When people watch breaking, which is just extraordinary, it's more than just athleticism, isn't it? Can you describe, if you could, what's the soul of breaking? Oh, wow. The soul of breaking is the pain that we live through, growing up in the Bronx, and the poverty. That soul of all the funk and soul music created by people like James Brown, Jimmy Castor … the Latin soul scene in salsa, that all is kind of like a gumbo of culture in the Bronx.
All those things that make those moves look so good, especially when they weren't yet athletic, was the passion for continuing to move forward, finding a way to pass the time and coming up with something by default that we were all just deeply into as youth. Do you worry that by going into the Olympics, it might lose that realness? That its soul would get lumped in with figure skating and gymnastics, where it's very established that there's rules I don't worry, because I'd rather be a problem solver, have a seat at the table and help guide.
We have three years to get this right, and that's assuming that they allow me to continue dropping in some words, every now and then, of advice. So I'm giving them that slack to get it right. It's better to have a seat at the table and contribute as opposed to sitting on the outside complaining and just raising concerns.
How do you think it should be judged? I mean, it's not just about the moves, from what you're describing. What are the qualities of good breaking that should be recognized in any kind of judging? First of all, you have to have an authentic response to music. You have to have foundation, including toprock and footwork.
You have to know what blow-ups are. You have to know what your freezes are. You have to know what your power moves are. And you also then have to know how to do those things fluidly, from move to move, and not lose the soul of what you do. It's totally based on feeling. And I think you get that from a certain amount of years of knowing how to do the dance, but also being deep-rooted within the culture and the music of the dance. We are working on judging certifications so that those kinds of judges exist.
But it's still the Olympics platform. We're going to have to allow for a certain amount of compromise. And that compromise will also mean that whatever we're doing as the "By the people, for the people" kind of events, will also remain the most authentic and legitimate. So the Olympics is never going to be what we do as a community, and that's still what makes us special. Because we all spoke to each other in a very straightforward, blunt way. Can you tell me the first few things that come to mind when you think about the Bronx when you were growing up?
Son of Sam, the. Burned down buildings. A lot of people living on public assistance. Dysfunctional homes. At-risk children. But we all found a way to still have a good time. Did you find yourself having to defend the value of hip-hop or breaking then?
But, you know, people would try to—yeah, I would say they tried to discourage me or wondered why I was still doing something that was supposedly over with. Its first heyday was only about five years.
So, I was just getting better. I was inventing moves. I was creating moves that no one had ever done before. I turned dance into something that was more acrobatic and dynamic by adding the spin on the back, windmills.
You want to find people and battle. Seeing that energy in the early movies is really beautiful. What was it like for you when those movies came out, Wild Style and Style Wars?
I saw a clip of you on David Letterman in Did people start to pay more attention? This just all happened to happen. Like, a typical yuppie dude.
I have some fame! We just fell into all of that stuff. Was that scary for you at the time, fame? Maybe fame is different now because of all the access people can have with social media. But was it scary to realize you had fame in the moment? Man, we grew up in the Bronx during tough times. It would take a lot more to scare me than that. You know? But other than that, no. There was no fear when it came to that. If anything, it was an opportunity to get money to, you know, finally pay for my own food.
And Dondi and Futura [from the Rock Steady Crew] made their way in defense of them and basically beat the shit out of the persons in the audience. And we were all ready to fight the audience and Dondi and Futura come back on stage after they defended the girls. And it started, like, one person at a time, until the whole audience started doing it—they just started clapping. They gave us a round of applause for it.
It was pretty cool. And we just kept on with the show. Do you think America understands breaking, understands hip-hop today? I think a lot of people would like to think they understand hip-hop. But, you know, they just throw the word around loosely because they listen to rap music. I would say the majority of the country does not understand what this really has represented globally, in terms of bridging the gaps between cultures who probably never would have gotten with each other to break bread, to discuss race relations, social justice and all these things that we all have to deal with.
The thing is that we came to that table because of a common interest of skill and an appreciation for art. Hip-hop has been an important part of my life, so I appreciate the pioneers like you who helped bring it to the forefront. Speaking to that end, you were one of the originators and promulgators of the culture.
Do you remember any specifically important conversation between you and your peers about the early days or early challenges of participating in the art form? A lot of us are always trying to connect the dots in terms of a timeline. But the bigger picture is something that came from nothing eventually played a big role in bringing the world a lot closer together.
That did come from the Black and Puerto Rican community in the Bronx during the time when New York was actually bankrupt and social programs were nonexistent. So, to be in a position of having to travel around the world when the odds for me even to make it out of my neighborhood were really low.
Or to even be successful, they were really low. Why is it important for you to keep dancing and to continue to teach breaking to younger generations? I love music. For instance, someone called me up earlier.
Just, like, a half-hour before you and I got on the phone. It was this Puerto Rican girl who is anxious to find out more about the Puerto Rican contribution within hip-hop because she feels like, you know, the Puerto Rican community is understated when it comes to our contributions.
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