Filed under: knowledge
heres a quick run through of some developments in the history of the dance and some important pioneers. keep in mind this is written about the 90s-early 2000s so the information is intentionally not up to date; but as far as i know it is accurate for the time period (i.e. some people might be in different crews now but when they were making a name for themselves they were with the listed crew). starred people are more important and there is a nice summary of people at the end. also i am going by memory so i definitely missed a lot but i think its solid. oh yeah its not in chronological order or anything either. anyways, check itttt
Let me tell you a story about pain and suffering: Earlier this year, at the end of the 2009 spring semester to be exact, me and George were eating at Warren Towers Dining Hall with a few of the newer bboys in our group. We were talking about dance influences or favorite dancers i cant remember, and George and i were dropping names of very important people in the history and development of bboying as a dance and they had no clue as to who these people were. to make matters worse, they knew about people like Born and Physicx and all the Red Bull BC One participants and whatnot but were clueless to some of the most famous bboys that had come out of their respective hometowns. this was honestly completely appalling to me.
thats where this little section comes in: i will attempt to school people on important bboys. i kind of resent doing this since when i first started out bboying i was SO hungry for knowledge and footage (VHS tapes only, no internet, very few bboys where i lived, etc) that i actively sought it out and put in hours of time reading and looking at video tapes. we had to trade tapes and tape over stuff and order from catalogs and send checks in the mail and whatnot, shit was hard back then!!! i remember when i first procured a copy of “Beat Street,” i watched that shit at least a hundred times!!!!! i rewound the Roxy club battle with Rock Steady and New York City Breakers over and over ad nauseam. i guess what im trying to say is that i fell in love with the culture and dance.
