as Tokyo B-Boys, Dynamic Rock Force (American kids from Yokota AB), B-5 Crew, and Mystic Movers popping up in Harajuku . The breakdancing community in Japan found

3680-532: The break—a quick showcase of improvised dance steps. Others used the same device for a solo instrumental break; a well-known example being the four-bar break taken by Charlie Parker in Dizzy Gillespie 's tune ' Night in Tunisia '." However, in hip hop today, the term break refers to any segment of music (usually four measures or less) that could be sampled and repeated. A break is any expanse of music that

3760-530: The capitalists", explaining that the dance was invented by Black Americans from poor neighborhoods. In 1985 the performance of Czech Jiří Korn was shown in the program "Morning Post", and became one of the first official demonstrations of breakdancing on Soviet television. With the support of the Leninist Young Communist League in 1986 breakdance festivals were held in the cities of the Baltic republics ( Tallinn , Palanga , Riga ). The next step

3840-451: The dance form borrow significantly from progressive genres of funk , soul , disco , electro , and jazz funk . A musical canon of these traditional b-boy songs have since developed, songs that were once expected to be played at every b-boying event. As the dance form grew, this standardization of classic songs prompted innovation of dance moves and break beats that reimagined the standard melodies. These songs include "Give It Up or Turn It

3920-497: The disco records which emerged out of the influence of this type of mixing tended to feature long introductions, anthemic choruses and extended vamp sections, all creating a tension which was released by the break. Break-beat music simply ate the cherry off the top of the cake and threw the rest away. In the words of DJ Grandmaster Flash, "Disco was brand new then and there were a few jocks that had monstrous sound systems but they wouldn't dare play this kind of music. They would never play

4000-490: The drummer; breakdowns are for electronic producers". In hip hop music and electronica, a short break is also known as a "cut", and the reintroduction of the full bass line and drums is known as a " drop ", which is sometimes accented by cutting off everything, even the percussion right before the full music is dropped back in. Old-school hip-hop DJs have described the relationship between breaks, early hip-hop music, and disco . According to Afrika Bambaataa : Now he took

4080-460: The early 1990s, "Australia was a world leading power move country", according to 2020s award-winning breaker Kid Tek. Stars of the time included B-Boy All Stars from Brisbane , who appeared on the American talent show Star Search in 1992. During the 2000s, the style evolved from focussing on power moves back to foundational styles. Influential Bronx breaker Alien Ness visited Melbourne to judge

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4160-461: The films Flashdance and Beat Street , which ignited international interest in the b-boy subculture. The 1977 original crew was called "Untouchable Four B.Boys". There were 4 members: Joe-Joe, Easy-Mike, Jimmy-Dee, and P.Body 170th. The larger group known as Rock Steady Crew was initially formed in The Bronx , New York City in 1977 by b-boys Jimmy Dee and Jimmy Lee. The Manhattan branch

4240-516: The films Breakin ' , Breakin' 2 and Beat Street got into the country. In the USSR these movies were not released officially. They were brought home by Soviet citizens who had the opportunity to travel to Western countries (for example, by diplomats). Originally, the dance became popular in big cities: Moscow and Leningrad , as well as in the Baltic republics (some citizens of these Soviet republics had

4320-578: The height of breakdancing's popularity, Donnie Yen starred in a Hong Kong film called Mismatched Couples in which he performed various b-boy and breakdancing moves. The 2000s saw a resurgence of films and television series featuring breakdancing that continued into the early 2010s: Several documentary films have been made about breakdancing: In the United States, Breakdancing is widely referred to in TV advertising, as well as news, travelogue, and documentary segments, as an indicator of youth/street culture. From

4400-520: The international stage following the breakdancing career of Taisuke Nonaka, known simply as Taisuke. Taisuke began to dominate the international scene and led the Japanese team Floorriorz to win the BOTY in 2015 against crew Kienjuice from Belarus. Despite Taisuke's successful career in group competitions, he failed to win the solo Red Bull BC One competition, an individual breakdancing championship that had continued to evade Japanese bboys. The first Japanese to win

4480-467: The mainland. Although it is still an underground culture in China because of some restrictions, breakdancing was reported to be a growing presence in 2013. Breakdancing took off in France in the early 1980s with the creation of groups such as the Paris City Breakers (who styled themselves after the well-known New York City Breakers ). In 1984, France became the first country in the world to have

4560-496: The mainstream entertainment industry. The term break has been used in music, particularly jazz music since the 1920s, in which a solo musician is given a break in which to play solo for a time. The term breakdancing has become an umbrella term that includes California-based dance styles such as popping , locking , and electric boogaloo , in addition to the New York-based b-boying. Goofy A practitioner of this dance

4640-560: The music of like Mandrill, like "Fencewalk", certain disco records that had funky percussion breaks like the Incredible Bongo Band when they came out with "Apache" and he just kept that beat going . It might be that certain part of the record that everybody waits for—they just let their inner self go and get wild. The next thing you know the singer comes back in and you'd be mad. Musicologist David Toop , based on interviews with DJ Grandmaster Flash , Kool DJ Herc , and others, has written: Break-beat music and hip-hop culture were happening at

4720-507: The opportunity to watch Western television). The attitude of the authorities to the new dance that came from the West was negative. The situation changed in 1985 with Mikhail Gorbachev who came to power and with the beginning of the Perestroika policy. The first to legalize the new dance were dancers from the Baltic republics. They presented this dance as the "protest against the arbitrariness of

4800-504: The percussive pattern. History credits DJ Kool Herc for the invention of this concept later termed the break beat . Similar to other hip-hop subcultures, such as graffiti writing, rapping , and DJing , breakers are predominantly male, but this is not to say that women breakers, b-girls, are invisible or nonexistent. Female participants, such as Daisy Castro (also known as Baby Love of Rock Steady Crew), attest that females have been breakdancing since its inception. Critics argue that it

4880-582: The prestigious international breakdancing competition Battle of the Year , exposing the skill of the country's breakers to the rest of the world. Since then, the Korean government has capitalized on the popularity of the dance and has promoted it alongside Korean culture. R-16 Korea is the most well-known government-sponsored breakdancing event, and is hosted by the Korea Tourism Organization and supported by

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4960-411: The rhythm section resumes playing). A notable recorded example is sax player Charlie Parker 's solo break at the beginning of his solo on " A Night in Tunisia ". While the solo break is a break for the rhythm section, for the soloist, it is a solo cadenza , where they are expected to improvise an interesting and engaging melodic line. In DJ parlance, in disco , hip hop and electronic dance music ,

5040-420: The same break, or, as Bronx DJ Afrika Bambaataa describes, "that certain part of the record that everybody waits for—they just let their inner self go and get wild", extending its length through repetition. However, it is likely that there were a number of like-minded DJs developing the technique at the same time; for example, Walter Gibbons was noted in first-hand accounts by his peers for cutting two copies of

5120-447: The same record in his discothèque gigs of the mid-1970s. A particularly innovative style of street dance was created to accompany break beat-based music, and was hence referred to as "The Break", or breaking . In the 1980s, charismatic dancers like Crazy Legs , Frosty Freeze , and the Rock Steady Crew revived the breaking movement. More recently, electronic artists have created "break beats" from other electronic music, resulting in

5200-466: The same time as the emergence of disco (in 1974 known as party music ). Disco was also created by DJs in its initial phase, though these tended to be club jocks rather than mobile party jocks – records by Barry White, Eddie Kendricks and others became dancefloor hits in New York clubs like Tamberlane and Sanctuary and were crossed over onto radio by Frankie Crocker at station WBLS. There were many parallels in

5280-422: The same videos online, everybody ends up looking very similar. The differences between individual b-boys, between crews, between cities/states/countries/continents, have largely disappeared. It used to be that you could tell what city a b-boy was from by the way he danced. Not anymore. But I've been saying these things for almost a decade, and most people don't listen, but continue watching the same videos and dancing

5360-515: The same way. It's what I call the "international style", or the "Youtube style". Luis "Alien Ness" Martinez, the president of Mighty Zulu Kings, expressed a similar frustration in a separate interview three years earlier with "The Super B-Beat Show" about the top five things he hates in breakdancing: Oh yeah, the last thing I hate in breakin'… Yo, all y'all motherfuckin' internet b-boys... I'm an internet b-boy too, but I'm real about my shit. Everybody knows who I am, I'm out at every fucking jam, I'm in

5440-404: The support of his hands and feet. Afterward, he stood up, spun, and performed an Eagle Rock-like jazz dance before exiting the circle. Many elements of breaking developed before the 1970s. Even Colonial American dances such as the minuet , Juba , the quadrille , and the waltz may have contributed elements. The Juba, for example, is an African dance where men had dance circles where one man at

5520-417: The techniques used by Kool DJ Herc and a pioneering disco DJ like Francis Grasso, who worked at Sanctuary, as they used similar mixtures and superimpositions of drumbeats, rock music, funk and African records For less creative disco DJs, however, the ideal was to slip-cute smoothly from the end of one record into the beginning of the next. They also created a context for breaks rather than foregrounding them, and

5600-414: The term b-boy . Some enthusiasts consider breakdancing an ignorant, and even pejorative, term. Others use it to derogatorily refer to studio -trained dancers who can perform the moves but who do not live a "b-boy lifestyle". Still others use the term breakdancer to disparage those who learn the dance for personal gain rather than for commitment to the culture. Many accuse the media of presenting

5680-474: The term "cypher" to denote circles of people. Crews including the Rock Steady Crew or Mighty Zulu Kingz began to form, in response to the growth of competitive cyphers which sometimes featured cash-prizes, titles, and bragging rights. Breaking started as toprock , footwork-oriented dance moves performed standing up, but as dance crews began to experiment, a separate dance form known as uprock further influenced breaking. Uprock , also known as Brooklyn uprock,

5760-420: The way through a song. According to Peter van der Merwe a break "occurs when the voice stops at the end of a phrase and is answered by a snatch of accompaniment", and originated from the bass runs of marches of the " Sousa school ". In this case it would be a "break" from the vocal part. In bluegrass and other old-time music , a break is "when an instrument plays the melody to a song idiomatically , i.e.

5840-425: The who was b-boys (otherwise known as break-boys or breakdancers) and what they wanted was an opportunity to move explosively, express themselves, and peacock to women (Brester and Broughton 167). A break may be described as when the song takes a "breather, drops down to some exciting percussion, and then comes storming back again" and compared to a false ending . Breaks usually occur two-thirds to three-quarters of

5920-552: The winner deciding the location of a future battle. Although some disagree that breaking ever played a part in mediating gang rivalry, the early growth of breaking still primarily served to assist the poor youth of the Bronx to stray away from gang violence and rather expel their time towards an artistic dance. One example is former gang leader Afrika Bambaataa , who hosted hip-hop parties and vowed to specifically use hip-hop to support children away from gang violence. He would eventually form

6000-503: Was able to prolong the break and provide a rhythmic and improvisational base for dancers: Herc tells Jeff Chang in his book Can't Stop Won't Stop (2005), "And once they heard that, that was it, wasn't no turning back. They always wanted to hear breaks after breaks after breaks after breaks." Breaking prompted dance battles and dance sessions known as "cyphers", competitive circles in which participants took turns dancing while surrounded by onlookers. The Five-Percent Nation first used

6080-435: Was created by Crazy Legs and B-Boy Fresh in 1979. The New York Times called the Rock Steady Crew "the foremost breakdancing group in the world today." In the early part of the 1980s Rock Steady Crew's talent manager was Kool Lady Blue , also known as Ruza Blue, founder of Club Negril & Roxy NYC . If you claim to be hip-hop, you better pay attention! Please read the interview with Kool Lady Blue . Kool Lady Blue

6160-434: Was featured as part of the main event. In the past 50 years, various films have depicted the dance. 1975's (filmed in 1974) Tommy included a breakdancing sequence during the "Sensation" number. Later, in the early 1980s, several films depicted breakdancing including Fame , Wild Style , Flashdance , Breakin' , Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo , Delivery Boys , Krush Groove , and Beat Street . In 1985, at

6240-460: Was going to be included as a sport in the 2024 Olympics , its popularity surged again. Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020–21, because of social distancing measures, breakers started doing battle online, via Zoom or Instagram. Australian breakers started developing more creative and innovative styles, and "pushing international barriers", according to Kid Tek. The qualifying Australian entrants to

6320-456: Was one of the first breakers in Brazil. In 1984, he moved to the United States to study dance. While in the U.S. he discovered breakdancing and ended up meeting breaker Crazy Legs who personally mentored him for the four years that followed. After becoming proficient in breakdancing, he moved back to São Paulo and started to organize crews and enter international competitions. He eventually opened

6400-545: Was the spreading of the similar festivals to other Soviet republics. Festivals were held in Donetsk (Ukraine), Vitebsk (Belarus), Gorky (Russia). Breakdancing could be seen in Soviet cinema: Dancing on the Roof (1985), Courier (1986), Publication (1988). By the end of the decade the dance became almost ubiquitous. At almost any disco or school dance one could see a person dancing in

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