The Birth of Breaking: Hip-Hop History from the Floor Up 9781501394317, 9781501394300, 9781501394348, 9781501394331

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THE BIRTH OF BREAKING

BLACK LITERARY AND CULTURAL EXPRESSIONS Bloomsbury’s Black Literary and Cultural Expressions series provides a much-needed space for exploring dimensions of Black creativity as its local expressions in literature, music, film, art, etc., interface with the global circulation of culture. From contemporary and historical perspectives, and through a multidisciplinary lens, works in this series critically analyze the provenance, genres, aesthetics, intersections, and modes of circulation of works of Black cultural expression and production. Series Editors Toyin Falola and Abimbola A. Adelakun, University of Texas at Austin, USA Advisory Board Nadia Anwar, University of Management and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan Adriaan van Klinken, University of Leeds, UK Alain Lawo-Sukam, Texas A&M University, USA Nathaniel S. Murrell, University of North Carolina, Wilmington, USA Mukoma wa Ngugi, Cornell University, USA Bode Omojola, Mount Holyoke and the Five College Consortium, USA Nduka Otiono, Carleton University, Canada Bola Sotunsa, Babcock University, Nigeria Nathan Suhr-Sytsma, Emory University, USA Volumes in the Series: Wole Soyinka: Literature, Activism, and African Transformation by Bola Dauda and Toyin Falola Social Ethics and Governance in Contemporary African Writing: Literature, Philosophy, and the Nigerian World by Nimi Wariboko The Birth of Breaking: Hip-Hop History from the Floor Up by Serouj “Midus” Aprahamian The Epic Poetry of Mazisi Kunene by Dike Okoro (forthcoming) The Decolonizing Work of Jessica Huntley: The Political Roots of a Radical Black Activist by Claudia Tomlinson (forthcoming)

THE BIRTH OF BREAKING Hip-Hop History from the Floor Up

SEROUJ “MIDUS” APRAHAMIAN

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Inc 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in the United States of America 2023 Copyright © Serouj Aprahamian 2023 For legal purposes the List of Illustrations and Acknowledgments on pp. viii–xi constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover image: Phase 2 Cover design by Eleanor Rose All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Inc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. Whilst every effort has been made to locate copyright holders the publishers would be grateful to hear from any person(s) not here acknowledged. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Aprahamian, Serouj, author. Title: The birth of breaking : hip-hop history from the floor up / Serouj “Midus” Aprahamian. Description: New York, NY : Bloomsbury Academic, 2023. | Series: Black literary and cultural expressions (BLACE) | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “The untold story of how breaking - one of the most widely practiced dance forms in the world today - began as a distinctly African American expression in the Bronx, New York, during the 1970s”– Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2022058974 (print) | LCCN 2022058975 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501394317 (hardback) | ISBN 9781501394300 (paperback) | ISBN 9781501394324 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501394331 (pdf) | ISBN 9781501394348 (ebook other) Subjects: LCSH: Break dancing–New York (State)–New York–History. | African American youth–New York (State)–New York. | African American dance–New York (State)–New York. | New York (N.Y.)–Social life and customs. Classification: LCC GV1796.B74 A67 2023 (print) | LCC GV1796.B74 (ebook) | DDC 793.3–dc23/eng/20221229 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022058974 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022058975

ISBN:

HB: 978-1-5013-9431-7 PB: 978-1-5013-9430-0 ePDF: 978-1-5013-9433-1 eBook: 978-1-5013-9432-4

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CONTENTS

List of Illustrations  vi Acknowledgments  viii

1 Detecting Breaking’s Beginnings  1 2 Going Off in the Bronx  23 3 Keeping the Movement Moving  49 4 Make Way for the B-Boys  75 5 Mothers of the Movement  105 6 Breaking’s Latino Adoption  127 Epilogue: Back to the Beginning  161 Notes  171 Index  211

ILLUSTRATIONS

1.1 The Legendary Twins, Keith and Kevin Smith, speaking during a panel presentation at a breaking event called “Concrete Soul,” held in Las Vegas, Nevada, on April 15, 2000. ©Serouj Aprahamian, reproduced with permission  14 2.1 A “Kool Herc” signature on the Washington Bridge over the Harlem River, connecting 181st Street in Manhattan and Sedgwick Ave in the Bronx, c. 1974. Photo by COCO 144 and PHASE 2/IGTimes archive. Reproduced with permission  37 2.2 Advertisement for the Plaza Tunnel night club, New York Amsterdam News, August 7, 1971, B6. Reproduced with permission  39 2.3 Danny Alexander, a jazz dancer affiliated with Harlem’s Small’s Paradise nightclub, executes a pin drop while jumping rope in the short film Smash Your Baggage (1932)  41 3.1 Kool Herc played after-hour events at the Parkside Plaza banquet hall, located in the Mt Eden section of the Bronx. The owner of the venue, Bob Hevelow, also owned the Hevelow on Jerome Avenue in the West Bronx, where Herc began playing regularly in 1975. Courtesy NYC Municipal Archives  60 3.2 DICE 198, LAVA, and PHASE 2 in a playground in the Bronx, c. 1973–74. Photographer unknown/IGTimes Archive. Reproduced with permission  66 4.1 Teenagers socializing at the East Harlem Federation Youth Association Center, popularly known as “Chuck Center,” in October 1970. ©JP Laffont, reproduced with permission  79

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4.2 Keith Smith of The Legendary Twins breaks during a presentation at York University, December 7, 2015. ©Mike Browell, reproduced with permission  86 4.3 Flyer for “The Hell Raisn’ Hip Hopp Hoedownn” at Hunts

5.1

5.2

6.1

6.2 7.1

Point Palace in the Bronx on June 6, 1981. As can be seen, the term “hip-hop” was being used as a positive descriptor for the movement by the early 1980s. Flyer designed by PHASE 2. Courtesy of Breakbeat Lenny Archive, #8052. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library  102 Cindy Campbell performing a forward lunging two-step in her 1976 Dodge Vocational High School yearbook. While every effort has been made to locate copyright holders the publishers would be grateful to hear from any person(s) not here acknowledged  113 Flyer for the Zulu Nation’s “Funk in Heaven ’77” event, held at Junior High School 123 in the Bronx on October 28, 1977. Courtesy of Johan Kugelberg hip-hop collection, #8021. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library  119 GrandMixer DXT breaking at The Roxy in Manhattan, where he was also the house DJ, September 24, 1981. ©David Corio/ Redferns, Courtesy of Getty Images  134 Unknown breakers posing on Fox Street in the South Bronx, mid-1980s. ©Ricky Flores, reproduced with permission  149 GrandMixer DXT, far right, judging at the Ultimate B-Boy Championship in Las Vegas, Nevada, August 6, 2010. ©Martha Cooper, reproduced with permission  164

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

On November 3, 2015, b-boy Richard “Crazy Legs” Colon posted a video on his Facebook page featuring MC KRS-One, DJ Afrika Bambaataa, Zulu Nation co-founder Ahmed Henderson, and himself discussing the need for clarity in hip-hop history. Given the critique these figures were receiving about their portrayal of the past, as well as the growing attention hip-hop history was getting from educational and state institutions, they decided to have a “meeting of the minds,” as they put it, to set the record straight about hip-hop’s beginnings. I had just begun my PhD on breaking history at York University when I saw this video and was immediately intrigued by its public message. What struck me more than the content of the video, however, was a comment written on Crazy Legs’ Facebook post by a person going under the name “Firstwave Writers.” Their profile was a black and white picture of Bela Lugosi as Dracula and their comment read like a long, piercing manifesto against the myths pervading hip-hop history. Opening with the word “PERSPECTIVE,” in all caps, the commentor pointed out how everyone has a right to their own perspective but that each opinion must be evaluated according to the facts and evidence surrounding the topic. The lack of such delineation among hip-hop practitioners and researchers is why so much must be put back into perspective, opined the commentator. Given the colorful analogies, poignant examples, and creative wordplay that was used, I almost immediately knew that the person behind the post was none other than hip-hop pioneer PHASE 2. I had followed PHASE 2’s interviews and writings on aerosol art, breaking, and music since I was a teenager. He was always offering important insights about the culture, often speaking directly from his personal experiences and contributions. Even more importantly, though, he spoke out against dominant

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narratives in hip-hop history and offered blistering critiques of sources that everybody else seemed to unquestioningly revere, such as Charlie Ahearn’s Wild Style (1983) film or Jeff Chang’s book Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop. I found it strange how most people seemed to either ignore or overlook the very apt and substantial criticisms he raised. When I saw this critical comment under Crazy Legs’ post being similarly overlooked, I messaged the account to try and touch base with him. After a few hours, he messaged me back and, although he did not directly acknowledge that it was him, we began corresponding about the issues surrounding hip-hop’s historicization. Over the next several months, me and PHASE 2 kept in regular contact and I told him about my research as it developed. In turn, he openly shared stories about virtually every aspect of the culture I could think of, giving incredible insights that were almost always substantiated when I looked further into them. I also met him in New York on several occasions and maintained close correspondence with him up until his passing in December 2019. Although he would likely not have wanted me to acknowledge him—he was too humble and private for that—I would be remiss if I did not credit the impact PHASE 2 had on my questioning and understanding of hip-hop history. The fact that we met through a social media post about the culture’s origins, and the fact that he passed away before I was able to complete my dissertation, also encapsulates the broader, urgent context behind this study. Along these lines, I want to thank the other pioneers who I was able to interact with for my research, namely the Legendary Twins, GrandMixer DXT, COCO 144, Shakey Shake, and Pee Wee Dance, as well as the many practitioners who have spoken about their early experiences with documentarians such as Troy L. Smith, JayQuan, Davey D, Pete Nice, Sureshot La Rock, MichaelWayneTV, Disco Daddy, Mr. Biggs, DJ Kay Slay, Norin Rad, TheBeeShine, Pluto (TBB), Profo Won, and Nemesis. I utilized these sources of information just as much as I did the early hip-hop content featured in more formal archives such

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

as The  New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Cornell Hip Hop Collection, Museum of Popular Culture, Fordham University Bronx African American History Project, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Smithsonian Archives of American Art, Getty Research Institute, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The academic research that led to this book would also not have been possible without Dr. Mary Fogarty and Dr. Imani Kai Johnson. These two scholars encouraged me to pursue a PhD in dance studies and let me see that it was possible to enter academia with a focus on hip-hop history and culture. Their work and friendship continue to motivate me. Dr. Naomi Jackson is another important friend and mentor who gave me feedback on an early draft of this study and has guided me throughout my academic journey. While doing my PhD at York University, I also came across Dr. Jim Vernon, who had just completed a manuscript analyzing hip-hop’s first decade from a Hegelian perspective. We quickly developed a friendship and his work and countless hours of conversation have proven to be major sources of inspiration. Similarly, Dr. Matt Horton provided critical feedback on early drafts of my dissertation and has been another important, longtime friend who has backed me along the way. In addition, I want to thank Herbert Kohl, whose overlooked, yet pioneering, research on wall writing and adolescent identity in New York influenced my thinking, and who I had the pleasure to speak with at length about my study. As part of my research, I also took regular trips to New York City and was always warmly welcomed by my comrades Schools, Febreaks, and the entire Break Fresh family. Thank you for always looking out. Similarly, I want to thank Kay Dee, Penny, and Khatchig for your hospitality. A big thank you to my crew Style Elements, for always having my back, as well, especially Qual-D, Bas-1, and Stuntman for their important insights on the historical issues underlying this book. On the other side of the border, I want to thank Albino Zebrah crew

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and all of the b-girls and b-boys in Toronto, Canada, for graciously taking me in during my tenure at York University. Finally, I want to thank my editors at Bloomsbury, Amy Martin and Hali Han, as well as the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Summer Stipend award for supporting the final stage of my research and writing. I also want to thank my colleagues in the Dance Department at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where I completed this manuscript. Without your understanding, support, and encouragement, this book would not have been possible.

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1 Detecting Breaking’s Beginnings

“Give credit where it’s due.”1 This simple principle garnered headlines in the summer of 2021, when African American dancers protested their lack of recognition on TikTok. “THIS APP WOULD BE NOTHING WITHOUT [BLACK] PEOPLE,”2 wrote Erick Louis, the organizer of the protest, pointing out that most TikTok influencers gained popularity by doing young people of color’s choreography. Recording artists have also benefited from such content, as viral dances to rap songs have generated numerous hits. Yet the creators of these dances—not to mention the communities they come from—were rarely given proper acknowledgment on the app, prompting users to withhold their choreographic labor. While the #BlackTikTokStrike generated a considerable amount of media attention and forced the tech platform to issue a statement in support of Black creatives, a similar process of erasure has quietly been taking place for decades in what is perhaps the most widely practiced dance in the world today: breaking. Despite its over fifty years of existence and recent estimates placing the number of b-boys (“break-boys”) and b-girls (“break-girls”) between 1 and 30 million,3 the African American founders of this influential art form have not only been denied credit for their choreography, they have been expunged from modern memory.

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Beginning with scholarship in the 1990s, an academic consensus emerged suggesting that Latinos shaped and dominated breaking from its earliest inception, despite the fact that researchers a decade prior had acknowledged that it was created by “primarily young Black kids.”4 Many commentators and practitioners similarly began associating breaking with Puerto Ricans in New York, even though the latter credited African Americans for founding the form. For instance, in the documentary The Freshest Kids (2002), Richard “Crazy Legs” Colón, from the well-known Rock Steady Crew, openly stated that, “A lot of people used to call it [breaking] … like, you know, moreno means Black [in Spanish] … they’d say ‘That’s that moreno style.’ And that’s the original style of b-boying.”5 His contemporary Kenneth “Ken Swift” Gabbert similarly explained that “The first times that I had seen it [breaking], it was the brothas, you know … brothas was doing it. I didn’t see any Latinos or Hispanics doing it.”6 Going back even earlier, Rock Steady Crew co-founder Santiago “JoJo” Torres insisted that breaking “was mostly dominated by the Blacks”7 in the 1970s, while his contemporary Luis “Trac 2” Mateo affirmed that “the jams back then were still close to 90% Afro-American, as were most of the earliest B-boys.”8 Such countervailing testimonies are widespread but nevertheless ignored by most scholars and commentators, leading to a profound ignorance of the names, movement styles, and motivations behind early breaking. Just as some influencers on TikTok have attempted to acknowledge Black dancers for their choreography, only to be placed above them on the app’s algorithms, the academic literature on hip-hop history has rendered breaking’s African American founders largely undetectable. In addition to preventing any reasonable understanding of the dance’s beginnings, such “invisibilization”9 has skewed popular understanding of hiphop history, overall. By “hip-hop,” I am referring to the cultural movement that arose in the Bronx during the 1970s, encompassing breaking, DJing, MCing, and, more tangentially, aerosol art.10 Everything from the percussive soundtrack of the movement (widely referred to today as breakbeats) to its

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fashion, terminology, organizational impetus, and turntable innovations was informed by breaking, and dancing more generally. Yet hip-hop scholars have either neglected dancing in their historical treatments or relied on Latino practitioners to contextualize breaking history.11 In a manner reminiscent of early writings on the blues, jazz, rock ‘n’ roll, and disco, this disregard for dance and primary research in hip-hop history has, in the words of scholar Samir Meghelli, led to the proliferation of countless “myths and unexamined assumptions.”12 This book aims to address the dual obfuscation of breaking and hip-hop history by taking an in-depth look at the experiences and perspectives of founding African American b-boys and b-girls from the Bronx during the 1970s. As part of this process, I investigate how breaking’s structure and movement vocabulary came to be, especially as it relates to its early stages of upright dancing, followed by transitions to the floor, and, eventually, prolonged floor movements using, first, the hands and feet and, eventually, dynamic spins and combinations using all parts of the body. What was the relationship between these aesthetic developments and other forms of expression within early hiphop? Did breaking inherit any features from previous African American forms or was it a radical departure altogether? What were the primary institutional settings in which the dance was conceived and developed? What were the artistic influences, worldviews, and motivations informing breaking’s founders and their audiences? How did practitioners approach social classifications such as race, class, age, and gender within the dance? What relation did breaking’s emergence and expansion have with broader socioeconomic developments in New York during the 1970s? Did ethnic communities who adopted the dance have to negotiate issues of culture and identity? Although previous scholars have looked at these issues in relation to breaking history, none have done so in detail or outside the bounds of the Latino domination narrative. Although Latinos and other ethnicities eventually contributed a great deal to breaking’s growth, I demonstrate in this book how it was African American

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youth in the Bronx who almost exclusively birthed and cultivated the dance during its formative years. To truly understand the dance’s early influences, aesthetics, terminology, musical canon, and institutional expansion, we must turn our attention to what John Langston Gwaltney has called “core black culture”13: expressive attitudes and communicative practices emanating from working-class African American communities. My investigation, therefore, focuses on the latter community with the aim of enhancing our understanding of the movement’s history, as opposed to demarcating claims over cultural ownership and authenticity. Like most practitioners around the world, I revere the multicultural ethos that breaking is known for today and believe that appreciating this ethos requires understanding the experiences and perspectives of the African American b-boys and b-girls who gave the dance life. Indeed, contrary to the widespread misconception that hip-hop emerged out of the “polycultural social construct of New York City,”14 I will show how the eventual “cross-fertilization” that breaking experienced was itself a product of the seeds that were planted and tilled within the African American community. At the same time, I argue that breaking was the primary factor in shaping hip-hop’s development during the early- to mid-1970s. MCing had not yet come to the fore during this period and the musical choices of DJs were largely informed by the embodied expressions of b-boys and b-girls. Many of hip-hop’s leading pioneers were themselves former breakers who transitioned from dance circles at parties to microphones and stages. In this way, hip-hop was a continuation of a long-held African American tradition of producing music and movement in tandem. As the renowned novelist Zora Neal Hurston noted nearly ninety years ago, African American culture has historically been conceived through the combination of movement and music in autonomous dance spaces—which she called “jooks.” I will demonstrate how her contention that, “Musically speaking, the Jook is the most important place in America,”15 holds just as much relevance for hip-hop as it did for the blues and jazz.

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Indeed, building off of Hurston’s work and that of dance scholar Katrina Hazzard-Gordon, I contend that the “jook continuum”16 of underground clubs, community events, and repurposed domestic spaces in the Bronx provided the institutional apparatus in which hip-hop was incubated. Since few scholars have attended to these spaces and their associated dance practices, let alone their African American founders, this study inevitably unsettles years of misinformation that has accumulated around hip-hop’s birth. More importantly, the obfuscation of breaking’s beginnings has perpetuated a disturbing, yet seemingly unrelenting, cycle of erasing African American cultural contributions. As will be discussed below, the factors behind this erasure are complex, but their effect has been to perpetuate the marginalization of working-class African American life. Several pioneering b-boys and b-girls have, like their counterparts in the TikTok sphere, understandably expressed frustration with such marginalization. For example, Cholly Rock from the influential Zulu Kings breaking group laments how, “Some of the people you got talking weren’t there!” in reference to Latino practitioners who are held up as founders of the dance. “And for Rock Steady, they didn’t invent nothing. They were just in the right place at the right time and they picked up where we left off.”17 Another early African American b-boy GrandMixer DXT similarly criticizes the skewed historicization of hip-hop, insisting that, “Ninety-nine percent of those books that people are getting their degrees from are inaccurate.”18 He has called on hip-hop historians to “rescind” their doctorates due to them being grounded in “invalid” research. One can feel a deep sense of offence in such sentiments, which are common among early practitioners. Like African American artists before them, they have watched their contributions go unaccounted for, while countless individuals around the world have benefited from their innovations. Rectifying this erasure and incorporating their perspectives into the documentary record are, therefore, not only a matter of enhancing intellectual understanding, but also a matter of historical responsibility.

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Understanding Erasure After nearly half a century of existence and numerous studies being done on hip-hop history, how is it possible that breaking’s African American founders have been erased from modern memory? This is a common, and very logical, question posed in response to the claim I am putting forth. It is also an important issue to unpack before delving into breaking’s beginnings, both to address how the past has been obscured and to, hopefully, remedy some of the factors behind its obfuscation. In the first-ever article written about breaking, performance critic Sally Banes identified what has, in my view, been the central problem plaguing histories of the dance: lack of primary information. “Breaking is wreathed in legends,”19 she warned readers of her 1981 Village Voice feature before conveying what seemed to be inconclusive and contradictory accounts of the dance’s origins. Although Banes provided insightful commentary on the breaking performances she witnessed, her writings were centered almost exclusively on the Rock Steady Crew, a group based in Upper Manhattan and made up of young Latino and African American—and even a Franco-Jewish— practitioners. Despite being in New York at the height of the dance’s popularity, she could not find any other sources of information and, even several years later, maintained that breaking’s “early history wasn’t documented … it lives on only in memories and has taken on mythological form.”20 Her contemporary, journalist Steven Hager, similarly complained about the difficulty of tracking down information on breaking history. “It is not an easy voyage,” he conceded in the prologue to his influential study of hip-hop. “Little documentation exists and many of those who have ‘made it’ today seem reluctant to give credit to those who have preceded them.”21 Although Hager conducted interviews with several important early breakers, he pointed out that few researchers were willing to travel “well inside the ghetto”22 where

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such activities took place. This latter point proved to be crucial, as the dance’s birthplace of the Bronx was one of the most vilified neighborhoods in the United States at the time. Skewed perceptions of the borough as ruined and dangerous kept many researchers from setting foot there, as can be seen by the fact that Banes’ writings focused almost exclusively on the Rock Steady Crew’s performances in SoHo, the East Village, and more affluent areas of Manhattan.23 The lack of information that resulted was likely associated with the fear of venturing into working-class communities of color. Class and racially charged stereotypes also permeated early narratives disseminated about breaking. As art historian Vanessa Fleet Lakewood has noted, Banes’ inaugural article depicted the dance as an expression of “outlawry,”24 with images of aggressive gestures featured alongside headlines that read “Physical Graffiti” and “Revolt in Reagan’s Backyard.” In addition, Banes put forward depictions of police arresting breakers, claims that competition “erupts into fighting for real,” and characterizations of the dance as a “ritual combat that transmutes aggression into art.”25 In the media craze that soon followed, journalists and commentators similarly claimed that breaking emerged as “the answer to the boredom and gang fights of the 1970s”26 and that its participants would “fight with steps rather than with weapons.”27 Again, many of these reporters did not travel to the Bronx to do research but, rather, relied on preexisting narratives and prevailing stereotypes. As Banes’ colleague, photographer Martha Cooper, explains: Sally had some line in that original Voice article about, “We’re dancing instead of fighting” … We always knew who was copying Sally’s article cause that line, as a quote, appeared again and again and again and again, in variations in different articles about breakdancing. We knew that they hadn’t really gone out and found the kids and done their own research.28 Hager similarly positioned hip-hop as a response to criminality, claiming that the movement’s founders had “taken the violence out of the gang wars”29

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through artistic expression. Although his important interviews with pioneering breakers such as PHASE 2, Keith and Kevin Smith, GrandMixer DXT, and members of the Rockwell Association did not suggest any connection to gangs, he nevertheless maintained this sensationalized narrative and echoed Banes in claiming that breaking began as an “aggressive pastime—a form of combat as well as dance.”30 Unfortunately, as academic interest in rap music grew in the 1990s and 2000s, it was precisely this distorted media coverage from the 1980s that was used to contextualize breaking. While most scholars assumed that the dance had died, simply because it was no longer visible in the mainstream media, the few researchers who did discuss its history, once again, relied on preexisting narratives rather than primary research.31 Banes was particularly privileged as a reliable source of information, despite the fact that she was (to her credit) quite up-front about the limitations of her findings. In addition, when scholars conducted historical interviews, it was overwhelmingly with the same group who appeared in her writings: the Rock Steady Crew.32 As a result, the same “legends” and “mythological” accounts Banes qualified in her work began reappearing in scholarly texts. Curiously, however, Hager’s interviews with some of breaking’s African American founders have been consistently ignored by hip-hop historians. To this day, the valuable testimony he gathered from pioneering breakers and his observation that Latinos adopted the dance from African Americans does not appear in any academic texts, although his discussions of gangs, rap music, aerosol art, and the socioeconomic context of the Bronx are commonly cited in these same studies.33 Robert Farris Thompson’s early acknowledgment that breaking was “invent[ed] in the South Bronx by black dancers, circa 1975,” is similarly overlooked by most scholars,34 as is Michael Holman’s description of breaking’s African American beginnings in the Bronx35 and Banes’ insistence that the dance’s “basic building blocks are moves from the AfroAmerican repertory.”36 This consistent pattern of oversight is reminiscent of

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Black choreographers on TikTok being bypassed in favor of the non-Black influencers their dancing has inspired, with early references to breaking’s African American founders remaining largely absent from the academic algorithm. At the same time, a scholarly consensus emerged in the 1990s suggesting that, while rap was “dominated by English-speaking blacks,” breaking was “heavily shaped and practiced by Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and other Spanishspeaking Caribbean communities.”37 This position became an important part of Paul Gilroy’s famous “Black Atlantic” thesis, with breaking being positioned as the Latino strain of hip-hop’s “cross-fertilization.”38 Other scholars such as Juan Flores maintained that breaking emerged “largely from developments in Latin dance styles,” pointing to Puerto Rican members of the Rock Steady Crew during the 1980s as founding figures.39 This Latino origin narrative has, in fact, become so prominent that, even in the face of contrary evidence— and at the cost of concealing breaking’s African American founders—scholars of various backgrounds have consistently maintained it. For example, in his influential book on hip-hop history, Nelson George acknowledges that the “first break dancers … were overwhelmingly African American” but insists that it was Puerto Rican teenagers who made a “durable contribution” to the dance.40 He argues that breaking “came and went” in the African American community and the idea that the latter created hip-hop on their own is an “appealing origin myth.”41 Joseph C. Ewoodzie similarly quotes pioneers explaining that “the first generation of b-boys were all black”42 but goes on to argue that breaking is “a Puerto Rican entity.”43 As I reveal throughout this book, such conclusions are inaccurate and unsubstantiated. They contradict the very testimony these authors are themselves quoting. Nevertheless, it is my view that these claims are maintained so as not to disturb the noble discourse that hip-hop was a product of multicultural cocreation. The mediated depictions of the dance in the 1980s—when breaking had already expanded ethnically—bolstered such a discourse, as did many

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authors around the world who utilized this history to bestow legitimacy on non-African American practitioners.44 At the same time, many commentators in the 1990s downplayed breaking’s African American roots and emphasized Latino contributions as a way of countering what they deemed to be the exclusionary practices of the rap music industry. For instance, Flores’ claim that Latinos spawned breaking was part of his broader critique that “the Latin creators are conspicuously absent” from mainstream representations of rap music.45 Raquel Rivera also explained that she was interested in breaking because it “remained more class-identified (ghetto-identified) than African American-identified” by the media in the 1980s, in comparison to the rap music industry’s presentation of hip-hop as strictly “a Black thing.”46 Early Latino practitioners similarly complained that their historical authenticity was questioned in the commercial realm, as when Rock Steady Crew member Mr. Wiggles states, “You know, you always get the misconception when you look a rap video that it’s all black people … No, it wasn’t all black people,”47 or when b-boy Anthony “MAEZ” Colon is quoted as saying Latinos “got omitted” and “pushed out” of hip-hop history.48 Such critiques of the one-dimensional depictions of rap music are very common among practitioners, demonstrating the extent to which notions of history shape entanglements over cultural ownership and belonging in the present.49 Even within the international breaking community, such historical questions are often fraught with struggles over authenticity and entitlement. As dance scholar Imani Kai Johnson has argued, many practitioners fear that acknowledging the African American beginnings of the dance will be used to override the inclusive ethos of the art form. “The underlying question is, ‘If b-boying is a black dance (because of its African ‘origins’) then how do we account for its diverse cultural make-up today’?” she writes.50 In his study of the modern breaking scene in New York, Joseph G. Schloss similarly asks, “Why is it important that b-boying should be credited to one and only one ethnic group?” and then goes on to argue that “b-boying traces its roots to Brooklyn

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Latinos.”51 Although Schloss acknowledges that, “The conventional narrative among dancers is that b-boying was invented by African Americans,”52 he does not quote or feature any early African American practitioners in his book. This might be partly due to the fact that some of the breakers he featured began to downplay the role of African Americans in the dance by the time Schloss carried out his fieldwork in the 2000s—despite being on record in the 1990s crediting them for their contributions. For example, in a 1996 letter to a hip-hop magazine, Richard “Crazy Legs” Colón criticized the publication for neglecting breaking’s African American founders when he wrote, “Why didn’t you interview any of the Zulu Kings or the Niggah Twins or even Kool Herc, who was an original B-boy that would’ve dropped more bombs than the U.S. did in Iraq?”53 However, more recently, Colón has echoed the academic consensus that African Americans did not make a durable contribution to breaking in the 1970s and has, instead, insisted that it was Latinos who shaped the form as we know it today.54 The scholarly narrative that Latinos dominated breaking, combined with heightened battles over ethnic entitlement in the new millennium, may have also conditioned this somewhat schizophrenic discourse, where people tacitly acknowledged the African American beginnings of breaking but later changed course or refused to engage with its founders, despite the historical contradictions and gaps in knowledge that result. All of this suggests that, rather than being a careless oversight, the neglect of breaking’s African American founders has been driven by a complex set of factors stemming from the pernicious legacy of racism and class demonization in the United States. For instance, the general neglect of breaking, and other dance styles, in hip-hop studies is part of a broader Western tradition of devaluing non-theatrical forms of embodied expression, and privileging textbased approaches to thought and analysis. Similarly, the absence of first-hand information on breaking in the 1980s and the reluctance of researchers to travel to the Bronx was tied to dominant stereotypes of the urban poor as

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pathological and destitute. In many ways, this perception persists, as I have encountered numerous scholars and practitioners of all backgrounds who assume that hip-hop’s founders are bitter, jobless, and intimidating figures. When sharing my interest in researching breaking’s roots, I was regularly warned to be wary of pioneers who are deceiving, have substance abuse issues, and involve themselves in disreputable activities. Of course, there are hip-hop practitioners of all stripes, and illicit behavior certainly exists in impoverished areas, but, from my experience, these characterizations are grossly overexaggerated. In fact, most bona fide pioneers that I have met are dignified people with ordinary jobs and no serious criminal record, with some even being wealthy businessmen, accomplished artists, law enforcement officers, and community educators. Nevertheless, seedy images of the innercity “underclass” permeate popular discourse and have hampered not only breaking’s historiography but also representations of rap music and African American culture, more generally.55 Equally important is the fact that discussions of breaking’s beginnings have been constrained by heightened battles over ethnic entitlement. Within the polarized system of race relations in the United States, various groups have staked their claim to hip-hop on the notion that Caribbean and Latin American communities were involved in it from the very beginning. Complicating this co-creation origin story is often read as a dismissal of non-African American contributions all together, rather than a contextualization and grounded assessment of them. The static approach to race in mainstream society tends to illicit all-or-nothing reactions and it is, consequently, no surprise that few scholars wish to disturb the notion that breaking is the Latino strain of hiphop’s “cross-fertilization.” However, as I will argue in Chapter 6, in addition to giving credit where credit is due, acknowledging the African American beginnings of breaking is important precisely because it offers insight into how these communities came together in the first place. As mentioned above, hip-hop did not emerge out of the so-called melting pot of New York City but,

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rather, developed in the face of considerable social obstacles and limited ethnic communication during the 1970s. Rather than being positioned as a zerosum game of ethnic entitlement, analyzing how breaking emerged and, later, brought youth from different backgrounds together should be approached as an important case study of cultural convergence—one that has reverberated around the world through breaking’s transnational expansion. In any event, regardless of the various factors shaping the framing of breaking’s history, it is simply incumbent upon us to finally end the epistemic violence caused by the invisibilization of the dance’s African American founders.

Paying Attention to Practitioners To overcome the lack of documentation that has hindered previous treatments of breaking’s past, my central aim in this study has been to gather as much testimony on the early years of the dance, from as wide a cross-section of early practitioners, as possible. Much of my research in this regard was carried out during my doctoral dissertation at York University, where I was given the training, time, and resources to fully delve into breaking history. However, even prior to that, I explored this topic through my involvement in the international breaking scene, where I have been an active participant since the late 1990s, gaining notoriety under the moniker “Midus.” In fact, I first began noticing the missing links in breaking history when, in April of 2000, I attended an event called “Concrete Soul” in Las Vegas, Nevada. This was one of only two occasions I know of where African American b-boys from the 1970s—in this case Keith and Kevin Smith, better known as The Legendary Twins56— were invited to judge a breaking competition. I remember being intrigued by the accounts they provided during a panel at the event, much of which contradicted the narratives I had internalized up to that point (figure 1.1). As a result, I began researching the early years of the dance more intently and, when

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I began reading hip-hop scholarship, was dismayed to see how the dance’s African American founders were neglected in the manner described above. I eventually pursued my PhD to counteract this cycle of historical erasure that I saw taking place in a dance form I was involved in. While I had initially assumed that primary interviews would be the focal point of my research, upon beginning my dissertation, I found a wellspring of first-hand testimony on breaking’s beginnings within a variety of traditional and non-traditional sources. Foremost among these were scattered articles and interviews with early hip-hop DJs, MCs, and aerosol artists who had backgrounds in breaking. Unfortunately, despite offering important insights into the dance’s history, many of these accounts were cut short or removed from published texts by interviewers who either lacked a background or interest in dance. Nevertheless, testimony on breaking is prevalent within these primary

FIGURE 1.1  The Legendary Twins, Keith and Kevin Smith, speaking during a panel presentation at a breaking event called “Concrete Soul,” held in Las Vegas, Nevada, on April 15, 2000. ©Serouj Aprahamian.

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sources, many of which are housed in archives and other publicly available repositories. I decided to heavily utilize such testimony, both to emphasize the critical role dancing played in the development of hip-hop and to show the extent to which breaking’s founders had indeed been invisibilized. The modern international breaking community provided another valuable repository of information on the dance’s beginnings. Given the skewed media coverage of the 1980s, many of those involved in breaking’s resurgence in the 1990s emphasized the need to pay homage to its roots and culture. The ethos of “knowing your history” was stressed within the scene and put into practice through educational panels at events, underground VHS tapes, zines, and grassroots workshops.57 Although much of the history that circulated was contradictory and contentious, modern b-boys and b-girls nevertheless facilitated important discussions about breaking’s early years. It was through my involvement in such discussions that I first became aware of the names, issues, and questions underlying this study. The increased prominence of social media in the mid- to late-2000s also helped unearth valuable accounts through articles, discussion boards, blogs, podcasts, and video clips. I have critically sifted through such material, collecting over 300 files on hip-hop history from online platforms and forums, and I bring that knowledge to bear within this book. At the same time, I also conducted first-hand interviews with a handful of early, influential practitioners from the Bronx. These interviews provided me with a great deal of insight and addressed several of the most pressing questions arising from my research. They also gave me the opportunity to interact with pioneers directly and—despite many of them being in their fifties and sixties—to witness some of their dancing in real-time. Through online and archival research, I was also able to gather footage of some early breaking performances. All of this allowed me to combine movement analysis with textual and narrative analysis, whereby I matched the distinctive patterns and qualities embodied in early breaking with the meaning practitioners conveyed

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in their testimony. This proved to be extremely important as the dance has gone through various iterations throughout the years, all of which signify important social, institutional, and cultural changes. I describe these transformations in detail, especially as they relate to the 1970s, and I offer my interpretations of their underlying meaning throughout this study. Using my background in breaking, I also compare the dancing of early b-girls and b-boys to that of practitioners today, taking note of common features and variations within the form. Since a wide repertoire of gestures, concepts, and moves have crystalized into what is commonly referred to today as breaking’s “foundation,” I believe such a comparison is essential to understanding how the past connects with the present and how shifts in breaking’s aesthetics correspond to broader sociocultural changes. Finally, although I ground my analysis in the lived experiences of breaking’s founders, I do not forego my own interpretative capacity or present practitioner accounts uncritically. This is because, in addition to the lack of engagement with primary sources, another major cause of confusion in hip-hop history has been the almost reflexive regurgitation of false narratives among scholars and commentators. The case of early DJ Afrika Bambaataa is telling in this regard, as the myth that he suddenly stopped gang violence in the Bronx by forming the Zulu Nation collective has been repeated in dominant discourse almost without question. It is my view that such inaccuracies have been propelled by an unwillingness to challenge figures like Bambaataa, who rapper KRS-One went so far as to deem “infallible”58 and author Jeff Chang described as “a man outside of time and age” who “had already been to the mountaintop long ago” and was able to lead troubled youth “where they didn’t know they were ready to go.”59 Although these messianic portrayals might seem like outliers, from my experience, they are characteristic of the general deference shown to celebrated figures within hip-hop history. This lack of critical analysis has not only led to the proliferation of countless myths, it has also reinforced

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the elite Western tradition of ascribing historical events to “heroic” (often male) leaders, rather than everyday people. Of course, certain practitioners made disproportionate contributions to hip-hop—and rightfully deserve credit and attention for doing so—but they operated within a broader social, cultural, and communal context. Since no individual birthed the culture on their own, nor could they have been everywhere at all times to see what was happening, I rely on the perspectives of both well-known and lesser-known figures when determining the validity of a historical account. Equally important is the fact that some practitioners may be unreliable in their testimony, adjusting their accounts according to personal interests, the expectations of an interloper, or the general circumstances of an interview. The above discussion of some Latino pioneers who have changed their position toward the role of African American founders is one of many such examples. It is for this reason that I consult as wide a range of voices as possible, crosschecking them across sources and time periods, and giving greater credence to accounts that are corroborated by at least one other narrator. This approach is not meant to devalue practitioner recollections but, rather, to account for the fact that experiences can be limited, memories can be fickle, and people can be evasive, or deceptive. I also checked testimonies for key identifying information—such as the names of songs, historical events, venues in operation, and other markers of time period—and situated accounts chronologically to trace them in relation to the development of the dance. To my surprise, doing so did not result in the often-touted contradictory claims encountered by previous scholars but, rather, led to the identification of consensus on several key issues among early practitioners. Even more significantly, such consensus tended to disrupt many of the myths in both breaking and hip-hop history, demonstrating how individuals from the Bronx share a common experience that has stood the test of time. That breaking began as an African American practice is only one of many such countervailing points of consensus that I reveal and discuss throughout this book.

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Of course, there are also points of contention and uncertainty among practitioners. I approach these matters with greater caution and situate my discussion within the competing frames of participants. For instance, some practitioners emphasized competition as the driving force behind breaking, while others emphasized entertaining audiences and socializing with peers. Similarly, a few b-boys suggested that b-girls were looked at differently when the dance began to transition to the floor, while the majority indicated that the latter continued to be encouraged to take part in the dance. As I will discuss below, such divergences often had to do with interpretations of the past, rather than the content of historic events themselves. For example, virtually every practitioner acknowledged that young women were involved in early breaking, and it is precisely this consensus—and its divergence from the dominant discourse on breaking—that prompted my dedication of a chapter to this topic. However, there were occasions where practitioners differed in their outlook toward b-girls and I attempt to present these views comprehensively within the chapter. I believe that such differing viewpoints reveal the extent to which neither the African American community in the Bronx nor the early adherents of hip-hop were a homogenous group with uniform thoughts, intentions, and motivations. Their multiplicity of interpretations is an important part of understanding the richness of hip-hop history, as opposed to reifying it as an essentialized, static entity.

Chapter Summaries When writing this book, I found myself constantly weighing how to discuss the history of breaking, on the one hand, while also addressing the many myths that have clouded public perceptions of the dance and culture, on the other. To take the above example, I had to consider the amount of time I spent talking about the misconception that breaking was an exclusively male practice

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versus simply detailing how b-girls were involved in shaping the form. Ideally, I would have preferred to talk about the latter, presenting what I found in my research without giving much attention to prevailing assumptions. However, I knew that the testimony of practitioners significantly departed from decades of discourse on hip-hop history and that I had to address the very rational questions readers would have from my alternative findings. Therefore, in the chapters that follow, I address both what happened during breaking’s formative years and the numerous misconceptions that have obfuscated hip-hop history. To begin, I focus on the pre-development period of breaking during the late 1960s and early 1970s, before hip-hop was put into motion as a distinct cultural movement. Although numerous researchers have sought to situate the dance within a context of material impoverishment, gang violence, and government disinvestment in the Bronx, few scholars have taken an indepth look at the racial and cultural dynamics underlying these conditions. Accordingly, in Chapter 2, “Going Off in the Bronx,” I examine the profound demographic changes affecting the borough during the post-civil rights period and show how the previously assumed impact of the Cross Bronx Expressway and deindustrialization proved to be minimal in comparison to the racially motivated flight of white residents from the borough. I also show how the zeitgeist of cultural pride and self-determination among African Americans at this time set the stage for breaking’s emergence. Rather than being a response to negative stimuli or an outgrowth of gang activity, I argue that breaking was an extension of previous African American cultural forms. Furthermore, I show how the modern iteration of “jooks”—underground dance spaces that  Hurston identified as essential to African American culture—became the  institutional channel in which these expressions were carried over into hip-hop. In Chapter 3, “Keeping the Movement Moving,” I build upon this discussion of breaking’s sociocultural roots by tracing the rise of Clive “Kool Herc” Campbell as a dancer and DJ who, alongside his sister Cindy, provided

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young people an independent environment to congregate and cultivate their preexisting expressions. I show how the Campbells essentially reconjured the jook continuum through the “rent parties” they threw for teenagers in their family’s apartment building. I also maintain that, contrary to what has been assumed in most hip-hop histories, Herc did not transmute a new style of playing music from Jamaica or pick up turntables out of economic necessity. Rather, he sparked the hip-hop movement by attending to the tastes and movement practices of African American teenagers in the Bronx. Breaking, specifically, became the driving force behind Herc’s musical innovations, as he noticed the excitement certain funk-infused records generated among young African American dancers. I show how this reciprocal relationship between movement and music in a jook-based environment established the blueprint for what came to be known as “hip-hop.” Chapter 4, “Make Way for the B-Boys,” examines the mid-1970s when breakers—who Kool Herc famously dubbed b-boys and b-girls—increasingly began adopting prolonged floor movements. Rather than being a product of kung-fu, capoeira, or Latin dance styles, I demonstrate how the floorward transition of breaking was influenced by the cultural and symbolic resources within the African American community itself. I also show how, in the process of altering breaking’s aesthetics during this period, a new crop of young teenagers enacted a sense of self and community through the dance at a critical stage in their adolescent growth. At the same time, these dancers came to define the creative energy, fashion, and sonic landscape of the hip-hop movement, overall, and were derided for their expressions by adherents of the more popular disco scene of that era. Chapter 5, “Mothers of the Movement,” veers from the mostly chronological format of the book employed up to this point. Instead, it surveys the neglected role of females in the development of breaking throughout the 1970s. Despite the dominant narrative that the dance was an “exclusively male” expression of “machismo,” I demonstrate how young women influenced, initiated, and

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advanced breaking’s aesthetics from its earliest inception. I connect this neglected history to the broader working-class African American tradition of alternative expressions of womanhood, arguing that this context was responsible for the gender-inclusive structure of early breaking. I also consider the implications of this little-known history on gendered performance within the African American community, especially in relation to the predominant disco craze of the 1970s. I end my discussion of breaking’s first decade of development with Chapter 6, “Breaking’s Latino Adoption,” wherein I analyze the spread of the dance to other constituencies at the turn of the decade. Again, I emphasize the institutional and ideological factors affecting breaking’s expansion during this period, arguing that its cultivation in African American jook spaces gained widespread appeal in New York as the dance surfaced above ground, through more outdoor events and public gatherings. I revisit many of the same issues discussed in previous chapters—including the role of youth, identity formation, social belonging, and the interconnection between music and dancing—as they relate to the aesthetic evolution and multiethnic expansion of breaking. I also contend that the cultural convergence that took place through the dance helped ameliorate the distance, and even tension, exhibited between African Americans and Latinos prior to hip-hop’s development—an issue that has been overlooked due to the widespread assumption that breaking was birthed as “an expressive form associated with Puerto Rican youth.”60 I conclude with a review of the main themes discussed in the book and relate the modern-day breaking scene to its formative decade of development in the Bronx. Specifically, I examine how the expansion and adoption of the dance in the late 1970s relates to its ongoing global proliferation today, highlighted most recently by breaking’s inclusion in the 2024 Summer Olympic Games. Analyzing the discourse surrounding this development among both practitioners and commentators, I discuss how conceptions of history have affected breaking’s debut as an official Olympic sport and how

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uncovering the African American roots of the form may affect its cultivation moving forward. Finally, I relate breaking’s role in hip-hop’s emergence to the ongoing significance of dance in modern African American culture, as seen in everything from viral TikTok dances to the emergence of influential new styles such as krumping, jooking, turfing, litefeet, and so on. As with past African American expressions, I argue that these dances have been affected by processes of neglect and misunderstanding that require far more attention from hip-hop scholars. In her famous essay on African American expression, Zora Neale Hurston stressed that the norms of dominant society cannot be used to evaluate cultural forms emanating out of working-class communities. Instead, such practices must be evaluated according to their own historical circumstances and standards.61 Unfortunately, the case of breaking and hip-hop history suggests that, up until now, the opposite has happened. The dominant disregard for community-based dancing and the demonization of working people in areas such as the Bronx has conditioned a general lack of historical information on breaking, which commentators have sought to overcome by advancing speculative theories shaped by dominant norms and assumptions. By consulting the neglected voices of the dance’s earliest practitioners, my aim in this book is to correct the countless misconceptions plaguing hiphop history. Not only to better contextualize the past but, more importantly, to counteract the forces that have consistently marginalized and devalued African American life.

2 Going Off in the Bronx

In a 1926 essay for The Nation, the renowned poet Langston Hughes called on African Americans to overcome the “racial mountain” of conformity in American society by tapping into their cultural heritage without shame. He drew his inspiration specifically from the African American working-class— or “low-down folks” and “common people,” as he called them—and predicted a future molded in their shadow. And within the next decade I expect to see the work of a growing school of colored artists who paint and model the beauty of dark faces and create with new technique the expressions of their own soul-world. And the Negro dancers who will dance like flame and the singers who will continue to carry our songs to all who listen—they will be with us in even greater numbers tomorrow.1 Hughes’ erstwhile collaborator Zora Neale Hurston similarly credited African American working people for such art forms as the blues and jazz, pointing out how they developed in the marginalized “pleasure houses,” or “jooks,” associated with work camps in the South and their manifestations in the urban North. Whereas more affluent segments of the community looked down on these establishments as indecent, Hurston maintained that their average patrons were “too busy ‘spreading [their] junk’ in [their] own way to see or care.” Like Hughes, she celebrated the unbridled expression of African

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American working people and traveled throughout the South to gather information on their “true Negro style” of playing music and dancing, which she called “jooking.”2 This chapter will show how breaking not only forms an important part of this working-class jook continuum, but also emerged at a time when its implications were taking on added significance. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, the civil rights and Black power movements reawakened a sense of cultural pride among African Americans, with younger generations particularly disregarding mainstream strictures in favor of practices and principles emanating from working-class communities. Famous slogans such as “Black is beautiful” symbolized a championing of Africanist aesthetics and identity as part of this broader struggle against social oppression and injustice. It was during this period that African American teenagers in the Bronx created breaking by congregating in the jook joints—house parties, recreation rooms, underground clubs, and so on—of their era and moved in ways that spoke to their sensibilities, heritage, and everyday experiences. At the same time, as the civil rights movement began increasingly focusing on injustices in the North, anxiety over racial integration transformed the Bronx from what had previously been a “white” and prosperous community to a “majority minority,” impoverished area.3 Whereas 90 percent of residents were identified as white in 1950, the composition of the borough was inverted by 1980, with nearly two-thirds of residents being identified as African American or Latino.4 In this chapter, I show how the often-touted impact of the Cross Bronx Expressway and deindustrialization were minimal to these changing conditions in the Bronx. Instead, these shifts were prompted by the racially motivated flight of white residents, with perceptions of cultural difference and a discourse of criminality coming to define the borough’s transformation. As the zeitgeist of cultural pride and self-determination among African Americans picked up, the sense of panic among white residents increased and the resulting sociocultural context served as the backdrop for

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breaking’s beginnings in the Bronx, with African American youth coming of age during a period of both division and social turmoil, on the one hand, and self-affirmation and self-expression, on the other.

From “Dream” to “Ruin” For much of the twentieth century, the Bronx was made up of working-class German, Irish, Jewish, and Italian families who relocated to the borough from overcrowded slums in New York and abroad. These residents were attracted to the borough’s wider streets, abundant green spaces, and improved housing conditions. By the mid-1920s, such advantages made the Bronx the fastest growing county in New York, earning it the nickname the “wonder borough.”5 It was home to the celebrated New York Yankees and a symbol of the American Dream. Yet, as in other areas throughout the United States, this “Dream” systematically excluded people of color. Local human rights groups regularly documented how housing discrimination prevented minorities from moving beyond the South Bronx since the early twentieth century, but neither the government nor the private sector was willing to stop it.6 In fact, people of color were regularly assaulted by whites for merely setting foot in neighborhoods beyond the South Bronx.7 However, as the civil rights movement gained momentum in the 1960s and suburbanization expanded, landlords in the borough were forced to gradually open their doors to minority families seeking a better life. As a few “undesirable” neighbors moved in, white residents fled to the North Bronx and adjacent counties. In turn, areas such as the Grand Concourse, which was once known as the “Park Avenue of the Bronx,” went from being 90 percent white in 1940 to 47 percent in 1970.8 Bronx historian Lloyd Ultan has argued that, in addition to economic concerns, such relocation had to do with the changing way of life in these

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neighborhoods. “Color and language had less to do with it than culture,” he wrote, suggesting that white residents moved out to maintain their traditional customs. “And this question of cultural comfort cannot be analyzed rationally; this is based upon emotion,” he concluded.9 In other words, rather than opposing incoming residents based on skin color, discrimination in New York during this period was increasingly being predicated on notions of proper cultural behavior. African Americans and Latinos were especially singled out as incapable of adopting to mainstream norms and, consequently, seen as threats to middle-class stability.10 In the Bronx, this opposition took the form of complaints over “garbage disposal, the need for nocturnal quiet, or other requirements of compact city living.”11 Oral accounts from white residents similarly reflected concerns over violence, disorder, unfamiliar forms of music and dialect, and unwelcome social activities within the borough.12 However, most former residents did not wait long enough to see what life would be like in such integrated communities. Instead, they fled upon the first signs of demographic change, helping bring about the very instability they feared the most. In a manner akin to a stock market panic, those who could relocate first thought they would lose the least, triggering others to quickly follow suit— quite apart from whether such concerns were warranted or not. As in other “changing neighborhoods” from as nearby as Canarsie13 to as distant as Compton,14 cultural perceptions, rather than material conditions, often fueled these anxieties. The famed African American novelist James Baldwin bluntly summed up this process when he wrote: we began to move across the river to the Bronx, all those people who had lately become white fled in terror, and one of the results of that is the present disaster called the South Bronx where nobody can live. The motion of the white people of this country has been—and it is a terrifying thing to say this, but it is time to face it—a furious attempt to get away from the niggers.15

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Young people who later pioneered hip-hop similarly remember the backlash they experienced when traveling throughout the Bronx. For example, Cholly Rock, a member of the Zulu Kings breaking group, recalled how ethnically European residents in the North Bronx perceived this influx of African Americans as an “encroachment” on their traditional way of life. He talked about how youth gangs, such as the Golden Guineas, Henchman, White Assassins, and White Angels, would chase him and his friends out of their neighborhoods, as late as the 1970s.16 Early Latino hip-hop DJ Disco Wiz similarly recounted the bigotry he faced as a student in a Catholic elementary school in the Bronx. “No matter how hard my mother worked to send us there,” he explained, “the kids would always treat us like if we were on welfare.”17 Such stereotypes and prejudices were also depicted in the Hollywood motion picture A Bronx Tale (1993), which was based on writer Chaz Palminteri’s upbringing in the Italian neighborhood of Belmont in the late 1960s. In the film, Palminteri depicts a gang of local Italian youth assaulting African Americans for simply passing through their neighborhood, while also portraying the tribulations of interracial dating amidst such tension. In an earlier unpublished essay, pioneering aerosol artist and breaker PHASE 2 recalled walking through this same Belmont neighborhood with his friends in 1976 and being attacked by local residents, demonstrating how what was depicted on the screen was not that far from reality. “It’s hard to believe anyone felt intimidated by three red mockneck, Kangol-cap-wearing black boys walking thru [sic] their block,” PHASE 2 wrote about his experience. “Nonetheless, I was greeted by the words ‘black mother–ker’ … and struck with nothing less than a car jack—a CAR JACK!!!”18 Unfortunately, most hip-hop historians have ignored these underlying racial tensions when contextualizing life in the borough. Instead, they have focused on public works projects such as the Cross Bronx Expressway, arguing that its construction destroyed local communities and forced out the middle class.19 Drawing on the autobiography of cultural critic Marshall Berman, who grew

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up in the Tremont section of the Bronx, and journalist Robert Caro’s study of a small, one-mile stretch of the expressway in that same area, hip-hop historian Steven Hager popularized the notion that “tight-knit communities” throughout the Bronx were broken up by the expressway’s Tremont construction. The middle-class Italian, German, Irish and Jewish neighborhoods disappeared overnight. Impoverished black and Hispanic families, who dominated the southern end of the borough, drifted north. Businesses and factories relocated. The open-air market on Bathgate Avenue was destroyed.20 Rather than addressing the racially charged flight of white residents, and the accompanying reallocation of resources, most hip-hop scholars have uncritically reproduced Hager’s assertion that the highway was to blame.21 Yet, as historian Ray Bromley has shown, the Cross Bronx Expressway had very little to do with the issues facing the borough in the 1970s. Bromley conclusively demonstrates how many of the hardest hit areas of the Bronx were nowhere near the Cross Bronx Expressway and how Caro’s chapter on the topic grossly exaggerated the impact of even its small, one-mile stretch in East Tremont.22 Rather than examine the “social, economic, cultural and demographic transformations associated with suburbanization, economic restructuring, and changing lifestyles,” Bromley concluded, researchers have simply blamed all of the Bronx’s problems on the expressway’s planner, Robert Moses.23 Similarly, most accounts of hip-hop history have claimed that New York City’s postwar loss of manufacturing jobs led to the “social pressure-cooker”24 of inequality and oppression that facilitated hip-hop’s emergence.25 However, African Americans had been systematically excluded from manufacturing jobs in New York even prior to deindustrialization.26 The racism of labor unions in the city had barred them from entering industrial work, leading most to turn toward the public and service sector for employment. As a

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result, manufacturing job loss did not affect African Americans in the Bronx nearly to the extent that these studies suggest. Instead, the socioeconomic conditions underlying hip-hop’s beginnings were far more shaped by “the fear of integration” and “ethnic changes”27 that news reports from the 1960s commonly pointed out were the cause of white flight in the borough. In turn, as people of color were able to move to areas beyond the South Bronx, financial speculators quickly followed suit to profit from the resulting white panic. They would buy up properties at below market value, overcharge incoming residents, and cut down on maintenance.28 This practice was known as “blockbusting,” or “breaking a block,” and after a block had been “broken” in the Bronx it was susceptible to burning, as overburdened and dilapidated buildings were ripe for fires. Meanwhile, policy makers and pundits suggested that the new residents were setting fires to their own buildings, further bolstering the narrative that minority presence destroys a community.29 After years of exclusion and discrimination, working-class people of color were being blamed for everything from New York City’s budget shortfall to the ravaging of their own neighborhoods.30 Even the geographic labels of the Bronx were altered based on race, with areas such as the Grand Concourse (located in the West Bronx) now being called the “South Bronx,” simply because people of color had moved in.31 To this day, the term is used as an ideological label, not a geographic one, connotating images of the feared Other. While certain portions of the Bronx were being left to ruin in this process, most African American and Latino families were striving to nurture their children and creating vibrant communities despite the obstacles put before them. Some ethnically European Bronxites also sought to overcome racism during this period by developing friendships with their neighbors despite skin color, especially on a personal level. Others, including some affluent families of color, moved out of the borough to protect their equity from falling property values. Nevertheless, the largescale demographic and socioeconomic shifts experienced in the Bronx during the 1960s and early 1970s were

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fundamentally driven by conceptions of cultural difference. And it was from this atmosphere of vilification and segregation, on the one hand, and cultural pride and communion, on the other, that breaking would emerge as a radical new form of African American expression.

The New Super Heavy Funk As middle-class flight deepened urban decay during the late 1960s,32 uprisings in areas such as Harlem, Watts, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Detroit, and Newark reflected the growing anger and disillusionment felt by those left behind in such conditions.33 African American youth, in particular, sought to overcome the injustice and disenfranchisement around them by challenging traditional forms of authority in both the public and private sphere. “We understood that we were living in a society where the truth didn’t matter, a society divided by race,” explained PHASE 2, adding that the class polarization heightened his critical consciousness. “If you grew up in the suburbs, going to the best schools, you’re not gonna be exposed to that. Even a black kid.”34 As reflected in the activism of groups such as the Black Panthers and Young Lords, young people of color increasingly channeled their discontent into organizing efforts during this period, further alarming entrenched groups who felt their grip slipping from areas such as the Bronx. In other words, it was not only that minorities were moving into these areas. It was that they were doing so with a renewed sense of dignity and self-determination. This renewed consciousness manifested itself in various forms of cultural expression, as well. Prominent African American athletes such as Muhammad Ali and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar converted to Islam and renounced their previously Western-derived names. Large numbers of African American families began giving their children “distinctively Black names.”35 The “afro” appeared as a popular hairstyle, signifying values of cultural pride and

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empowerment. The well-known Motown record label went from producing relatively nonthreatening “crossover” hits to socially conscious songs such as “Message from a Black Man” (1969) by The Temptations, “War” (1970) by Edwin Starr, and “Hey Big Brother” (1971) by the white rock band Rare Earth. The latter example illustrates how even many white artists were gravitating toward self-affirming African American music at the time, reflecting a more general desire to transcend social divisions.36 Similarly, African American musicians such as Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone came to prominence by experimenting with styles that were coded as white, bringing together diverse audiences receptive to new subjective possibilities.37 All of this impacted Bronxites who would go on to innovate hip-hop. For instance, early DJ Afrika Bambaataa recounts how the activism and social consciousness of the 1960s resonated with young people locally: [The southeast Bronx] was an area where there was still a lot of unity and a lot of social awareness was going on, at a time when people of color who were called Negroes or Colored, was coming into their own, knowin’ that they were Black people, hearing records like James Brown’s “Say it Loud— I’m Black and I’m Proud,” giving us awareness. Hearing people like Sly and the Family Stone telling you to “Stand!”, “You Can Make It if You Try,” “Everyday People.” So, and then hearing the teachings of the Most Honorable Elijah Mohammed, Malcolm X, Minister Farrakhan, the Black Panther Party, and seeing a lot of the struggles that was going on all around the world through television, with the Woodstock era, the Flower Power movement, the Vietnam War, Lyndon B. Johnson and all that, which gave a lot of hope to this area to do something for self.38 The South Bronx aerosol writer STAFF 161 also credited the political appeals of activists such as the Black Panthers and musicians such as Brown for providing him with “another form of education,” one that motivated him to “make a

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statement in life” and “say it in style!”39 DJ Smokey, from the Bronx’s Claremont section, similarly associated Brown’s “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud” (1968) with the emergence of new, more assertive styles of dancing.40 In these ways, the social ferment of the late 1960s and early 1970s was manifesting itself in various forms of cultural expression and identity formation. James Brown was perhaps the ultimate embodiment of these newfound expressions within the African American community. He actively supported the civil rights movement and grounded himself in the working-class traditions he grew up on, earning himself such affectionate titles as “Soul Brother Number One,” “Mr. Dynamite,” “The Godfather of Soul,” and “Minister of New New Super Heavy Funk.”41 By the mid-1960s, he replaced his formerly straightened hair with an afro, and even penned a song for Hank Ballard titled “How You Gonna Get Respect (You Haven’t Cut Your Process Yet)” (1968).42 Like Hughes and Hurston before him, Brown tapped into the joy and beauty of working-class African American culture and expressed himself without regard for dominant norms.43 Although his lyrics were often not overtly political, they regularly featured participatory messages of pride and empowerment: “get involved,” “let it all hang out,” and “do your thing.” By the late 1960s, headlines were asking “Does He Teach Us the Meaning of ‘Black Is Beautiful’?” and “Is He the Most Important Black Man in America?”44 By emphasizing rhythm and feeling in his music, Brown also advanced a musical and corporeal revolution that would perhaps be his most lasting legacy: funk. This new style of music was built around percussion, with all the instruments in Brown’s band working to prolong a song’s groove, rather than its melody or harmony. “I was hearing everything, even the guitars, like they were drums,”45 Brown is quoted as saying, with many of his grunts and verbal commands similarly serving as percussive accents. His rhythmic divergence from mainstream trends spoke directly to working-class African American youth who felt it “captured the popular spirit of defiance, of

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indignation, of anticipation, and of dignity that had emerged during the civil rights movement.”46 By 1970, Brown recruited a nineteen-year-old bass player named Bootsy Collins and his brother Catfish on guitar who would further this youth-infused spirit of rhythmic defiance. Combining the African American aesthetics of Brown with the experimentation of musicians such as Hendrix and Stone, the Collins brothers brought a grittier approach to the James Brown Band, ushering in a string of funk hits including “Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine” (1970), “Super Bad” (1970), “The Grunt” (1970), “Get Up, Get Into It, Get Involved” (1970), “Soul Power” (1971), and “Talkin’ Loud and Sayin’ Nothing” (1972).47 Of course, Brown’s musical innovations were also accompanied by his captivating physical performances. In an era of packaged dance crazes such as “The Twist,” “The Watusi,” and “The Monkey,”48 Brown would stand out by gyrating his body across the stage on one foot, shuffling his feet into complex patterns, executing multiple spins, and abruptly dropping to the floor in a split. Although he rooted himself in popular social dances, Brown placed a premium on individuality and seemed to add his own unique twist to even the most standard of steps. Indeed, this creative approach was something that Hurston had long ago characterized as “the will to adorn”—by which she meant the refashioning of existing ideas in accords with one’s tastes—and declared it to be “the second most notable characteristic in Negro expression.”49 Brown embodied this tradition in his movement and music, as when he venerated social dances such as the “Camel Walk,” “Mashed Potato,” and “Boogaloo” in his hit song “There Was a Time” (1967), but concluded by exalting his own performative style: “Sometimes I dance, sometimes I clown / But you can bet you haven’t seen nothing yet / Until you see me do the James Brown.” This dialectic of individual expression rooted in community practices was at the very heart of funk, both sonically and physically, as listeners were encouraged to come together on the dancefloor, tap into their traditions, and

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free their bodies from inhibition. Even the term “funk” itself referred to a foul body odor, often produced from the sweat of movement, that mainstream propriety would have one cover up.50 Funk’s penchant for challenging norms in the pursuit of expressing oneself fully led many, even within the African American community, to distance themselves from the music, dance, and working-class constituency it was associated with.51 As African American studies scholar Tony Bolden has pointed out, “What was so distinctive about funk was its brazen defiance of social conventions and its insistence on expressing that defiance in black vernacular terms—even if this meant resisting taboos in black culture.”52 And dance was not only an addendum to funk, it was the source of the music itself. As many of Brown’s early bandmates recall, The Minister of New New Super Heavy Funk paid close attention to dancers in the crowd wherever he toured, picking up new steps and grooves at will. “The steps inspired the music,” stated JC Davis, of the original James Brown Band. “A song inspired by an action, a way to put your little thing over on what they did. But first came the dance.”53 As in earlier iterations of African American expression,54 funk emerged from within the working-class jook continuum where movement and music worked in tandem, and this spoke directly to the sensibilities of African American youth during the early 1970s. It is no accident, then, that when asked who was the first b-boy, many of the young people who developed breaking in the Bronx would emphatically respond, “James Brown.”55

When in Rome In a 2015 interview, the widely recognized founding father of hip-hop, Clive “DJ Kool Herc” Campbell, had this to say when asked about James Brown: “Well, that’s my man. That’s the father.”56 Here was the celebrated progenitor

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of hip-hop giving paternal credit to another, demonstrating the difficulty of attributing any historical phenomenon to a single individual. “I was listening to American music in Jamaica and my favorite artist was James Brown,” Herc explained. “That’s who inspired me.”57 Even as a child in the Caribbean, what stood out to Herc was the bandleader’s energy, individuality, and, as he explained it, “I liked what he was saying about Black people.”58 When Herc’s family moved to the Bronx in 1967, the funk movement inspired by Brown would take on an added significance in his life. Being a thirteen-year-old immigrant in New York was not easy for Herc at first, as he recalls being ridiculed for his unfamiliar accent, fashion, and hobbies.59 Other hip-hop pioneers with Caribbean roots, such as Fred “Kool DJ Red Alert” Crute, have similarly explained that being a West Indian kid in New York was not “cool” during this period, affirming that local African American youth would pick on those with a foreign identity.60 It should come as no surprise, then, that Herc quickly assimilated into the working-class African American culture he found himself in. “I was talking so good, Jamaicans didn’t believe I was Jamaican,”61 he explains when recalling his upbringing in the Bronx, adding that, rather than playing reggae in the borough, he adapted to the tastes and sensibilities of the local African American community.62 Indeed, Herc has regularly denied—at least in his early interviews—any connection between hip-hop and Jamaica, contradicting the widespread narrative that he transmuted sound system culture to the Bronx.63 “Jamaican toasting? Naw, naw. No connection there,” he told Steve Hager in 1984 when asked about rap originating from reggae. “I couldn’t play reggae in the Bronx. People wouldn’t accept it. The inspiration for rap is James Brown and the album Hustler’s Convention.”64 Correcting this skewed Jamaican origin narrative is important not only for understanding Herc’s early influences but also the way in which he constructed his identity as a young dancer. Listening to music and participating in social gatherings became an important part of Herc’s upbringing in the Bronx and

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this acculturation process was facilitated by the jook continuum of his era. Beginning with local house parties, community events, and makeshift venues turned into small clubs, Herc picked up the latest slang, fashion, and dance moves being done to the music of The Isley Brothers, Kool & The Gang, The Jackson 5, and, of course, James Brown.65 These neighborhood functions encapsulated what dance scholar Katrina Hazzard-Gordon has argued are “essentially underground”66 spaces that working-class communities have historically used to maintain their Africanist traditions, communicate everyday experiences, and innovate new forms of expression. Although Hazzard-Gordon claimed that the days of the jook continuum ended in the 1960s, with subsequent generations “enter[ing] the dance halls and public dancing arenas of urban whites,”67 Herc’s experience, and the history of hiphop overall, shows how African Americans jooks continued to flourish well into the 1970s. In addition to attending local parties, Herc also adapted to his newfound home by adopting a nickname for himself—first “CLYDE AS KOOL” and, later, “KOOL HERC”68—that he wrote on trains and walls throughout the city (figure 2.1). In this way, he took part in yet another defiant, working-class, youth-led art movement burgeoning at the time: style writing.69 Just as many African Americans adopted new names to express their social consciousness in the 1960s, Herc developed a unique identity for himself by coming up with a moniker, ornamenting it in his own fashion, and publicly putting it up on walls and trains throughout the city. This allowed him to gain admiration from his peers and negotiate his identity as an adolescent youth. “I’m in Rome, I got to do what the Romans do” is how he has commonly summed up these early experiences of cultural assimilation in the Bronx.70 By the early 1970s, Herc was venturing beyond his local neighborhood to other Bronx jooks such as The Puzzle, The Shaft, The Rat Hole, and Soulsville (later known as the Hevelow), often in the accompaniment of African

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FIGURE 2.1  A “Kool Herc” signature on the Washington Bridge over the Harlem River, connecting 181st Street in Manhattan and Sedgwick Ave in the Bronx, c. 1974. Photo by COCO 144 and PHASE 2 / IGTimes archive.

American style writers such as PHASE 2, SUPER KOOL 223, UNCLE RICH, EL MARKO 174, and SWEET DUKE 161. When asked how he got his start in hip-hop, he specifically points to dancing in these underground venues with fellow artists: “All them guys, we used to like music,” Herc explains. “We used to dance. We liked to dance. After we start bombing places, little trains and stuff like that, we go hang out in The Puzzle or somewhere downtown: Nemo’s, Nell Gwynn’s, places like that.”71 Just as they took the alphabet beyond its confines through stylized signatures, these Bronxites moved their bodies in unrestricted ways on dancefloors, as well. Like other partygoers, they socialized and did the latest dances but, when the percussive crescendos of funk songs came on, they performed their own steps and movement combinations.

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“Turnout Time at the P.T.” One of the most well-known clubs that Herc and his friends would frequent was the Plaza Tunnel (P.T.), located in the basement of the Grand Concourse Plaza Hotel in the West Bronx (figure 2.2). For much of the borough’s history, this hotel housed prominent politicians, businessmen, and New York Yankee baseball players. However, given the demographic changes in the region during the 1960s, the hotel found it increasingly difficult to fill its halls with affluent guests. As a result, it began catering to the African American and Latino residents who were populating the borough. Herc’s recollection of the club was that it was an underground venue, both figuratively and literally, with attendees—who were overwhelmingly African American—going downstairs into a large, dimly lit room with just one strobe light and the red glow of exit signs illuminating its halls.72 Crowds of up to 400−500 teenagers would pack this basement club and dance to the music of DJ John Brown, a high school classmate of Herc’s who would fuse funk records such as “It’s Just Begun” (1970) by The Jimmy Castor Bunch, “Get Into Something” (1970) by The Isley Brothers, and “Moment of Truth” (1971) by Earth, Wind, and Fire with an eclectic mix of soul, R&B, and rock records like “Get Ready” (1970) by Rare Earth, “Maggie” (1970) by Redbone, and “I’m a Man” (1971) by Chicago.73 Again, this diversity in music exemplified the zeitgeist of alternative expression and identity formation taking place within the borough during this period. In venues such as the P.T., a select few partygoers would match the percussive crescendos of funk-based songs with movement that equally went beyond the bounds of standardized performance. They would rapidly shuffle their feet, shimmy their shoulders, or gesture with their hands to the rhythm of the music being played. Others might slide in one direction before smoothly hitting multiple upright spins and coming to a stop, or they might lean back on one

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hand to touch the floor before springing back upright. Often, these movements were adapted and refashioned from previous African American forms, such as the moves of James Brown or eccentric dancers from the jazz era. The more one put a unique twist on a popular step or came up with their own novel sequences, the more crowds would gather and cheer on their performances. Young people in the Bronx interchangeably referred to such irreverent dancing as “freestyling,” “going off,” and, most importantly, “breaking.” Like the spirit of funk itself, such individualized dancing exuded independence, defiance, and exuberance, with practitioners being encouraged to cultivate their own corporeal subjectivity, rather than regurgitate prescribed steps.

FIGURE 2.2  Advertisement for the Plaza Tunnel night club, New York Amsterdam News, August 7, 1971, B6.

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As a result, dancers invested so heavily in their movements that they passionately guarded them from would-be imitators. “In my little neighborhood, you would get beat up for copying a guy’s moves. That’s how serious that dancing was,” explained Coke La Rock, a close friend of Herc’s who accompanied him to the Plaza Tunnel and other local venues.74 La Rock’s emphasis on originality is shared by virtually every other early breaker, suggesting that the “will to adorn” identified by Hurston was elevated to communal policy among Bronxites involved in the dance. Indeed, breakers risked social ostracization, and even physical violence, for failing to come up with their own moves during this period. As scholar Jim Vernon has pointed out, this emphasis on individuality was enforced collectively by both practitioners and audiences who demanded a certain level of knowledge and appreciation for aesthetic precedents within the dance.75 The rationale against “biting” (copying) was also closely tied to the realization that these dance moves were an embodied expression of a practitioner’s sense of self. For somebody to mimic another’s moves without permission was deemed to be an attack on their very identity. Of course, over time, certain movements gained widespread appeal and then were reproduced and adorned by other dancers. In this way, they became incorporated into the broader repertoire that breaking was becoming known for. For instance, PHASE 2 explained how one particular move took the Bronx by storm in the early 1970s, and is still being utilized by breakers until today: DJs like John Brown would shout-out over a James Brown song: “It’s turnout time at the P.T., turnout time at the P.T.” That scene definitely set the stage for what became the b-boy. Plaza Tunnel was where this one cat name Walter introduced “The Drop,” a move b-boys are still doing to this day.76 As the name implies, the “drop” (also referred to as a “pin drop”) was a way to transition to the floor. A dancer would place their foot behind the opposite

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knee and squat down until the ball of their connected foot touched the ground. In this cross-legged, crouched position, dancers would push up off their feet and spin into an upright position. In their seminal book Jazz Dance, Marshall and Jean Stearns labeled this move a “knee-drop” and explained how African American dancers adopted it from Russian folk performers in the 1930s.77 Similarly, veteran jazz dancer Charles “Honi” Coles associated breaking in the 1980s with Cossack dancers of the early twentieth century and wondered how, “in the absence of vaudeville and ‘the acts,’” just “where the current break dancers discovered all those steps.”78 Although it is likely that the move was influenced by jazz era dancers (figure 2.3), what is important to note here is that the drop was reconjured by African American youth in the 1970s to “go off ” and “break” at local parties. Before Kool Herc began throwing his own

FIGURE 2.3  Danny Alexander, a jazz dancer affiliated with Harlem’s Small’s Paradise nightclub, executes a pin drop while jumping rope in the short film Smash Your Baggage (1932).

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parties, he was going to venues such as the Plaza Tunnel and seeing young people recombine the drop with other unique movements to funk music, marking the contours of a new dance that would take on greater form and visibility in the coming years. The pin drop was a particularly important component of the emerging breaking phenomenon as the unexpected nature of the move—with one foot concealed behind the other during the fall—and the rapid, rotating recovery of spinning back upright onto one’s feet caught the attention of audiences, leading other dancers to quickly adapt it and embody their own identity through it. For instance, some would emphasize their physical acumen through the move by jumping high in the air before coming down to the floor, while others would execute multiple rotations when spinning back upright from the drop. Other breakers would accentuate the move with a comedic gesture or pop culture reference, such as pulling up their coat collar like Dracula when going down to the floor and pulling their coat back up when spinning upright onto their feet. Through such varying displays, the pin drop quickly became a sensation in the borough and was closely associated with the repertoire of movements signified by the term “breaking.” As such displays went beyond the bounds of audience expectations, young people also developed alternative modes of dancefloor interaction. Namely, a tradition of spontaneously challenging and outdoing an opponent, which became known as “burning” in the Bronx. The “competitive interaction”79 identified by dance historian Jacqui Malone as central to African American expression reemerged with this youth-oriented movement, as teenagers would test each other skills by putting a more creative twist on a popular step, acting out a humiliating insult, or dropping to the floor and coming back up with their hands directly in an opponent’s face. These sequences displayed everything from wit and playfulness to aggression and intensity. It all depended on the situation, but the main aim remained exchanging creatively with a competitor on the dancefloor. At around this same time, aerosol artists were adorning

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their nicknames on subway cars by putting outlines over their signatures and filling them in with greater color and design. Such elaborate murals were likewise called “burners,” and the act of outdoing another artist with them was known as “burning.”80 As can be seen, whether in terms of painting on trains or dancing in clubs, the attitude of leaving your mark creatively and making your presence felt was encapsulated in the shared terminology of both expressions. Young women were also heavily involved in this burning era of breaking. In fact, many practitioners suggest that it was often specifically the girls who would challenge the guys on the dancefloor. Take, for example, this early account from Coke La Rock, describing how Kool Herc and he became friends by going to clubs and dancing against girls: So girls during that time use to do what we call, “burning people up!” As they use to call it. The girls are burning people up and Herc use to come find me and say, “Come on Coke, come and dance with her.” Herc never seen a girl burn me. So that was another reason how we got so tight. I use to go to a lot of clubs, so Herc use to come get me to dance against these girls.81 La Rock is referring here to a time before Herc and he began throwing their own parties, demonstrating how breaking and burning were underground practices among young people in the borough even before the advent of what came to be known as hip-hop. And girls were not merely passive onlookers or partners for guys during such displays. They were active, co-equal participants. As DJ Tyrone the Mixologist from the Southeast Bronx attests, “There was girls burning guys first,”82 while early MC Kool Kyle from the North Bronx remembers going to parties where, “we’d grab a bunch of cute girls and we’d do these moves. We’d burn these girls.”83 These are testimonies from different regions of the borough, given independent from one another, corroborating the fact that young women were widely engaged in the competitive acts of burning. Once again, this speaks to the alternative subjectivity being

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embodied by working-class African Americans during this period and, as will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 5, females figured prominently in the early development of breaking. For now, suffice it to say that the common assumption that breaking was exclusively created as an assertion of “male dominance” or “masculinity”84 is undermined by the testimony of hip-hop’s founding practitioners.

Criminalizing Culture As the above discussion of breaking’s beginnings illustrates, a new generation of African American youth came to the fore in the late 1960s and early 1970s— at the same time that the Bronx was undergoing rapid demographic change— to express themselves in assertive and dynamic ways. The weekend parties at the Plaza Tunnel epitomized these changes both culturally and socially. Here was a formerly prestigious establishment for white residents transformed into a nightclub for working-class African American teenagers, where a diverse repertoire of funk, soul, and rock records would be heard on a weekly basis. Innovative forms of expression—ranging from individualized dancing to microphone shout-outs—were also fostered within this underground atmosphere, helping set the stage for hip-hop culture.85 And just as the media would later mischaracterize breaking as an outgrowth of criminality,86 the congregation of young African Americans at the Plaza Tunnel was met with denunciations by residents and state authorities, as well. In March 1973, the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs revoked the Plaza Tunnel’s cabaret license after receiving complaints from neighbors that attendees were causing “annoyance, abuse and harassment” in the area.87 It was alleged that partygoers “had blocked the sidewalk, fought, made noise and intimidated” passersby.88 As a result, the city sent inspectors and police to issue arrests for minor “parking summons,” “public intoxication,” and “disorderly

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conduct.”89 Meanwhile, the Plaza Tunnel’s staff insisted that they never had any problems on their premises and that the charges were racially motivated. One club official even told the New York Times that, “The people who live around here, they’re trying to turn the clock back, make the neighborhood the way it was 25 years ago. That’s why they’re complaining.”90 Such suspicions were reaffirmed by the paranoia interviewees expressed in the same report. “There were a lot of colored people outside,” said an elderly widow who passed by the nightclub. “They may have been all right but you can never tell. I know that some of them looked drunk. I got away as fast as I could.”91 Even a decade later, the Concourse Plaza Hotel’s owner Joseph Caspi maintained that racism was to blame for the club’s demise. “My personal opinion is that the local politicians were able to bring enough pressure to stop the blacks being in the hotel,” Caspi explained, adding that they were “hoping they might retard change in the neighborhood.”92 Legal appeals were issued to overturn the city’s revocation but to no avail. The State Supreme Court Justice who ultimately upheld the decision was himself a resident of the Grand Concourse and refused to recuse himself.93 By the summer of 1973, after only two years of operation, the doors of the Plaza Tunnel were permanently closed.94 Although the controversy surrounding this case was well documented at the time, hip-hop scholars have, unfortunately, blamed the club’s demise on African Americans themselves. Specifically, they have claimed that members of the Black Spades gang would “intimidate the crowd” at the Plaza Tunnel and “overrun the floor” when the DJ would play “Soul Power” (1971) by James Brown.95 Herc himself has also attributed the closure of some of the Bronx clubs to gang intimidation96 but, to my knowledge, he never specifically mentions the Plaza Tunnel. Nor is there any mention of gang activity in any of the public records related to the club’s license being revoked. In fact, a prominent member of the Black Spades recently explained that it would have been too risky for them to engage in anything aside from partying at a venue as prominent as the Plaza Tunnel—which, at the time, was located across the

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street from the Bronx County Courthouse. “We would dance, that’s about it,” he maintained. “There was no fighting or nothing in there.”97 Taking all of this into account, it is difficult to determine what, if any, role gangs played in the club’s demise. It seems more likely that the city’s closure of the Plaza Tunnel was prompted by older, mostly white residents who lived in the Grand Concourse area. Conceptions of cultural difference played a critical role in the anxiety and opposition expressed by these residents, as the stability of this “changing neighborhood” was deemed to be under attack by the nighttime congregation of African American teenagers. This anxiety also corresponded to a broader national discourse from this period that painted working-class African Americans as “socially pathological.”98 Despite there being no legal records showing any serious disturbances at the Plaza Tunnel, only minor complaints about patrons blocking sidewalks and being “public nuisances,” city officials assumed that young African Americans were involved in anti-social behavior. Under this pretense, they swiftly closed the club using flimsy technical violations, such as the Plaza Tunnel’s manager’s failure to keep a roster of employees on call at all times, as a justification.99 Sadly, this presumption of criminality in historical scholarship on hiphop has extended to depictions of breaking itself, with most commentators attributing the emergence of the dance to gang activity.100 However, as the above analysis demonstrates, breaking was a product of the longstanding African American tradition of creating music and movement together in autonomous dance spaces. It did not have any direct connection to gangs. Even the competitive burning that took place within the dance was more akin to the “challenge dances” of hoofers,101 ballroom contests of swing dancers,102 and playing of the Dozens103 seen throughout African American history. Although breaking’s sensibilities may have been deemed “outlaw,” in terms of existing outside the confines of mainstream society,104 the widespread claim that there

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was a causal connection between gangs and hip-hop is unsubstantiated by the testimony of the culture’s founders.105 In addition, although breaking was certainly informed by the broader climate of discrimination and cultural contestation taking place in the Bronx at the time, I would not attribute the dance’s emergence to such an external opposition. Rather, breaking was overwhelmingly centered on the style, pleasure, and sense of self practitioners derived from their expressions internally.106 Young people dancing at clubs such as the Plaza Tunnel were not venting out in protest against injustice but, rather, expressing “their own soul-world” and “danc[ing] like flame” as Hughes predicted they would.107 The narrative that hip-hop pioneers “lived in an environment that had become comparable to the one in Lord of the Flies where children stranded on an island with no adult guidance create a new, brutal social order of their own”108 has been grossly overexaggerated. Indeed, many early practitioners were not from destitute backgrounds but, rather, from working-class families who were persevering in the Bronx despite the obstacles being put before them.109 It was this sense of community and cultural tradition that was the basis for their kinesthetic expressions. Of course, the racism and injustice taking place around them only increased the proclivity of African American youth to dance as they saw fit. Rather than look for mainstream acceptance, they congregated in clubs and house parties where they could be with like-minded peers and express themselves without concern. It should also be remembered that breaking emerged at a time when young people were increasingly gravitating toward self-affirming forms of cultural expression and it is within this particular context that the African American jook continuum combined with the subjectivity of Bronx youth, leading to their distinct interpretation of funk-based music, individualized expression, local terminology, shared movement vocabulary, and heightened emphasis on assertive identity. In other words, breaking emerged as both an

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embodiment of a cultural past and a reinterpretation of it, just as it was shaped by socioeconomic conditions, and, at the same time, transcended them. While the closure of the Plaza Tunnel deprived African American teenagers of an important venue for congregation, it by no means stopped their embodied creativity. Instead, such suppression gave way to more localized forms of congregation and movement expression, with the energy of the Plaza Tunnel transferred into smaller neighborhood centers, house parties, and church halls where teenagers continued to freestyle, burn, and go off. The visceral pleasure of moving together to music and cultivating a sense of identity remained motivating enough factors for them to resist external attempts to stifle these expressions. And by August 1973, just a few months after the Plaza Tunnel had closed, Kool Herc’s younger sister, Cindy, would provide a new forum where the cultural energy harnessed in these spaces would be propelled even further.

3 Keeping the Movement Moving

The story of how Cindy Campbell decided to host a party on August 11, 1973, and asked her older brother, Kool Herc, to DJ—effectively marking the beginning of the hip-hop movement—has been well documented. What has not been is the cultural context from which this beginning emerged. As was discussed in the previous chapter, the basic artistic, musical, and corporeal elements of hip-hop were already in existence among African American teenagers in the Bronx even prior to Kool Herc’s debut as a DJ. However, given the dramatic changes and social ferment taking place within the borough, young people were increasingly being denied spaces to congregate and practice these expressions. It is within this context that Herc and his sister Cindy began throwing “rent parties” in their parents’ apartment building, providing teenagers a consistent, independent venue where they could get together, play music, and dance without concern for the outside world. Herc’s description of his early parties as “speakeasies” and his interpretation of the factors that led to them are telling in this regard. “I’m coming up after the dust,” he explains, referring to the closure of clubs such as the Plaza Tunnel,1 adding that the vacuum left behind by such closures prompted him to throw his own events. “So I was the guy who kind of resurrected the music again, on

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the West side [of the Bronx],” suggesting that his DJing was both an extension of the African American expressions within the borough and a circumvention of the forces trying to stop them.2 In addition, Herc has repeatedly insisted that his background as a dancer was central to his ushering in of hip-hop culture. “This how I became a DJ: I was breakdancing,” he explains when asked how he got his start. “I was dancing and dancing, and knowing the records and why the DJ’s not playing certain records. And that’s how I got behind the turntable.”3 Everything from the songs he chose to play for his audience to the way he played them was informed by his previous experiences, both positive and negative, on dancefloors throughout the borough. Once again, it is important to quote Herc directly on this matter. I came from a dancer’s point of view. I wasn’t a DJ before I started doing all of that. I was a dancer. I danced. I was in the audience hearing, “How come he don’t have that record? Why he took off the record at that point?” So, with all that going on out there in the audience, which I’m a part of, I took that gripe behind the turntables. Cause I’m always in the dancefloor’s interest.4 Unfortunately, instead of attending to Herc’s dance background, most hiphop historians have claimed that he suddenly imported a new style of playing music from Jamaica,5 or that he began DJing as a symbolic response to dislocation,6 or that he was inspired by Latino street musicians to play records with percussive crescendos.7 By ignoring Herc’s testimony on breaking and the African American expressions that informed his sensibilities, these narratives have obscured the cultural factors that gave rise to hip-hop and the dancers who were at the forefront of the movement’s development. In this chapter, I demonstrate how hip-hop was, first and foremost, a youthbased cultural movement rooted in local articulations of African American dancing. Although breaking was not the only style of dance practiced at early

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hip-hop parties, it was the most pivotal to the musical innovations Herc would introduce. Furthermore, contrary to the widespread assumption that breaking began as a response to Herc’s DJing techniques, I show breaking was a determining factor in inspiring such musical choices, in the first place. That Herc admits he was breaking before he got behind the turntables already indicates how the dance predated his innovations. Beyond this important chronological distinction, however, I will also show how breaking became the driving force behind the unique record selections, turntable techniques, and even many of the microphone incantations Herc would become famous for. Of course, the atmosphere and excitement that Herc provided for breakers also greatly enhanced the form’s aesthetic development. In this way, the intimate relationship between music and movement seen throughout African American history was reconjured during the advent of hip-hop. Accordingly, I connect the early development of breaking with the broader history of workingclass African American jooks in which these expressions were nurtured. I also relate breaking’s terminology, movement vocabulary, and symbolic meaning to previous African American forms, showing how the recombination and reinterpretation of this cultural lineage provided the basis for young people in the Bronx to spark this new beginning.

Deciphering the Break Before discussing the evolution of breaking during Herc’s rise as a DJ, it is important to discuss the name of the dance itself given its continued usage among practitioners around the world, its signification of meaning within the form, and its widespread mischaracterization in dominant discourse. As mentioned in the previous chapter, breaking existed as a term in the Bronx even prior to Kool Herc getting behind the turntables, as the dynamic dancing teenagers would do at parties was interchangeably referred to as “breaking,”

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“going off,” “freestyling,” and “burning.”8 Contrary to what has been written in most hip-hop histories, the term did not emerge from the sudden “rupture of rhythmic continuity”9 in the records that Herc played, nor from the “breakdown sections”10 of these songs. In fact, the term did not initially relate to music at all. Instead, it was an African American slang word that referred to extreme activity. This point is made clear in the documentary The Freshest Kids (2002), which dedicates an entire section, titled “The Break,” to this question. Recognizing the contradictory claims regarding its meaning, the producers of the film purposefully juxtaposed testimony from early African American practitioners with those who gained prominence during the 1980s commercialization of breaking. In one telling scene, pioneering aerosol artist and breaker PHASE 2 is sitting next to Crazy Legs, from the Rock Steady Crew, explaining to him that, in the early 1970s, “We used to say, ‘Why you breakin’ on me? Why’s my mom breakin’ on me? Why you actin’ crazy?’ It really just meant doing shit above normal.” A few frames later, GrandMixer DXT, an early b-boy who went on to become an influential DJ, describes how the term was used in everyday life. “When somebody gets mad,” he explains, people would say, “Yo, he’s breakin’. Stop breakin’ man.” Finally, Kool Herc—who is credited with coining the accompanying b-boy/b-girl (or break boy/break girl) terminology— explicitly states in the film, “It didn’t come from ‘breaks’ on the record. It came from, this man ‘broke.’ He went to … the breaking point. You understand? So, we just used that exaggeration of that term to the dancing.”11 Even in the early 1980s, when breaking first gained media attention, this same definition held sway among practitioners. For example, in Sally Banes’ inaugural article on the dance, she quotes an unnamed b-boy explaining that, “Breaking means going crazy on the floor. It means making a style for yourself.”12 Popular author Curtis Marlow similarly wrote that breaking was a 1970s’ term among inner city youth in reference to “outbursts of anger,” adding that, like “go-off,” the term was later applied to “wild” and “hot dancers” in a

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party who gathered crowds around them.13 These definitions stand quite apart from the misconception that “breakdance” emerged as a way of “executing moves that imitated the rupture in rhythmic continuity as it was highlighted in the musical break,”14 or the more far-fetched notion that it stemmed from gangs taking a “break” from “street warfare” to “fight with steps rather than weapons.”15 As with other aspects of hip-hop history, this neglect of embodied expression has prevented scholars from understanding the underlying meaning of this important signifier. What’s more, such neglect has muddled the deeper cultural connections the term draws attention to. As has been seen historically from “hoofing” and “swinging” to “popping” and “krumping,” breaking was simply the latest African American vernacular term applied to dynamic forms of movement. As Thomas Kochman has pointed, working-class African Americans have long utilized such words expressing qualities of rapid and unrestricted activity—as opposed to static or impeded expression—as favorable labels for their kinesthetic expressions.16 Dance scholars Thomas DeFrantz and Anita Gonzalez have also referenced Zora Neale Hurston’s famous observation that African Americans utilize such “action words” to describe their art forms.17 Understanding this historical pattern demonstrates how coterminous breaking was with the broader African American tradition of naming and language use. In addition, clarifying breaking’s etymology provides insight into the ideas and influences that gave rise to the dance, as well as the musical innovations that later emerged from it. Indeed, as I discuss below, the percussive records that Kool Herc became known for playing were initially referred to as “breakin’ beats,” “b-beats,” or simply “breaks” precisely because dancers would break to them, not the other way around. Indeed, by the mid-1970s, when people would break at a party, it meant that they were performing stylized movements that went beyond the norms of audience expectations. While most partygoers would do formalized partner dances such as The Hustle or loosely structured social dances such as the

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Washing Machine, Mother Popcorn, Four Corners, Click Clack, and so on, a select few began performing individualized movements that transcended these conventional practices. They would freestyle individually in the same vein as James Brown, but with their own unique steps, slides, spins, and gestures. In addition to being more energetic and physically demanding, these movements stood out for their rearrangement of space and couple formations on the dancefloor. For example, in his attempt to explain such displays, PHASE 2 is quoted as saying that, “Breaking is taking dancing to a level … [that] you could probably not dance with somebody because it’s a little too outrageous to be dancing with a girl.”18 A central move that emerged during this period, and which is still the most widely utilized upright step among breakers today, consists of a forward lunging two-step that opens up the space needed for such agency. Practitioners would take a diagonal step forward with one foot landing on the backbeat of a song, often extending their arms and lunging their hips forward in the process, and then they would hunch back toward the center to perform the same movement with their opposite foot. Executing this move is like physically declaring, “Get out of my way!” as anybody standing in front of you would inevitably have sneaker marks on their feet. In fact, pioneering MC Grandmaster Caz demonstrates this step in The Freshet Kids (2002) and, like PHASE 2 above, explains that, “You couldn’t really ask a girl to dance”19 when doing this move. In other words, the forward lunging two-step broke the plane of traditional couple formations and signaled the arrival of a more individualized, freeform expression, one which was a physical manifestation of the concept of going beyond the norm—of breaking. Like the pin drop discussed in the previous chapter, this forward-lunging two-step also became a staple for many breakers in the Bronx, with dancers adopting it and putting their own unique twist to it. The simplicity of the move allowed considerable room for creativity and musical experimentation, with some performing it with a bounce as they lunged forward, while others

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embellished the move with elaborate hand gestures, spins, or a change of direction with each step. At the same time, some chose not to do the step at all, preferring to move side to side, shuffle their feet, or otherwise express their individuality in another manner. After all, there was no mandatory requirement for what to do when breaking, as the term itself meant going beyond the bounds of audience expectations and affirming one’s own individual identity. Therefore, a dualistic process developed within the dance wherein two seemingly contradictory notions of individual agency and collective vocabulary complemented, rather than conflicted with, one another. The wellspring of movements that resulted eventually led to new concepts and patterns that were adapted and adorned, eventually crystalizing into the vocabulary breaking would become known for. In his analysis of breaking and hip-hop aesthetics, DeFrantz has labeled this dialectical process “performing the breaks,” arguing that it is the cornerstone of African American culture. “Expressive gestures in this idiom must somehow exceed the familiar for the break to succeed,” he writes, adding that, “The apparition of excess is essential here. Among expert B-girls, what we think we see—and can’t comprehend as really happening—becomes the standard for what is possible and what might be real.”20 Like Hurston’s concept of the “will to adorn,” this pushing of the boundaries through novel steps helped early breakers create new moves that subsequent practitioners adapted and elaborated upon. In the Bronx, this meant upright dance steps such as the forward lunging two-step, as well as intermittent drops to the floor like the pin drop, and competitive burns against opponents. Through these shared practices, a common vocabulary began to take hold, alongside a continued emphasis on expanding breaking’s repertoire by “doing it your own way.” Like James Brown and the funk movement that hip-hop emerged from, breaking exemplified a collective tradition of innovation through experimentation, and it is for this reason that PHASE 2 maintained that, “The so called [sic] tradition has always been to break [emphasis added] the mold. Even interpret a dance in

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your style. The rockers (breakers) who did that were the ones who got noticed the most and as well set the trends!!!”21 Kool Herc’s rise as a DJ was in many ways based on the musical tastes he developed as a dancer engaged in such preexisting activity. Accordingly, he knew how to cater to the young crowds that would attend his sister’s famous party on August 11, 1973. This was, in fact, the very reason that Cindy asked him to DJ in the first place. Not only did she want to save money by having her sibling play music for her attendees but she also knew that, as a seasoned dancer, he had an ear for a range of soul- and funk-infused records that would make her party a success.

The Shepherd and the Flock The celebrated inaugural event where Herc made his DJing debut has often been mistakenly described as a birthday party for Cindy.22 However, it was in fact a back-to-school party that she had organized. Although this may seem like a minor point, it is important to clarify as it bears upon the subsequent development of breaking and hip-hop culture. Cindy was transitioning into high school that summer and wanted to raise money to purchase clothes for this new chapter of her adolescence. Many of those who attended her party were classmates and peers from the local neighborhood, demonstrating the combined African American, teenage, mixed-gender, working-class constituency from which hip-hop arose. Cindy also emphasizes how her event was as much about socializing and having fun as it was about turning a profit. “Hip-hop came from humble beginnings,” she explains, “It had everything to do with schooling, with the youth … teenagers having something to do.”23 In fact, much like Herc, she considers the event an act of community service, emphasizing how social opposition was preventing young people at the time from going out to places like the Plaza Tunnel,

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which had permanently closed only a few months prior. Just as African Americans threw rent parties in New York during the jazz era to skirt societal constrictions, not necessarily always to raise rent money,24 hip-hop’s official founding was organized as a communal celebration aimed at circumventing the crackdown against venues where youth congregated. “If hip-hop didn’t fly below the radar, it wouldn’t have evolved to where it is today … They would’ve stopped it,”25 Cindy insists, referring to the commercial and societal forces that the movement insulated itself from. In this way, her famous back-to-school party forms part of the jook continuum’s historic repurposing of traditionally domestic or abandoned spaces into autonomous environments for unbridled African American expression.26 One of the most important, yet overlooked, aspects of this autonomous aspect of early hip-hop was Cindy and Herc’s access to the recreation room of their parent’s apartment building in the West Bronx—not the “South Bronx” as virtually every historical account mistakenly asserts. Pioneering DJ GrandMixer DXT has attributed this latter geographic confusion to the dominant discourse of criminality associated with the Bronx, and the European background of many of the early commentators on the culture: 1520 Sedgwick Avenue. When you walk out that door, there’s a street, then there’s some grass, and then there’s the river. That’s as west as you can get in the Bronx. That’s where Kool Herc did his very first party … Most of the journalists who came into New York to interview the whole hip-hop scene were from Europe. They were European journalists and, subconsciously, racism played into that because they immediately thought that it happened in the most messed up areas of New York. 1520 is not broken down, burned down, abandoned buildings. It was not.27 Most early practitioners also affirm that Sedgwick Avenue was a relatively safe neighborhood at the time, nestled within a calm, uncongested street near the Major Deegan Highway and Harlem River. It was not an

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“overcrowded, dilapidated tower”28 as some have suggested, but, rather, a newly erected apartment building for middle-income residents. Pioneering b-boy Sasa explains that, “It’s a perfect place to party if you didn’t want to be bothered,”29 while other early practitioners describe the area as “residential” and “pedestrian.”30 This is important not only for correcting the widespread misconception that hip-hop started in the “wasteland”31 of the South Bronx but also for recognizing how the geographic isolation of Herc and Cindy’s famous party incubated hip-hop in its early years. As a new development for working-class families, the 1520 Sedgwick Avenue building contained a ground-floor facility amenable to meetings and gatherings, with two bathrooms, a kitchen, one large dancefloor, and a separate room where Herc could set up his DJ equipment. Within this setting, young people could enjoy themselves more freely, with little concern for internal or external obstacles. For instance, Cindy did not have to worry about furniture getting in the way of breakers who wanted to go off, as was the case at most house parties. Chaperones and tolerant neighbors also proved to be manageable, as local friends and parents helped patrol the lobby to make sure nobody loitered or got out of hand. Herc was also able to borrow his father’s PA system—which the latter used for a local R&B, not a reggae, band32—to project music loudly enough to feel like a small club. Accessing such DJ equipment was an expensive endeavor at the time, contradicting the misconception that hip-hop emerged out of economic depravity or cuts in school music programs.33 On the contrary, Herc’s access to such equipment was made possible by his family’s support, his personal love for music, and his sister’s idea of hosting a party for the community. Such familial backing was essential to the movement’s beginnings, as without access to the building space and sound equipment for this inaugural event, it can be speculated that hiphop itself would have never matured. In addition, the musical tastes that Herc—who was eighteen at the time of Cindy’s back-to-school party—had developed over his years of dancing at

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African American clubs provided him with a visceral understanding of how to cater to his young audience. As he would do throughout his career, Herc paid close attention to the dancefloor and put an emphasis on funk-oriented music to get the crowd moving. Then, when it came time to slow things down, he reverted to more mellow soul and R&B records. Such selections included both popular songs from the radio and obscure tracks that Herc came across as a dancer in the Bronx. For instance, he carried over songs that he heard DJ John Brown play at the Plaza Tunnel, such as “Get Into Something” (1970) by the Isley Brothers and “Just Begun” (1970) by The Jimmy Castor Bunch.34 Other early tracks Herc was known for playing included, “Scorpio” (1971) by Dennis Coffey & The Detroit Guitar Band, “Hot Pants” (1971) by Bobby Byrd, “Listen to Me” (1971) by Baby Huey, “Fencewalk” (1972) by Mandrill, “Shaft in Africa” (1973) by Johnny Pate, and “Voodounon” (1973) by the Lafayette Afro-Rock Band.35 Although some of these songs were less familiar to the attendees at Cindy’s party, their funk rhythms were favorable to their tastes and energetic forms of dancing. Breakers were especially known for performing dynamic moves to these records, which Herc sought to facilitate because, as he puts it, “I used to do it too. I would jump out there in a circle and do my little thing.”36 Herc knew what it felt like to “go off ” and he prided himself on being able to conjure that energy behind the turntables. This is what he means when he says, “I’m always in the dancefloor’s interest”37 and “I’m like a shepherd, I’m watching the flock,”38 an almost biblical metaphor Herc uses to describe his DJ ascendance. As word of the success of Cindy’s back-to-school party spread throughout the Bronx, Kool Herc’s name—which many had seen tagged on walls and trains throughout the borough—began to resonate as that of a DJ who provided a unique atmosphere for local partygoers. He and Cindy continued to rent the recreation room for parties on an almost monthly basis, with each event garnering a larger turnout than the last. As they kept throwing these events and reinvesting their money into music and sound equipment, Herc began

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developing a cult-like following among young people throughout the borough, attracting so many followers that, by the summer of 1974, the 1520 Sedgwick Avenue location had exceeded its capacity. As a result, Herc expanded into the building’s courtyard and, by 1975, rented out local dance halls such as the TwiLite Zone, Hevelow, Top of the Lane, Parkside Plaza, and Executive Playhouse (figure 3.1). Contrary to the claim that hip-hop began in parks or street corners, the vast majority of these events took place in indoor facilities, outside of the watchful eye of adults and state authorities. New York’s harsh winters also made Herc’s parties an important sanctuary for dancers to gather and express themselves in a secure and autonomous environment. Again, Coke La Rock specifically points to the proliferation of breaking within this context as the distinguishing factor that made the emerging hip-hop movement a success.

FIGURE 3.1  Kool Herc played after-hour events at the Parkside Plaza banquet hall, located in the Mt Eden section of the Bronx. The owner of the venue, Bob Hevelow, also owned the Hevelow on Jerome Avenue in the West Bronx, where Herc began playing regularly in 1975. Courtesy NYC Municipal Archives.

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“It was different because you can breakdance,” he states. “That’s the beginning of true breakdancing where you could dance on the floor. They was flippin’ and turnin’ and … dancing other than hustling or discoing.”39

The Whole Funk It is important to reiterate that, at this embryonic stage of hip-hop’s development, there was no real rapping or turntablism taking place. In fact, whether at the 1520 Sedgwick recreation room or local clubs such as the Twi-Lite Zone, Herc would be in a separate room where people could not even see him DJing or speaking on the microphone. Rather, Herc’s parties were concentrated mainly on dancing. As he himself explains, “I was just the guy who played straight-up music that the radio don’t play, that they should be playin’, and people was havin’ fun,” adding that, “I play selections that people dance to. I wasn’t into the other technique other guys came along the way of scratchin’, “cause my records to me is my tools.”40 In other words, what distinguished Herc and placed him in high demand was the rare musical soundtrack he provided for breaking. “My big record back then, and nobody had it then, was James Brown, ‘Give It Up or Turnit a Loose,’”41 Herc proclaims when describing his ascendance. Although this song had been released in 1969, and went on to be a charttopping single, he is referring to a lesser-known version of the track that appeared on the “live” double album Sex Machine in 1970. Herc discovered this song while dancing in a club called the Rat Hole42 in the early 1970s, which, as the name suggests, was a small, underground venue in the Claremont section of the Bronx. By the time Herc carried the record over to his 1520 Sedgwick Avenue parties, it had become even more obscure among his young followers. In fact, most people in his audience referred to the song as “Sex Machine,” not knowing the actual title of the track. “People would walk for miles just to hear

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that record—because nobody here could find it,”43 Herc is quoted as saying in Hager’s early study of the culture. The rarity of the song, combined with its heavy percussive arrangement and the guitar stylings of Bootsy and Catfish Collins, set the standard for breaking during this period. However, rather than containing a neatly defined drum section for people to dance to, this version of “Give It Up or Turnit a Loose” was itself one long percussive instrumental, interspersed with a calland-response interval where Brown chants “clap your hands, stomp ya feet” and “in the jungle, brother” several times before bringing in his drummer with the exclamation “Clyde!” To many partygoers, it sounded like Brown was summoning Herc himself (whose real name is Clive) and the high energy of the track made it an immediate hit with b-boys and b-girls, especially. Before Herc had developed his groundbreaking technique of looping records on his turntables, he played the entire length of such tracks for breakers to display their most explosive moves during their percussive peaks. The rhythmic energy of these records set Herc’s parties apart from the more dominant disco craze of the mid-1970s. Whereas DJs in the latter scene played smoother, more melodic, and purportedly “sophisticated” R&B music, often influenced by the “Philly sound” of soul producers Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff44 (most famously exemplified in their production for MFSB’s song “Love is the Message”), Herc played hard-eged funk beats for irreverent and energetic forms of dancing. While dancers in the disco scene tended to maintain traditional couple formations, with male partners leading the females in predetermined, upright movements, breakers of bother genders executed improvised and individualized steps, often transitioning to the floor in dynamic displays. Disco clubs also had strict dress codes that prohibited the wearing of hats, sneakers, and informal attire while Herc’s audiences wore everything from Italian knit shirts, Cortefield coats, and tailor-made pants to Pro-Ked 69er sneakers, Lee jeans, and bucket hats. The latter’s more unbridled approach reflected an alternative attitude toward aesthetic and

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corporeal expression within the African American community, leading many in the disco scene to look down on hip-hop’s adherents as untamed, vulgar, and improper. Nevertheless, the relative insulation of Herc’s events prevented such opposition from hampering the experimentation taking place within this independent movement. Furthermore, although Herc was known to play a multitude of musical genres at his parties, the records he played for breakers were specifically steeped in what music scholar Mark Katz has described as “a rhythmic, textural, and timbral profile characteristic of funk.” In other words, despite the varying cultural backgrounds of the musicians and instruments used in the records he played—from congas and timbales to violins and cowbells—what defined music for early breaking was “funkiness” [italics mine].45 This is important to note, as many scholars have mistakenly attributed “breakbeats” to a Latinderived percussive influence.46 Yet surveying these early records reveals that the overwhelming majority of them come from African American artists, with nearly all of them characterized by a distinctly funk-based musical sensibility. Similarly, pioneers in other 1970s’ dance styles, such as popping and locking from California, have often disassociated themselves from hip-hop, arguing that they focus more on funk music than their b-girl and b-boy counterparts. However, Keith Smith of The Legendary Twins (hereafter The Twins) effectively debunked this myth during a 1999 panel at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: It was all about funk. James Brown is the funkiest as you can get. Not only that, some of these songs, like The Isley Brothers ‘Get into Something’— that’s funky. Babe Ruth ‘First Base Mexican’—that’s funky. Booker T & the MGs ‘Melting Pot’—that’s funky. Jimmy Castor Bunch ‘It’s Just Begun’— that’s funky. Baby Huey ‘Listen to Me’—that’s funky. So, it [breaking] is all based on the funk. Nothing but the funk. The whole funk.47 In turn, funk played a decisive role in shaping breaking’s aesthetic composition. Being able to adapt to the “unexpected change in texture”48 in

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funk music became pivotal to the dance, as breakers had to know when to do a move, not just how to do it. Even when executing a drop to the floor or a flip in the air, audiences expected practitioners to follow the structural parameters of the beats being played, saving their most explosive movements for percussive crescendos. As Sasa, one of the most well-known early breakers at Herc’s parties, explains, “[Breaking was] always to the rhythm!!! That’s what impressed them [the audience]!”49 His contemporary, Trixie, similarly states that dancers would match the changing tempo of a song when they danced back then. “Yeah, you would get into the move of it, you know?! Then once you see an opening then you come down to the ground and do your rolls, your spins, all of that ….but you see there is a timing for that.”50 Just as with the communally enforced prohibition against copying another person’s moves discussed in the previous chapter, audiences at early hip-hop parties mandated that breakers closely follow the detail and trajectory of funk music. Interestingly, when asked to reflect on breaking’s evolution, many early practitioners identify this issue of musicality as the main factor separating their generation from subsequent ones. For instance, Keith Smith of The Twins feels that many practitioners today disregard the music being played when they break and, instead, place an overemphasis on athleticism. “When I see folks dance now, as opposed to what we used to do,” Keith explained, during a lecture at York University in 2015, “it’s more acrobatics. I see less dancing and more gymnastics.”51 Similarly, GrandMixer DXT believes that what he sees as the sportification of breaking is the cause of the dance’s musical devaluation. “Once you start talking about Olympics and these kind of things, it changes the psychological process of how to approach it,” he told me during our interview. “It’s now turning more into a sport than a dance.”52 Such perspectives signal not only how early practitioners related their expressions to sound but also how the erasure of the dance’s African American roots may have affected the cultural values associated with its performance, an issue which I will return to in Chapter 6.

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Carrying on Tradition While placing an emphasis on rhythm and musicality, practitioners at Herc’s parties also went head to head in heated exchanges, with competitive interactions continuing to stimulate the excitement of burning at early hiphop parties. For instance, in a famous dual between Trixie and a well-known dancer named Wallace Dee, the former is said to have dramatically jumped over the latter’s head, rolled onto the ground, and hopped back up on beat to face his opponent.53 In turn, Wallace Dee was known for dropping to the floor and coming back up miming his hands as if he were shooting a slingshot against his rival.54 Others, such as The Amazing Bobo, would pursue more vulgar insults when going up against challengers, such as acting out lewd gestures and alluding to his private parts.55 Like the verbal game of playing the Dozens, such irreverent displays were not necessarily violent or sexual but, rather, akin to a performance of “permitted disrespect,” aimed at testing the “facility, originality, ingenuity, and humor” of participants.56 In other words, just as the African American tradition of “yo mama” jokes is not about the lack of fathers in the home or the presence of domineering mothers, as some scholars have erroneously suggested,57 the vulgarity and aggression of burning was far more about wit and creativity than it was about coping with aggression or resolving conflicts through dancing. For his part, PHASE 2 recounts how he and his friends did routines c. 1974 that may have appeared confrontational but were not necessarily aimed at opponents. Rather, they would execute a series of movements, which he called “Battle Rocking,”58 mimicking the swinging of knives and weapons, coupled with kicks, shimmies, dips, and abrupt squat drops to the beat among one another in a synchronized fashion. “I would push Dice Doobie down right off a beat or groove, swing my leg over him, and pop back up,”59 he explained to me, adding in a separate interview that such choreography was not influenced “from a Capoeira person,”60 as has been assumed by some commentators (figure 3.2).

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Although these displays were deemed unwelcome at more established clubs, within the confines of Herc’s independent events, they generated excitement and entertainment for teenage audiences. At places such as the Twi-Lite Zone, which was a second-story ballroom that looked like a condemned building from the outside but had a makeshift strobe light and dark, club-like atmosphere inside,61 Herc and Cindy would organize formal contests to harness this creative energy. “I said, you know, let’s have a dance contest,” remembers Cindy. “We gave $25 dollars and the money came from the door.”62 Although such incentives upped the ante of competition, and sometimes led to disputes among breakers, most participants recall going to these parties to enjoy themselves and entertain audiences, not necessarily to win money or burn each other. Indeed, many early practitioners do not associate breaking with competition during its inception. Rather, they maintain that burning, which would later become known as “battling,” was only one of many potential modes of dancefloor interaction that would take

FIGURE 3.2  DICE 198, LAVA, and PHASE 2 in a playground in the Bronx, c. 1973–74. Photographer unknown/IGTimes Archive.

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place at early parties, with many practitioners preferring to focus on having fun and providing enjoyment for their peers. “Anytime we danced, we felt like it was a performance,” explained Keith Smith during a lecture at York University. “The only difference is we didn’t have a theater. We just had a circle, some music, and a room like this.”63 Within the context of Herc’s jook-based gatherings, Smith insists that he was motivated to socialize and express himself but, if someone wanted to go up against him and his brother, they would not hesitate to take up the challenge. Whether dancing to entertain audiences or going head to head in competitions, the loosely defined nature of breaking provided its practitioners considerable room to experiment with various symbolic meanings that reflected their emotions, interests, and identity. In fact, a considerable number of practitioners during the mid-1970s describe breaking as an animated, rhythmic, and comedic dance. For example, in an online conversation between Mike G and Cholly Rock, two practitioners who frequented Kool Herc’s parties, both described the dance as being humorous and imaginative. “You always add something different,” says Mike G. “Something that’ll make them laugh or something that’s creative.” Cholly Rock adds that they were much more comical in this era than subsequent generations of breakers would be, explaining that practitioners would do things such as imitate playing baseball, screwing somebody’s head off, or driving a car while dancing on the floor.64 Early b-boy and pioneering DJ Breakout similarly recalls that the dance involved a lot of animated routines and gives the examples of miming the reading of books, pulling out glasses, and playing dead after reaching out to shake someone’s hand during his solos.65 Guided by the rhythmic parameters of funk, breakers were allowed to embody their adolescent sensibilities in this fashion and develop new steps, sequences, and concepts that reflected their symbolic creativity. Eventually, as other dancers built upon these moves, breaking crystalized into a recognizable practice that was distinct from other expressions during this period.

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The inextricable link between movement and music was central to this formulation, as subsequent practitioners would adopt not only the nascent vocabulary of breaking but also the unique soundtrack associated with its performance. For instance, the full bent squat drops and simultaneous acting out of lunges and strikes against an opponent that PHASE 2 mentions above became widespread among breakers in the Bronx and, later, appeared in a dance known as “uprocking”: a mostly upright form that consists of “a series of steps, jerks, and the miming of weapons drawn against each other.”66 In the documentary The Freshest Kids (2002), Herc himself can be seen executing a squat drop (preceded by an upright, forward-facing two-step) when reflecting on his early parties at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue. Scholar Joseph Schloss notices this display but—in line with the dominant narrative that Latinos pioneered breaking—attributes it to the cultural influence of Latino uprockers from Brooklyn, going so far as to suggest that Herc obtained his core repertoire of records from this latter community.67 However, this conclusion is unconvincing as Latinos, especially from Brooklyn, were not present at Kool Herc’s parties and it is hard to see how the latter would have been able to amass a following if he was playing music already in wide circulation in nearby Brooklyn. Indeed, the very reason that people came to Herc’s parties was because he was playing songs that could not be heard on the radio or at other established clubs. Therefore, the narrative that hip-hop traces its roots to Brooklyn Latinos is likely a reversal of reality, as the music Herc popularized eventually spread to other boroughs in the mid- to late-1970s, just as the squat drops being done to them likely circulated beyond the Bronx and were similarly refashioned. Pioneering Latino style writer COCO 144 associates such dissemination of dancing and musical practices back then with aerosol artists, many of whom were also dancers who came from diverse ethnic backgrounds, finding commonality with one another through shared tastes and information exchanges. “I find so many similarities in writing and in dancing, cause you’re adding something,” he explained when recalling the moves he swapped with

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fellow writers such as PHASE 2, STITCH I, and C.A.T. 87. “You pick something up and you add that to your style of writing or your style of dancing.”68 Like the canon of obscure beats Herc popularized in the early 1970s, such moves may have eventually fused with other dance styles as the hip-hop movement expanded. Indeed, analyzing the public testimony and demographic details of those identified as uprockers in Schloss’ study suggests that they did not come to the fore until the late 1970s,69 when hip-hop was rapidly disseminating beyond the Bronx and finding acceptance in discos that had previously barred the form. That breakers and uprockers continue to perform squat drops and other related moves to the very playlist Herc built his reputation on only reinforces the profound impact that his particular style DJing had on music and dance within New York.

Merry-Go-Round As breakers increasingly made their movements more elaborate and eyecatching at Herc’s parties, the crowds gathering to watch them grew larger and larger, as well. Herc astutely noticed the excitement emanating from these circles and realized that breakers were the ones generating the most interest at his parties. Moreover, he noticed that breakers were specifically waiting to do their best moves to the percussive crescendos in the songs that he played. As a result, after about two years of throwing parties, Herc gathered several such songs and played them back-to-back specifically for the breakers in his audience. He called this new approach the “Merry-Go-Round,” given the uninterrupted repetition of high energy music aimed at keeping the breakers breaking. Here is Herc’s own recollection of what would become one of the most pivotal innovations in modern musical history: It was the b-boys warming up [Herc stands up and demonstrates a forwardlunging two-step for the audience]. When the break come, they went all in

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their bag [he performs a squat drop, hops forward, and mimicks doing a flip]. They’d bug out. I said, “I want to see this. I’m going to pull a trick on their ass tonight. And who ain’t with it, they better back up! Cause the rattle snakes are gonna go loose.” I put those records back-to-back and I called that segment of my format the ‘Merry Go Round.’ And lord have mercy! That was the beginning of what exploded into hip-hop. Cause people was coming to see this particular segment. Everybody was like, “Yo man, them muthafuckas just started breakin! I don’t want them to step on my shit. So, the best thing for me to do is step aside and watch this excitement take place.”70 In addition to many of the songs already mentioned, Herc’s Merry-Go-Round included such records as “Apache” (1973) by the Incredible Bongo Band,71 “The Mexican” (1973) by Babe Ruth, “Love the Life You Live” (1974) by Black Heat, “Corazon” (1974) by Creative Source, “Yellow Sunshine” (1974) by Yellow Sunshine, “Scratchin” (1975) by Magic Disco Machine, and “Funky Music Is the Thing” (1975) by the Dynamic Corvettes.72 This concentrated rotation of breaking records proved so successful that it quickly became a regular feature of his subsequent parties. “It was a part of the format now,” Herc explained. “People come in to hear that.”73 Other DJs in the Bronx subsequently emulated Herc’s Merry-Go-Round technique and began searching for their own obscure, funk-infused beats to play for dancers. In the words of DJ Grandmaster Flash, Herc set the tone because he was playing music with “soul” that was difficult to find. “You wouldn’t hear like ‘Give It Up, Turn It Loose,’ by James Brown on the radio,” explains Flash. “And, uh, I said to myself, Wow, this is pretty interesting, what he’s doing here.”74 Pioneering MC Grandmaster Caz similarly recalls how, “It wasn’t his [Herc’s] DJ style, it was the records that he played, and he played them in a certain order. They would build you up,” to which he lists off songs such as “Sex Machine,” “Apache,” and “Baby Huey.”75 At the time, the

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percussive sections of these records were not referred to as “breakbeats” but, rather, with descriptors related to dancefloor activity: “breakin’ beats,”76 “the get down part,”77 “sureshots,”78 “the jump part,”79 or simply “b-boy records.”80 Eventually, toward the latter half of the 1970s, the beats that Herc noticed b-girls and b-boys were dancing to became known as “b-beats,”81 and later “breakbeats,” demonstrating the centrality of breaking to hip-hop’s musical, and even terminological, evolution. In addition, just as breakers were not yet spinning on their heads, as subsequent generations of practitioners would, neither was Herc looping drumbeats with two copies of the same record. At first, he played the entirety of a song for b-boys and b-girls to dance to, putting them together in a specialized playlist that transformed a segment of each party into a breaking showcase. Only later did he start playing two copies of these records in an extended fashion—and, often, it was breakers who introduced him to these songs and their duplicate copies.82 In this way, Herc’s turntable innovations closely tracked the development of the dance, making breaking the determining factor in the movement he is credited for fathering. Even the shoutouts that Herc and his partner Coke La Rock would say over the microphone, helping set the stage for what would later become rapping, were influenced by dancing at these early events. Although rap has deep roots in African American culture, especially in relation to the history of DJs rhyming over the radio when introducing records, the distinct sayings, slang terminology, and chants recited by Herc and La Rock were often geared toward encouraging dancefloor activity. For instance, La Rock coined his famous “Ya rock and ya don’t stop” phrase at the Hevelow, where he saw dancers swaying in the crowd.83 Herc is also said to have prepared his audience for the MerryGo-Round by chanting “B-boys, are you ready? B-girls, are you ready?”84 directing people to make room for his breakers. When playing in clubs, he was also known for shining a spotlight on circles with his favorite practitioners. All of this resulted in the dance becoming a defining feature of Herc’s early events,

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to the point that many suggest that b-boys and b-girls were “hip-hop’s first celebrities.”85 In the words of Cindy Campbell, “People would come to see the breakers specifically, too. They were a part of the show.”86 Of course, Herc’s events also marked a significant shift in breaking’s development. Young dancers knew that, at a certain point in the night, the distinct funk songs they favored would now be played back-to-back in a club-like setting, giving them a chance to go off in an uninterrupted fashion. As GrandMixer DXT explains, “What made Kool Herc parties special, the Herculords special, is that they were the ones who were playing that music on the loud system and they gave dancers a place to go, in a discotheque environment, to hear those records.”87 Again, in the early- to mid-1970s, following the closure of venues such as the Plaza Tunnel, having an indoor club catering to African American youth in the Bronx was rare. Although a few local DJs such as Smokey and Dutchmaster, both from the Claremont section of the borough, played music for breakers, they were mostly confined to small house parties, community centers, and outdoor events. As already mentioned, such spaces were far more susceptible to outside interferences and the harsh winter weather of New York City. In contrast, Herc provided an independent, indoor environment for teenagers to express themselves, at a time when breaking and the music associated with it were largely considered marginal and unwelcome at established discos. Along these lines, DXT echoed virtually every other early hip-hop practitioner I have come across when he stated, “We could not go into other places,” because, “One, they didn’t play those records. Two, you could not dance that way in the disco clubs where they would play disco style music.”88 Gangs and economic disparity were not as central to these early years as most hip-hop histories have made them out to be, although the broader climate of racism and social marginalization in the Bronx certainly shaped the independent path these expressions took on. As Cindy Campbell has explained, “It [hip-hop] wasn’t done for drugs or gang-related” but, rather, “so

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that people didn’t have to go downtown,”89 where most established clubs were located and often more restrictive toward Bronx teenagers. In this way, hiphop was a movement rooted, first and foremost, in music and dance, and, as with past African American forms, emerged in autonomous environments— what, in the past, would be called “jook joints”—where new forms of dancing and expression could be experimented with. Early b-boy and DJ Afrika Islam makes this connection plain when he states that most hip-hop pioneers found their way into the movement “from the floor up,”90 through embodied expression. “Everything was about dancing,” he insists. “The rapper wasn’t at the middle of things, he was at the side of a DJ and a lot of people who were dancing.”91 In addition, just as Herc distinguished himself by playing funk-based music that was less familiar yet favorable to his audience, dancers at his parties distinguished themselves through personalized movements that were nevertheless rooted in a collective framework of individuality, musicality, and alternative subjectivity. By tapping into their interests and “performing the breaks” collectively, young breakers built a cultural phenomenon steeped in the legacy of African American culture. The early youth-based constituency of hip-hop also proved crucial to the movement’s expansion. As I will argue in the following chapter, it was mainly teenagers who advanced the format and vocabulary of breaking. Their combination of greater leisure time, more flexible worldviews, and proclivity toward self-affirmation played a critical role in opening new possibilities, ideas, and values to be embodied. The class and age range of early practitioners also helped distinguish hip-hop from broader currents within the African American community itself, further reinforcing the movement’s autonomy and the symbolic meanings formulated around its emergence.

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Following Kool Herc’s introduction of the Merry-Go-Round technique, breaking rapidly evolved into a more concentrated and virtuosic practice. “Now the freestyle dancers had their cake and could eat it too” is how hiphop impresario Michael Holman summarized Herc’s influence on the dance. “With more break time, freestyle dancers developed new moves and styles to match the length and intensity of the special mixed breaks.”1 In addition to the sonic landscape that this provided, the youth-based constituency that Herc’s parties were geared toward provided adolescents an avenue to experiment with notions of identity and social belonging. As a result, younger attendees, ranging in the ages of thirteen to sixteen years old, were at the forefront of advancing breaking’s prolonged floor movements during the mid-1970s. The Legendary Twins, Keith and Kevin Smith, were foremost among this new wave of practitioners. In fact, when they went to their first Kool Herc party, Cindy Campbell denied them entry because they were only about twelve or thirteen years old.2 Although hip-hop was a movement led by teenagers, this episode demonstrates how even a few years of age difference signaled a major gulf in adolescent identity. The Twins waited outside for over an hour, listening to the music pulsating through the walls and pleading with Cindy to make an exception for them. Finally, through their perseverance and charm, Cindy acquiesced, allowing them to experience what was happening inside.3

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As Keith Smith recounted this story to a dance class at York University, one could feel the profound sense of significance it held for him. Given that he and his brother were a few years younger (and a few feet shorter) than others at Herc’s party, Smith felt especially lucky to have gotten into the party that night. He proudly shared these details with the class, emphasizing that he was there when the global movement known as hip-hop was first born. After that night, he and his brother became immediate devotees of Herc, following him wherever he played. “[W]e didn’t want to go anywhere else,” Kevin is quoted as saying in Steve Hager’s early study of the culture. “It was Kool Herc’s, Kool Herc’s, Kool Herc’s. Every weekend.”4 In this chapter, I will examine the adolescent demographic that shifted breaking’s structure and movement vocabulary floorward in the mid-1970s. The Twins played a pivotal role in this shift, helping forge new movements and meanings within the dance that continue to be utilized around the world today. I argue that these developments did not suddenly emerge as a rupture from previous African American expressions but, rather, as a creative extension of them. I also delve deeper into the jook continuum from which these expressions arose, examining the transcendent experiences they evoked among participants. I also focus on how hip-hop’s alternative environment helped breakers forge a unique sense of self during their crucial years of adolescent growth. As with the underexamined evocative power of early hip-hop, the role of dance spaces in the socialization and subject formation of African American youth has generally been understudied. However, when it comes to breaking’s emergence, I find these issues to be paramount, given that the dance was created and practiced mainly by teenagers. Accordingly, I explore how practitioners negotiated their sense of self and community through breaking, in terms of not only its physical performance but also its use of terminology, crowd participation, and relation to other expressions during that period. In turn, I argue that the will to adorn within breaking helped

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young practitioners define not only who they were but also the parameters of the hip-hop movement itself. Finally, I conclude by discussing the challenges breakers faced from more mainstream currents within the Bronx during the mid-1970s. Contrary to the romanticized notion that breaking—and, by extension, hip-hop—emerged as the combined expression of oppressed communities in the Bronx, I show how the dance was, in fact, initially practiced by only a small segment even in the African American community itself. Most people within the borough derided the unorthodox styles, music, and fashion of the hip-hop movement, viewing it as an unwelcome aberration from the more predominant disco craze of the period. I discuss the impact such cultural contestation had on the subjectivity of breakers, as well as the alternative values embodied in their kinesthetic practices. I then relate these issues to the broader history of working-class African Americans defying social conventions within the jook continuum.

Collective Exaltation Prior to attending their first Kool Herc party, Keith and Kevin Smith grew up immersed in working-class African American culture. They lived in a tough, yet tight-knit neighborhood around 169th Street and Washington Avenue, known as the “The Nine,” which was in the well-known African American section of Morrisania.5 The Smith brothers recall doing the latest social dances permeating the borough as a critical part of their upbringing, as well as a formative experience on their eighth birthday, when they were taken to the nearby Apollo Theatre in Harlem to see the Godfather of Soul himself, James Brown. They recall being mesmerized by not only Brown’s music and message but his captivating dance moves, as well.6 “Our number one inspiration was James Brown,” Keith explains, “because of who he was, the way he electrified the crowd every time he performed, and what he stood for.”7 From these

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experiences, The Twins became infatuated with dancing and came up with their own steps, shuffles, and slides in a manner reminiscent of Brown but also influenced by the latest styles they were witnessing in their neighborhood. By the time they reached junior high school, they were already showcasing their skills in local talent shows and community events.8 As their close friend and fellow pioneering b-boy Clark Kent has relayed, The Twins also competed in local dance contests at the East Harlem Federation Youth Association Center—which was popularly known as “Chuck Center,” in honor of its founder, community activist Chuck Griffin (figure 4.1). “We used to love winning that dance contest,” Kent recalled. “Me and The Twins used to take turns winning that every other week.”9 Other early breakers similarly describe frequenting Chuck Center in the early 1970s, where they would do the latest social dances and challenge one another in both formal and informal competitions.10 Again, contrary to the popular misconception that breaking developed on sidewalks and street corners,11 most pioneers point to such community centers, recreation rooms, dance halls, and social clubs as the arenas where they honed their craft. However, as discussed in the previous chapter, many of these venues also had their limitations, both sonically and spatially. For example, Rayvon, a member Harlem’s Magnificent Seven hip-hop group, recalled that, “Chuck Center actually had holes in the walls, and you had to keep your coat on in there because it was always cold in there. Freezing!”12 By providing a more conducive setting for young people to congregate and express themselves, Kool Herc gave institutional impetus to these preexisting practices and garnered a loyal following, especially among dancers. In turn, he developed an appealing new movement with its own aesthetics, terminologies, and cultural values. The Twins first caught wind of Herc’s burgeoning movement while playing basketball in a community center in the West Bronx in 1974. “Are y’all going to Herc’s” they recalled being asked by a friend while hanging out there that summer. “We were like, ‘Herc’s? What is Herc’s?’” recounted Keith. “We had no

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FIGURE 4.1  Teenagers socializing at the East Harlem Federation Youth Association Center, popularly known as “Chuck Center,” in October 1970. ©JP Laffont.

idea what it was.” They were told that Kool Herc was “jamming every weekend” on the west side of the Bronx and that his parties were “the joint.”13 This was not referring to a “jook joint” in the traditional sense of the term but, rather, explaining that his events were exceptional, not to be missed. As enthusiasts of music and dance, Keith and Kevin were determined to find out what all the buzz was about. When they were finally allowed into Herc’s party that night at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, they were taken aback by not only the dynamic dancing

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they saw, but the unique sights, sounds, and atmosphere they experienced, as well. “It was amazing,” recalled Keith Smith. “The music that he played, the people that were there. We saw circles of people dancing with names people here have never heard of,” referring to breakers like Johnny Cool, Chubby, Wallace Dee, Trixie, Sasa, the Amazing Bobo and James Bond.14 His brother Kevin similarly highlighted the aura of the event and the performative energy being exchanged between Herc and his dancers. The thing I mostly remember was how loud the music was. The sound overtook you. The place was packed—a real sweatbox. Herc was on the mike [sic]. He’d say things like ‘Rock the house’ and call out the names of people at the party.15 This fascination with the sensorial experience of Herc’s parties is echoed by numerous other practitioners,16 with many specifically pointing to the dancefloor energy activated by the music he provided. “I seen Herc play the get-down part of a record and see an audience lose their mind” is how DJ Grandmaster Flash explains his first exposure to Herc.17 Early b-girl and MC Sha-Rock also pointed to “all these different types of music that you could just breakdance to” as the driving force behind Herc’s appeal,18 while Afrika Bambaataa associated the latter’s style with funk rhythms that made dancers “go off,” explaining that “when that certain part comes, that percussion part with all those drums, congas, it makes you dance real wild. You just let all your feelings go.”19 By solidifying this link between rhythmic sensation, bodily movement, and autonomous congregation, Herc provided his adherents with a euphoric environment where they could transcend their everyday experiences, to the point that many describe their first exposure to him as a life-changing event: “Seeing Herc spin was a monumental moment for me,”20 says DJ Jazzy Jay; “It was like somebody landing from another planet,”21 says DJ Disco Wiz; “That changed my life,”22 says DJ/MC Grandmaster Caz; “Whenever I heard Herc spin, I felt a sense of freedom,”23 says MC Sheri Sher; “My life changed

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that day,”24 says GrandMixer DXT; “Herc was like a God,”25 says DJ Mean Gene; “I just stood behind the ropes shocked and amazed as if something came over me,”26 says MC Sha-Rock; “Back then I was a Kool Herc fanatic,”27 said DJ AJ; “We followed Herc every-fuckin-where Herc went,” said PHASE 2, because “really, there was nothing like a Kool Herc party.”28 These testimonials highlight the transformative nature of Herc’s events and the feelings of excitement and energy spurring hip-hop’s origins. In his analysis of underground dance music in New York City, ethnomusicologist Kai Fikentscher’s similarly points out that African American jook joints have long wielded an “affective force,” noting how both their past and present participants articulate their experiences in spiritual terms. Fikentscher associated these experiences with the “vibe” generated by dancers moving collectively to music in a private space, arguing that this rhythmic exchange bound participants together beyond ordinary public interaction.29 Katrina Hazzard-Gordon also argued that the emergence of jook joints in America traces back to West African spiritual traditions that were secularized by working-class African Americans within dance establishments used to bind their community.30 In the case of hip-hop, we can see how African American teenagers assembled together in indoor spaces to experience a powerful sense of joy and collective exaltation with one another. Rather than being a response to dislocation, gang violence, or government policies, the testimony of practitioners suggests that the movement was driven by the immense pleasure and transcendence felt by participants internally. Indeed, by moving together in rhythm and expressing themselves fully, young people were activating a common aspect of their cultural and human condition— one which has, unfortunately, been suppressed in many segments of modern Western society.31 Of course, such moments of excitement and communalism were not exclusive to hip-hop parties, as the widespread disco movement of that era also involved a celebratory congregation of music and dancing. However,

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the unique atmosphere that Herc provided for breaking, specifically, helped channel these energies into new and dynamic directions. The historic divide between commercial and underground institutions within the African American community that Hazzard-Gordon pointed to also played critical a role in the distinction between these two movements, as those gathering at Herc’s events were given room to experiment with ideas and expressions outside of the cultural mainstream.32 They were not concerned with the middle-class notions of sophistication and propriety but, instead, focused on performing in a manner that challenged expectations and matched the energy being activated by Herc’s unique selection of percussive rhythms. It is for this reason that, although The Twins were familiar with social dances circulating in New York during this period, what they experienced at Herc’s parties went beyond even their expectations. Breakers such as Sasa, whom The Twins have described as “the greatest b-boy that ever lived,”33 were particularly influential in introducing new, unorthodox steps and a heightened level of acrobatic acumen, as well. “Sasa was double jointed,” explained DJ Baron, an early follower of Herc who would go on to become a prominent figure in hip-hop’s development. “He could do impossible moves that nobody else could do.”34 In addition to using his flexibility for “folding on the floor like a pretzel,”35 Sasa would reportedly do flips in the air and mix aerial movements with upright steps, humor, charisma, and musicality.36 Scholar Jim Vernon likens such displays to sculptors who use physical mastery to evoke the “divine capacity to transcend our natural limits,” adding that the teenage age-range of breakers bolstered this seemingly inhuman achievement: “Breaking provided those assembled at Herc’s parties with the improbable sight of radically un-tutored and infamously awkward adolescent bodies reaching heights of corporeal grace and prowess hitherto unimaginable even by professional dancers,” he writes.37 This description succinctly captures the excitement teenagers generated while performing in dynamic ways at Herc’s parties. Indeed, the concentrated rotation of breaking records during Herc’s

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Merry-Go-Round especially fueled such dancing and added to the overall affective force of the hip-hop movement. Younger attendees were particularly motivated to hone their skills and take part in the energy exchanged through these performances.

Taking It to the Floor When The Twins finally discovered Herc’s parties, they set their sights specifically on breaking, as opposed to courting, drinking, or socializing with the mostly older crowd in attendance. “We just was amazed at the things that they did,” Keith revealed in regard to breakers at Herc’s parties. “We wanted to dance. That’s what we wanted to do. We wanted to do whatever we can to entertain people.”38 Being “the smallest guys in the party,”39 as they regularly point out, they were committed to making a name for themselves by taking their dancing to another level. They spent hours throughout the week practicing in their kitchen, trying out new routines in front of a mirror, and developing innovative new steps “that would amaze the crowd.”40 Rather than being deterred by the older audience around them, they were spurred to try out new moves that would capture people’s attention. As Keith explains, the emphasis on adornment within the dance mandated that they develop their own corporeal subjectivity: “Everybody had their own moves. That’s what made you a B-Boy.”41 Rather than veer entirely away from what came before them, however, The Twins built upon breaking’s preexisting vocabulary of forward-lunging twostep and squat drops discussed in the previous chapter, as well as transitions to the floor and various acrobatic moves that exuded difficulty, dexterity, and creativity. Their most crucial alteration of these moves consisted of drops to the floor where, rather than spinning back upright like breakers before them had, The Twins began using their hands and feet to remain on the floor for

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more prolonged periods of time.42 Although this may seem like a natural progression of breaking’s vocabulary, during the mid-1970s, it was considered a novel innovation that garnered the Smith brothers considerable attention. One of the most notable floor moves that The Twins are said to have popularized along these lines is commonly referred to today as a “sweep.”43 It involves the swinging of one’s leg in a squatted position while their hands are placed on the floor to elevate the opposite foot as the transitioning leg rotates underneath. In their seminal study of early twentieth-century African American dancing, Marshall and Jean Stearns labeled this move an “Around the World,” noting how versatile hoofers such as Willie Covan adapted it from traditional Russian dancers.44 In many ways, this move extended the crouched position of the pin drop with a push off the ground and the swing of one’s leg underneath the opposite foot. Interestingly, some practitioners can be found referring to the sweep as “around the world footwork,”45 suggesting a direct corporeal and discursive link to the jazz era. However, determining a precise name for the move is difficult, as early b-boys and b-girls were not formally documenting their practices. Depending on the region and generation a practitioner is from, the sweep may be referred to as everything from a helicopter to a coffee grinder, with the swinging of one’s leg resembling the propellers of the former and the rotating handle of the latter. Nevertheless, what is clear is that this jazz era move reemerged among African American teenagers in the Bronx and became another important facet of the dance’s early vocabulary. The Twins also helped spur breaking floorward by performing various spins on the ground when dancing in circles. Although they did not rotate on every conceivable part of their body, as latter-day breakers would, they set the foundation for such innovations by getting down on the floor and swiveling like a top on their hands and feet. “The Twins would go on the ground and spin. They were famous for that,” recalls early b-boy James Bond, attributing the ease with which they would maneuver to their relatively shorter height.46

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Cholly Rock from the Zulu Kings also credited The Twins for introducing such rotations, stating that, “The Twins would do their thing and they were smooth, they would spin down and come up real slow.”47 Just as Sasa used his double-jointedness to execute unconventional moves, the creativity of The Twins was accentuated by their differing body types. Rather than serving as an impediment to their performances, they utilized their shorter height to compose maneuvers that others might have found difficult to execute. This reaffirms the particular role youth played in shifting breaking’s aesthetics, as well as the ongoing emphasis on individuality guiding the dance’s development. During their 2015 lecture presentation at York University, I had a chance to witness Keith Smith synthesize several of these movements in a rare display following his presentation (figure 4.2). When the DJ on hand played James Brown’s “Give It Up or Turnit a Loose” (1970), Keith entered the circle performing a variation of the forward-lunging two-step, hiking his knees up in a stylistic fashion while stepping forward to the beat. This was followed by a drifting squat drop wherein he placed his right hand on the ground, hopped over his extended right foot, twirled in a half spin and slid back up to his feet. Here was the abrupt descent of the squat drop, connected to the leg swing of a sweep, combined with the body rotation of a floor spin, interspersed together in one seamless motion. Despite the entire sequence lasting only about thirty seconds, it was impressive to see Keith perform these moves nearly four decades after his brother and he had innovated them. And the way he wove it all together showed that breaking’s upright vocabulary could be combined with its floor moves to develop even more variations. To get a sense of how his brother and he came up with such moves, Keith told the class to watch the jazz duo the Nicholas Brothers performing an iconic three-minute routine to the music of Cab Calloway in the film Stormy Weather (1933). Rather than point to kung fu movies, Latin dancers, or capoeiristas, The Twins credited figures from the jazz era and breakers such as Sasa for inspiring their innovations. In a manner reminiscent of Herc’s rotation

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FIGURE 4.2  Keith Smith of The Legendary Twins breaks during a presentation at York University, December 7, 2015. ©Mike Browell.

of obscure funk beats, which other DJs added onto with their own unique selections, The Twins built upon the symbolic resources circulating within the African American community and were allowed to reconfigure these elements as they saw fit within the hip-hop movement. Indeed, the values of the movement mandated that they make something new out of the cultural traditions that came before them. In this way, the working-class African American tradition of adornment was reconjured at Herc’s parties, creating an atmosphere that gave the Smith brothers considerable room to experiment with their own corporeal identity. Joining alongside The Twins was their childhood friend Clark Kent who, like the flash acts and eccentric dancers of the jazz era, was known to spin on his feet and bend his knees back while simultaneously dropping his hands to the floor and arching his hips up. He used the gravitational pull of this “back drop” to bounce back upright several times, often gaining enough momentum to leap in the air and land on the floor in a fetal position or other animated

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pose.48 By building off the aesthetics of the dance and adding his own unique twist to it, Kent similarly forged a unique identity for himself and helped breaking advance increasingly floorward. Soon after, b-boys from the mid-1970s such as Cholly Rock and Pow Wow of the Zulu Kings also went beyond the standards set by The Twins and Clark Kent. For example, they would extend the sweep through the swinging of both of their legs, instead of just one, alternating from the left to right in a continuous motion.49 They also performed variations of The Twins’ floorbased rotations on their hands and feet, which is referred to today as a “Zulu Spin” given the popularization of this move by the group Cholly Rock and Pow Wow were associated with. Out of respect for their stylistic contributions, however, both dancers regularly cite The Twins and Clark Kent as important inspirations for these moves. “The first people that I saw really doing it, getting down like that and spinning were The Twins and Clark Kent,”50 acknowledges Cholly Rock, while Pow Wow states that he was inspired by seeing The Twins, Sasa, Clark Kent and others break at Herc’s parties. B-girl Sha-Rock similarly insists that “the ones that were taking it [breaking] to a whole ‘nother level were Keith and Kevin.”51 Earlier pioneers such as PHASE 2 also recognized The Twins and Kent for advancing breaking, affirming in Hager’s early study of hip-hop that, “Those boys were bad.”52 Through this reciprocal process of innovation and adaptation, young dancers from the mid-1970s increasingly changed the gravitational orientation of breaking down to the floor.

Center of Attention As the movement vocabulary of breaking continued to expand, the size of the crowds at Herc’s parties also continued to increase. As the stakes of a performance grew in proportion to the audiences that gathered around them, breakers were given encouragement to hone their creativity. Unlike the

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generally tame role of observers in a traditional proscenium setting, onlookers within breaking circles directly shaped the sensibilities of the dance through their encouragement (or discouragement) of practitioners. To again quote Vernon, hip-hop’s early gatherings were “not spectator events, divided into active performer and passive audience.” Rather, breaking circles “demanded that the audience, as much as the breakers and DJs, completely immerse themselves in and commit themselves to [italics in the original] the new culture in order to appropriately judge”53 its performance. Musicologist Samuel A. Floyd, Jr.’s discussion of African American traditions similarly stresses how the cultural tastes and values of this community have historically developed within the “ring” of performance itself—rather than in an abstract critique detached from its social context.54 By voting with their feet and showing their approval or disapproval, audiences directly engaged in breaking’s development, as opposed to remaining self-contained consumers more typical of traditional performance audiences.55 Several early practitioners emphasize this participatory role played by onlookers in their recollections of the dance’s development. For example, Rossy, the younger brother of early breaker Trixie, emphatically states that “the bigger your circle, the bigger you are!”56 meaning that the more one could draw a crowd around them, the more prestige they would gain for being skilled dancers. Other breakers also recall partygoers following them throughout the night to see what circle they would enter. “It was crazy how people used to stand around and wait for you to dance,”57 remembers Mike G, an original member of the Shaka Zulus breaking collective. Keith Smith likewise boasts that, “When we danced, we always had a crowd around us.”58 Such positive receptions reinforced the sense of belonging dancers felt when entertaining audiences. In contrast, not being known and, to this day, not having others corroborate one’s breaking prowess can hamper a practitioner’s credibility. “The reality is, if you are who you say you are, somebody somewhere is going to say, ‘Yeah, I remember them,’” states Cholly Rock, adding that early breaking

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and hip-hop consisted of “a small fraternity and sorority” of practitioners.59 Accordingly, involvement in the dance meant not only doing certain moves but also doing them within a communal context of shared meaning. This is not to say that all practitioners sought to gain audience accolades when they performed. Several simply emphasized the sensorial joy they felt when moving to music or the catharsis of breaking’s artistic expression internally. However, a considerable number point to audience appreciation as an important element of their journey, suggesting that having your dancing recognized by others helped impart a sense of confidence among these young practitioners. Again, it is for this reason that The Twins stated that they wanted to “do whatever we can to entertain people,”60 while others such as Cholly Rock emphasized being acknowledged for their technical proficiency. “I found that this other dance, I could do it,” he stated in a recent podcast. “I was good at it and I got a level of acceptance with it.”61 Sasa similarly explains that breaking helped gain him admiration as a teenager: “When I walked the halls all the people in my High School went, ‘There goes Sasa!! What’s up Sasa?!!’”62 These early practitioners did not receive money or fame for their skills but, rather, peer group validation. And it should be noted that early hip-hop adherents in the Bronx often shared stories of what they experienced at parties to friends and acquaintances, making one’s breaking prowess reverberate throughout the community. “If you was at one of Kool Herc’s parties, it was something big,” explains GrandMixer DXT, “something you’d go home and brag about.”63 Breaking during the mid-1970s was, thus, both an outlet for creative expression and an important avenue for adolescent socialization. Given that young people were free from adult supervision at these parties, they could enact an embodied subjectivity that might not be permitted in their school, home, or more mainstream discos. In turn, these subjectivities were validated by a community of like-minded peers. As sociologist R. Milton Clark explained in a 1974 study of African American teenage parties in Chicago, dancing has long

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served as a “mechanism for the socialization of urban Black youth.”64 Writing at around the same time that hip-hop was forming in the Bronx, Clark used ethnographic fieldwork to position teenage parties in Chicago as a means for African American adolescents to develop group identity and camaraderie. “Just as marriage and funeral ceremonies often show ritualistic family solidarity,” he wrote, “the dance party ceremony shows elements of a ritualistic Black Family solidarity.”65 Similarly, Thomas DeFrantz has argued that African American dancing “forwards ideologies of corporeal orature [italics in the original]— expressive body talking—as a productive means of group formation and social connectivity.”66 He maintained that the 1970s television show Soul Train’s popularity and representations of African American identity stemmed from the free reign dancers were given to embody their own unique identity. In his influential study of symbolic creativity among teens in the UK, cultural studies scholar Paul Willis also wrote about how conceptions of race, class, age, gender, and other identity markers are not so much learned as they are lived and experimented with through music, dance, fashion, and other forms of everyday expression. He demonstrated how young people creatively made meaning in their lives through the symbolic resources available around them. This was especially true for marginalized communities, Willis explained, given that they often tap into their cultural heritage to cultivate an identity of their own.67 Just as the civil rights and Black power movements of the late 1960s were accompanied by new expressions of social consciousness, the teenagers involved in breaking in the 1970s manifested their sense of self through a radical new dance practice steeped in working-class African American traditions. To engage in breaking meant to participate in this movement together with “a small fraternity and sorority” of like-minded peers and it was this sense of group camaraderie, harnessed through the combination of dancing and music in the jook environment that Herc provided, which allowed hip-hop to flourish into a common culture.

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What’s in a Name? By the mid-1970s, the musical innovations and dynamic dancing taking place at Herc’s parties were coalescing into an identifiable scene with its own unique aesthetics, musical soundtrack, autonomous dance spaces, and audience of receptive viewers. Younger dancers such as The Twins contributed significantly to this scene by adding prolonged floor sequences to the already established upright steps, intermittent drops, and aerial flips that earlier breakers were performing. This was combined with an ongoing emphasis on musicality, competition, and corporeal subjectivity, helping make breaking an important avenue for adolescent expression, socialization, and subject formation. It was through these expressions, with dancing at their core, that what would eventually become known as hip-hop first developed. However, another critical component of the socialization and subject formation taking place within this movement was the coining of unique nicknames for practitioners. Like many other facets of the dance, the use of nicknames has been seen throughout African American history. For example, early twentieth-century jazz dancers took on monikers such as Bojangles, Snakehips, Rubberlegs, Slow Kid, Cholly, Cutout, Jazzlips, Dynamite Hooker, and King Rastus to name a few.68 In his early research on street art in New York during the 1960s, educator Herbert Kohl also noticed how young Latinos were writing their nicknames on walls to signify the formation of alternative identities. “The given name is received from one’s family and remains unchanged throughout life,” Kohl observed as he toured Spanish Harlem photographing young people’s wall writings. “This contrasts with the secondary or nickname which is usually a name the youngster chooses for himself or receives from his peers … It identifies him as a member of a peer group which can be as important to him as membership in his family.”69 In much the same way as their unique dance moves, the aliases breakers adopted provided them with an important vehicle for presenting their sense of self to the outside world,

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beyond formalized institutions. Conversely, to speak badly about a breaker’s name, or to use it without permission, was deemed to be an attack on their very identity—akin to copying their moves without giving them credit for it. It was, therefore, common for b-boys and b-girls in the Bronx to have a unique nickname they could call their own. Kool Herc and his partner Coke La Rock played a critical role in coining such monikers for practitioners and pronouncing them over the microphone at parties, adding another layer of validation for those involved in hip-hop. In fact, many practitioners insist that to have their name shouted out by Kool Herc was the ultimate symbol of achievement. “If that happened you were like GOD and that’s it!”70 exclaims James Bond. As early b-boy, flyer maker, and MC Sisco Kid remembers, Herc’s pronouncements “transfixed” his audiences just as much as his obscure records and powerful sound system.71 Another early hip-hop pioneer named Mean Gene, of the group the L-Brothers, tells the story of finding a rare James Brown record to give to Herc in exchange for a shout out. “I didn’t want no money,” he explained, “I just wanted him to shout out my name. If Herc shouted out your name on the mic, it made you an instant celebrity.”72 Such stories demonstrate how powerful Herc’s voice was in boosting reputations and bestowing legitimacy on early hip-hop adherents. In fact, although I have been referring to Keith and Kevin Smith as “The Twins,” the original name given to them by Kool Herc and Coke La Rock was, in fact, the “Ni**a Twins.” Since 2015, they have publicly disavowed this moniker due to the negative connotations associated with the N-word, preferring to go by the title of “The Legendary Twins,” which was suggested to them by Pow Wow of the Zulu Kings.73 However, this rebranding demonstrates just how powerful names and terminology can be for early breakers. Even after they grew in age and stature, The Twins modified their moniker, rather than scrap it altogether. For Keith and Kevin Smith, being nicknamed the Ni**a Twins by Kool Herc was initially a point of pride that symbolized recognition in the hip-hop movement. “When you’re twelve years old, going to these parties, and

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people were shouting you out on the mic, just to hear your name made you kind of feel good,” Keith explained, adding that the N-word was a term of endearment at the time. They did not imagine that it would later travel beyond the African American community they grew up in.74 But through their pivotal contributions to breaking, The Twins’ name gained prominence not just in New York but among practitioners throughout the world. “Everybody knew them in the Bronx,” explains Sha-Rock. “They were the ones that people truly, truly respected.”75 As has already been mentioned, Kool Herc also famously labeled the breakers at his parties the “B-Boys” (or “Break Boys”). Contrary to the common misconception that this was a title for the dance overall, Keith Smith and others have clarified that, originally, “The B-Boys was a specific group. A select few individuals that came from Kool Herc … The B-Boys were Kool Herc’s dancers.”76 In other words, the B-Boys were a title for a breaking collective with such members as Sasa, The Twins, Clark Kent, James Bond, The Amazing Bobo, and El Dorado Mike.77 Given the prominence of these Herc-affiliated dancers, it is plausible that partygoers heard this term on the microphone and thought that it was in reference to all breakers in attendance. As GrandMixer DXT explained to me: The B-Boys was actually the dancers that danced at Kool Herc’s parties. His regular dancers. They were called “B-Boys.” We took it home, you see what I’m saying? “B-Boys” were actually a particular group of dancers who danced at Kool Herc parties. We went home saying, “I’m a b-boy.” It became the terminology to explain the type of dancing that we were doing.78 Whether they mistook the title as a general label for the dance or simply wanted to emulate the elite dancers associated with it, the term “b-boy” (and its counterpart “b-girl”) circulated as a trademark for breakers throughout the borough. It became especially important for younger practitioners who were transitioning the dance to the floor. During this period, it was no longer

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enough to solely dance upright when breaking. To be a respected practitioner, you now had to have an arsenal of floor moves, as well. According to Cholly Rock, this is what separated their mid-70s’ generation from the pioneers who came before them. “[T]here were a lot of people who were what you called Burning or even Breaking who we would not consider B Boys or B Girls,” he explained. “They weren’t spinning like what The Twins, Fuji, Clark Kent, myself, and others were doing.”79 Keith Smith similarly told students at York University that, “Everybody who breakdances isn’t a b-boy but everybody who’s a b-boy breakdances.”80 In other words, the terms “b-boy” and “b-girl” came to signify both a generational and an aesthetic shift in breaking, associated most famously with prolonged floor movements. As the format of the dance evolved, younger practitioners also noticed that those in their later teens were distancing themselves from breaking. “Like some guys felt like dancing on the floor and gettin’ your clothes dirty …. they was starting to feel like they was gettin’ to old for that,” [sic] explains James Bond. “These people are starting to turn 17, 18, 19 so they are seeing different things in their lives. But we still like 14, 15, 16. We still kids, we’re having fun dancing and it was popularity.”81 Of course, some dancers continued to break even as they got older and adapted to its increasingly floor-bound progression. Nevertheless, youth ranging in the ages of thirteen to sixteen years old were the main ones to develop the dance during this period, and their aesthetic shifts were reinforced by new terminologies such as “b-boys” and “b-girls.” It was not just younger dancers who acknowledged these shifts. Earlier breakers also recognized the performance of age associated with the newfound labels of “b-boy” and “b-girl.” For example, Trixie, a well-known breaker from the early 1970s, continues to disassociate himself from the term, while simultaneously acknowledging its modern-day relevance. But I gotta say in my mind I was not a B-Boy at that time! I WAS NOT a B-Boy when I was breakdancing. Kool Herc did come up with that after I

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had stopped dancing. So I wasn’t no B-Boy I was just Trixie. All the other guys he made them, you know, B-Boys and Herculoids. I wasn’t around when he did that though. Nah, I wasn’t with that. We gonna straighten that out right now! But now B-Boy that’s what it is.”82 Pioneering breaker PHASE 2 similarly explained that, “A lot of us never really considered ourselves as ‘b-boys’ because basically that was a title reserved for Kool Herc’s boys.”83 However, he insisted that many of the moves, concepts, and steps that b-boys and b-girls did were carried over from the breakers who existed even prior to Kool Herc’s parties. In this way, he drew a connection between the two discursively demarcated waves of the dance. “[I]f B’boys are to be seen as the breakers of that primary era that’s when or why we relate to ourselves as original b’boys because technically we were and our influences were all over,”84 he concluded. In other words, while acknowledging the relevance of the term b-boy, earlier practitioners qualified its use when it was applied to them, indicating the impact that age and performative styles had on practitioners’ sense of self. Furthermore, the differing outlook toward such terminology reiterates the specific role young teenagers played in guiding the trajectory of hip-hop, overall, with the breakbeats being spun as the cornerstone of the movement being catered specifically to adolescents. Indeed, although Herc was no longer a teenager by the mid-1970s, his main following consisted of high school-age audiences. As he himself explains, “Most of the James Brown, Jimmy Castor, they would … [he’s dancing breaker style in the street] … you’re not gonna have 35, 40 year-old people doing that. Whole different rotation. So I’m playing for them [young people] and rockin’ their ass.”85 Beatmaster Doc Ice, a member of the Southeast Bronx’s Jam Masters Crew, specifically characterizes these young dancers as “the barometer of Hip Hop itself,” expounding on the fact that, “When these original breakbeats got played for the youth to dance on the ground; to me that was the seismic shift that created Hip Hop as we

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know it.”86 Others have similarly argued that the attire of young breakers— with their preference for sneakers, jeans, and brimmed caps—came to define the parameters of hip-hop fashion during this period.87 It should come as no surprise then that, by the early 1980s, the terms b-boy and b-girl were applied to adherents of hip-hop, more generally. In the words of author Nelson George, “The B-Boy, a phrase originally applied to break dancers, was, by the time I used it, a catchall phrase among hip hop fans for anyone deeply involved with or influenced by hip hop culture.”88 Once again, this demonstrates the inextricable link between dancing and music in hip-hop history, as well as the specific role adolescents played in shifting the culture’s evolution. Given their drive for self-affirmation and openness to new possibilities, it was particularly young African Americans who pushed the boundaries of expression within this context. So much so that even the term “hip-hop” itself ultimately traces its roots back to them.

From Derision to Definition When asked about the etymology of the term “hip-hop,” Rahiem, of the pioneering rap group Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five, had this to say: The term hip-hop was actually, at first, it was a condescending term used by practitioners of disco music. Disco DJ’s would disrespect hip-hop practitioners by saying, “Get out of here with that hippity hoppity stuff.” They called us “floor sweepers” because, when we breakdance, we go down to the floor. The word “hip-hop” initially was a condescending term.89 This same description was given by Cholly Rock, who explained that the more predominant disco scene at the time looked down on breakers and used hiphop as a derogatory description for their dance—alongside other pejoratives such as “boi-oi-oings,” “floor sweepers,” “yo-yo’s,” and “jitterbugs.”90 Countless

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other pioneers from the Bronx corroborate the fact that disco audiences used the term “hip-hop” to belittle their expressions,91 including Kool Herc who remembers the term originating in the following manner: People used to just toss around, “Hey, look at the little hippity hop.” It was the “hippity-hop.” “Man look at the “hippity-hop” guys down there.” Then they twist around and called, “Ah, look at the hip-hop guys with their hippyhippy, hype parties.” Then they finally went that way and this way, and out comes “hip-hop.” And that label really tagged on it. Hip-hop tagged on it and covered the whole scope of the game.92 As the above testimony indicates, the term “hip-hop” was originally a negative descriptor of the so-called “jumping up and down” of b-boys and b-girls.93 To those in the more prominent disco scene, breaking was looked down upon as an erratic and unsophisticated spectacle. Indeed, most clubs throughout the Bronx prohibited the dance, with many refusing to play the percussive records that the form was rooted in. Pete DJ Jones, a prominent disco DJ from the Bronx, went so far as to stop a party if b-boys and b-girls dared to hit the floor. “When the break dancers start breaking, everybody run like it’s a fight,” Jones disapprovingly stated in a 2004 interview. “And they gather around and then another one jumps down there.”94 Such seemingly frenzied displays were considered an aberration from the more traditional upright social dances of the disco scene. DJ Hollywood, another well-known disco DJ who had a following in the borough, similarly explained that, “All that diving on the floor shit, naw, that wasn’t happening.”95 Many clubs even prevented patrons from wearing the sneakers required for such expressions. There are numerous stories of b-boys and b-girls having to put on black socks over their sneakers to get into a club or passing a pair of loaner dress shoes to friends in line once they got inside.96 In turn, young people who were advancing breaking in the 1970s had to overcome such prohibitions as part of their subject formation. They were

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aware that they were involved in a practice accepted by only a small segment of partygoers in the borough and, thus, understood themselves to be cultural “renegades.” As GrandMixer DXT has explained: This experience is a lot smaller, originally, than what the narrative has made it. It is a very small group of people. It’s less than a hundred. Less than a hundred practitioners. Between the dancers who became MC’s and the DJ’s, it’s less than fifty. And these are the people who were doing all these parties. The romanticized story confuses everyone and makes them think it was the entire Bronx. It was not at all. Not even close.97 This minority status of breaking only enhanced its practitioners’ sense of camaraderie, solidifying their alliance with one another in the face of antagonism. As sociologist Joseph C. Ewoodzie has argued, the symbolic boundaries of hip-hop were formulated in contestation and differentiation with the disco scene. By articulating their disapproval of breaking and the beats it was associated with, those who preferred the more mainstream R&B and soul music being played on the radio helped, according to Ewoodzie, “generate a new social and cultural entity” in the form of hip-hop.98 Although I would not go so far as to say the movement was defined strictly according to such opposition—the shared cultural tastes and outlook of its practitioners were far more central, in my view—there was certainly a sense of alterity imbued within the form due to its rejection by more prominent segments of the community. Contrary to the scholarly misconception that hip-hop arose as a response to the white washing of disco or that Bronx youth hated disco,99 the reality is that such opposition came from the African American community within the borough itself. Indeed, as Nelson George has pointed out, “disco began as an extension of black dance music” and its “basic grooves were in the R&B tradition.”100 News reports about the emerging disco scene of that period regularly pointed to the African American community as its original impetus.

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“The regeneration of the New York discotheque began in the early seventies,” read a 1974 feature story on disco in New York Magazine, “when midtown dance halls like the Jungle and the Headrest began to draw black people, and their music, away from increasingly expensive Harlem live entertainment.”101 As Cholly Rock has also made clear, “White people weren’t even in the mix cause they had no idea what we were doing. They weren’t even around us. The people who were rejecting us were Black people.”102 Bronx rapper and producer Ced Gee from the group Ultramagnetic MCs also notes how African American disco adherents in the Bronx opposed hip-hop prior to its commercialization. What also happened was, you was a b-boy or a b-girl, but you had a section of the same people in the same community who wasn’t down with that. They used to say, “I ain’t with that rap, hip-hop, or b-boy, b-girl shit.” They was more into the disco era. A lot of the DJs were disco DJs, who wanted nothing to do with rap. After it became as huge as you’re saying, everybody wanted to claim it.103 Again, this demonstrates the complexity of the aesthetic choices, approaches, and values circulating within the African American community during this period, complicating any attempt to paint their cultural expressions as monolithic or singular. It also exemplifies how hip-hop did not start out as a protest movement geared toward external forces but, rather, operated within the confines of a youth scene that went against the norms of disco within the Bronx internally. Perhaps more crucially, academics who have advanced a narrative of “Black hip-hop” going against “white disco” have inadvertently contributed to yet another cycle of cultural erasure, given that the latter movement was itself a product of the African American community.104 When it comes to breaking, understanding this climate of opposition is also important in uncovering the alternative values embodied within the dance, many of which are positioned by practitioners in class terms. “I always called it [disco] the bourgeois scene,”105 said PHASE 2, while early rapper Kurtis

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Blow has written that, “The B-Boys were from the ghetto, while disco was for the middle class and the rich.”106 Although this connection between the socioeconomic status of practitioners and their cultural attitudes is crucial, it is also important to note that many disco adherents were from the same working-class neighborhoods as those who pioneered breaking.107 Just as there were b-boys and b-girls from various economic backgrounds and regions of the Bronx, disco also had widespread appeal among young people at the time. Such associations between class and culture should, therefore, not be taken as uniform but, rather, reflective of the complex negotiations of attitudes and values in early hip-hop, which often corresponded to categories of class, race, and age but were not strictly beholden to them. The main differences in tastes between disco and hip-hop audiences lay in the former playing the “soft soul” music heard on “urban contemporary” radio stations like WBLS, while the latter emphasized obscure, funk-based records with hard-edged beats. Young men involved in the former tended to wear upscale attire such as dress shirts, suits, and platform shoes, while young women wore dresses and heels. Meanwhile, hip-hoppers wore stylized street clothing such as mock neck sweaters, brimmed caps, Lee jeans, and athletic sneakers, regardless of gender. The disco crowd tended to dance in a formalized and contained fashion, while breakers performed spontaneous movements exuding irreverence, creativity, and acrobatics. In turn, these differences reflected competing notions of identity, upward mobility, and respectability. Although often closely tied to class position, they were not entirely determined by them. Rather, the desire for breakers to embrace a dance that was looked down upon by more mainstream currents spoke to the affective force it had on them, as well as their cultural penchant for defying social standards. Rather than essentializing the African American community or romanticizing one expressive practice over another, scholars would do well to explore such varying cultural currents within the Bronx during this period. As theorist Stuart Hall has famously argued, notions of identity and meaning are

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not fixed but, rather, constantly being negotiated within a broader confluence of power, dominance, and resistance.108 Early breakers also emphasize this struggle, with many characterizing the dance as a rejection of mainstream norms. “We rebelled against the establishment by not dressing up and going to a party,” insisted Kool DJ Dee, who straddled both the disco and hip-hop worlds. “You don’t want to Hustle [a popular partner-based dance]. You want to dance freestyle … That’s what hip-hop is all about. You’re rebelling against the establishment.”109 GrandMixer DXT has similarly reflected upon these themes in his testimony: Most people, even at that time, didn’t relate to what we were doing. I remember when I would be trying to dance—everybody remembers me as a b-boy—people would snatch me up and go, “What you doin’ man? What you doin’?” Or we’d go to people’s house parties and they’d say, “Yo, you can come in here b-boying cause last time y’all kicked the legs off my mother’s couch.” We’d carry our own records with our Flipper [hats] flipped up, our jeans … “Yo man, play this.” And those records we got from Herc.110 All of this suggests that, like African American dancers before them, breakers came together in autonomous jook spaces where “upper-class notions of respectability had little power”111 to express a sense of alternative identity that veered from the more dominant disco scene of that period. The defiance embodied in such expression was symbolized in the very meaning of “breaking,” as going beyond the norm inevitably involved disregarding mainstream standards, even within the African American community itself. That practitioners later reappropriated the derogatory term “hip-hop” as a vocal chant112 and positive descriptor of their movement113 reinforces this formative defiance of the culture, as well as its inextricable link to dancing (figure 4.3). Significantly, this same embodiment of alternative identities can be seen throughout working-class African American history. As Hazzard-Gordon maintained, the jook continuum stood apart from what she called “the

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FIGURE 4.3  Flyer for “The Hell Raisn’ Hip Hopp Hoedownn” at Hunts Point Palace in the Bronx on June 6, 1981. As can be seen, the term “hip-hop” was being used as a positive descriptor for the movement by the early 1980s. Flyer designed by PHASE 2. Courtesy of Breakbeat Lenny Archive, #8052. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.

commercial urban complex” of African American establishments during the early twentieth century. The former drew on their Africanist traditions to defy societal norms and constrictions while the latter tended to rely on outside approval and mainstream social influence.114 This stigma associated with working-class expressions is also why writers such as Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes stood alone in the Harlem Renaissance in championing

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them. As Hurston wrote in her famous essay on African American culture, “Langston Hughes is not considered a poet by this group [middle class African Americans] because he writes of the man in the ditch, who is more numerous and real among us than any other.”115 It was precisely this articulation of difference that Hughes was calling attention to when he implored African Americans to draw inspiration from the “low-down folks” and “common people,” who he celebrated for resisting the “middle class” tendency “to pour racial individuality into the mold of American standardization.”116 Pointing out such distinctions is not meant to attribute any value judgments to such sentiments but, rather, to note how, as with any other community, there have historically been important variations in cultural currents among African Americans and this can certainly be seen in breakers’ experiences during the 1970s. With little reward for their expressions beyond the visceral pleasure of dancing and gaining accolades from like-minded peers, b-boys and b-girls withstood social opposition and refused to rely on mainstream institutions for cultural approval. Just as their predecessors in the funk movement found “delight in defying cultural norms”117 and “revolt[ed] against this sense of having to ‘fit in’ ”118 breakers used the cultural resources available to them to craft their own symbolic meanings and codes of behavior. The dance’s emphasis on institutional autonomy also facilitated this process, as practitioners were provided an independent “experimental laboratory where new cultural concepts can be tested free from restrictions.”119 Indeed, whereas most DJs in New York shunned young people for dancing on the ground and spinning on all fours, the jook environment harnessed by Herc welcomed and encouraged such abandon. As I discuss in the remaining chapters, this jook-based stamp of alterity continued to color breaking well into its first decade of development, with nonnormative approaches toward its aesthetics exhibited in other avenues of life, as well. To understand breaking’s evolution and expansion, it is important to look more closely at these issues in relation to social categories of class, gender,

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race, and age. This is especially important given that previous assessments of such categories in breaking history have been partial, at best, and wholly inadequate, at worst. I now turn my attention toward these critical issues to move beyond their mischaracterizations in previous texts and to better understand the symbolic meaning and power they held for practitioners.

5 Mothers of the Movement

In her influential 1981 article on breaking, performance critic Sally Banes placed perhaps her greatest emphasis on what she deemed to be the masculine character of the dance. “Breaking Is Hard to Do” read her title, suggesting that the form’s movements required strength and daring to execute. “It is a celebration of the flexibility and budding sexuality of the gangly male adolescent body,” she continued, adding that breakers exhibited their “machismo” through competitive displays and innovative movements.1 Although, at that point, Banes had only witnessed a single dance rehearsal by the Rock Steady Crew, she concluded that breaking’s “macho quality” was evident in its “ritual combat” and “sexual braggadocio.”2 Most journalists who wrote about breaking in the 1980s reproduced Banes’ gendered depictions and academics who later analyzed the dance in the 1990s relied on these characterizations to frame breaking as historically masculine. For example, in her essay “Dance in Hip Hop Culture,” dance historian Katrina Hazzard-Donald argues that, “in its early stages hip hop dancing aggressively asserted male dominance” and that, unlike past African American forms, it was an “exclusively male” practice.3 Dance scholar Susan Foster likewise described breaking as a “masculine-dominated arena” where females were historically excluded.4 Prominent cultural theorist bell hooks took such characterizations even further, suggesting that breaking “emerged in the street” because its male founders were intent on “an assertive patriarchal

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paradigm of competitive masculinity.”5 hooks took it for granted that breaking was created by and for young men and reasoned that practitioners saw indoor spaces as too “feminine” to perform in. When looking beyond mediated depictions of breaking in the 1980s, however, we find that young women were always involved in the dance and were, in fact, pivotal to its formation. Overlooking the voices of breaking’s African American founders has invisibilized these female practitioners from hip-hop histories even more so than their male counterparts. Indeed, there is perhaps no issue more emblematic of the obfuscation surrounding breaking’s beginnings than the overlooked influence of b-girls on the dance’s development. In this chapter, I focus on the b-girls who shaped breaking’s birth during the 1970s, not only to clarify the historical record but to examine the institutional settings, social values, and aesthetic influences behind the dance’s formation. It is my contention that the working-class African American jooks in which breaking was forged led its practitioners to structure their dance in a more gender-inclusive manner. In addition, I examine the cultural background and familial experiences of early practitioners in relation to these questions. Specifically, I discuss how male practitioners commonly reference female family members as important influences on their embodied expressions and how their outlooks toward gender may have been informed by a broader African American tradition of dancing within the private sphere of the home. In addition, I examine how this mixed-gender experience connected to the more public displays of dancing within the jook-based gatherings of early Bronx practitioners. I demonstrate how teenagers coming of age in the borough tapped into their African American traditions to enact an alternative sense of identity, community, and creativity at local parties and independent clubs. As part of this process, I also consider what implications this invisibilized history of b-girls has on our understanding of the hip-hop cultural movement, overall.

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Like Family Again In her analysis of masculinity and dance among men in American society, sociologist Maxine Leeds Craig identifies family upbringing and community background as two of the most important factors shaping how boys acquire movement habits. Certain ethnic, religious, and class groupings, she argues, incorporate dance within their homes more than others, affecting the incentive structures and learning processes through which boys develop their movement capacities. In turn, institutional and ideological constructions of masculinity beyond the home—often tied to categorizations of race, class, age, and sexuality—affect whether men continue to dance or not, she insists. Therefore, a young man may be ridiculed for dancing in one community while, in another, he may be praised and admired by his peers.6 Although Craig specifically focused on masculinity in her research, my reading of hip-hop history suggests that her analysis of how upbringing shapes gender performance holds equally true for femininity, as well. When it comes to breaking, notions of gender embodied within the dance were strongly affected by the working-class African American constituency that created the form. As has already been discussed, practitioners in the Bronx drew mainly from popular social dances and African American entertainers such as James Brown and the Nicholas Brothers when developing the dance. However, even before they were exposed to these forms within their community, many acquired their interest in moving to music within the private sphere of the home, with mothers and sisters figuring prominently among their influences. Early pioneer PHASE 2’s experience is emblematic of this pattern. “I never wanted to dance like Fred Astaire or anything I saw on TV,” he insisted when I asked him about his dance beginnings.7 Instead, he pointed to his older sister and her teenage friends who danced to soul and funk records when they came over for house parties. “When I first saw my sisters dancing, I picked up

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on it,” he recalled, adding that they had a unique style that appealed to him. When he started going to parties on his own during the late 1960s and early 1970s, he built on the moves he saw growing up, experimenting with them in his own unique way.8 Rather than identifying with the “cool detachment” of film stars such as Astaire,9 he adopted the expressive movements within his family and community, and began adorning them in social situations where people validated his creativity—or, at the very least, did not deter it. “I could not settle for what was there. I had to make something of it,” PHASE 2 explained, “and that’s why people noticed us. Because we didn’t dance the way other people danced.”10 Early b-boy and pioneering MC Melle Mel similarly credited his older sister for introducing him to dancing. I remember my sister used to go to a lot of parties when I was even younger. They used to play the same kind of music and she used to go to the parties and dance. She was a good dancer. So, she used to come back and tell us how they do it at the parties, and the dances and stuff like that.11 Although Mel was too young to frequent underground clubs such as the Plaza Tunnel, he gained a glimpse of what happened inside these venues through his older sister. Given that African Americans have a long history of sharing dance moves regardless of gender,12 much of what Mel saw could be performed by both women and men. Several scholars have noted how this “unisex” character of African American social dancing is partly why forms such as the Lindy Hop and “rock” dances of the postwar period gained widespread appeal.13 Not surprisingly, then, Mel’s references to his older sister reflect his introduction to the freeform movements happening in the Bronx during the early 1970s, which would later get carried over into the hip-hop movement. GrandMixer DXT likewise references his older sisters—one of whom went on to become a professional concert dancer14—as important influences on his musical and cultural trajectory. “I was raised in entertainment,” he explained

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to me when recalling his upbringing. “Dancing was just a natural thing in my house.”15 Like Mel, he highlights the preexisting dance practices he saw in his North Bronx neighborhood as the precursor to the competitive exchanges that would later occur at Kool Herc’s parties. My sisters, we all went through the same school. So, I got to see all of the stuff that they were doing … Being in the same household, I got to see all of this stuff. All of the house parties, records, and the burning and all of that.16 One of the most well-known early b-girls at Herc’s parties, Deusy from the West Bronx, similarly states that her mother would have her and her sister doing James Brown moves in their living room when she was a young child,17 while Sasa explains that his grandmother would have him dance against her friends’ kids when they would come over.18 These early experiences rooted these pioneers in an African American tradition of dancing and movement that was predicated on gender inclusivity and competitive interaction. That Deusy was encouraged to emulate James Brown suggests that these moves were not ascribed to only one gender, while DXT was inspired to compete against people at parties through burning by his older sisters. In this way, young women figured prominently in the two leading institutions, the family and jook spaces, that shaped breaking’s development. This suggests a need for greater attention on the role of women in African American dance history, more broadly, as well as on the performance of gender within breaking itself. After all, if many of the young men who pioneered the dance were influenced by their sisters and female family members, how did this affect their outlook toward b-girls in breaking? As will be seen below, the testimony of early practitioners affirms that a substantial number of young women helped usher in the dance, suggesting that this social context helped structure the form in a more inclusive, gender-neutral direction. Much like Craig’s observation that those who grow up in “less-structured home and neighborhood settings” tend to “pay less attention to gender and therefore

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are more likely to participate in the same activities, including dancing,”19 the African American teenagers who created breaking developed a movement vocabulary and competitive structure that was open to the creativity of both young women and men.

Burning People up As was mentioned in Chapter 2, young women were especially active during the burning era of breaking in the early 1970s, when the dance first developed its often-touted tradition of battling and competition. However, contrary to the misconception that these competitions emerged from masculine aggression or street gang activity, first-hand testimony reveals that they were often the result of young women challenging breakers on the dancefloor. Take, for example, this account from Tyrone the Mixologist, a DJ from the Southeast Bronx who recalls seeing a girl breaking against several b-boys at an event in the Castle Hill Houses. They were breakdancing in the middle of the floor and there was this girl in there breakdancing. She was taking and wiping out a few guys. But then a few guys came from outside and they tore her down. I mean they broke her down. To the point where one guy was laying on the floor and he was vibrating on the floor. Not gyrating, vibrating.20 Although Tyrone maintained that this unnamed b-girl lost the battle, what is particularly interesting is his description of her “wiping out a few guys” in the process. It even seems that she was the one who initiated the competition or, at the very least, did not back away from it. Indeed, Tyrone prefaced his above description by saying, “There was a lot of girls that would start that burning stuff first,”21 with no indication that partygoers deemed it improper for them to do so. Instead, he relayed this episode as an illustration of how women were

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involved in breaking from its inception. In turn, the young men in his story are said to have approached her with the same seriousness and brass they would any other competitor. Numerous other accounts from this period similarly suggest that females were central to the dance’s formation. For instance, Kool Kyle from the North Bronx recalls how b-girls were the main ones him and his friends would go up against at early parties. He discusses practicing elaborate routines during the week in anticipation of such competitions. See what we used to do is go to party’s [sic] and dance with girls and break on them. Cats would be at home practicing their routines, Friday and Saturday night you would start breaking. These routines that we did on these girls, actually became dance acts.22 PHASE 2 similarly explained that, “You’ve always had sisters who could dance,” adding that, “you never tried to burn her unless she drew first blood.”23 Although this second point might signify chivalry toward young women, he explained to me that he did not go to parties to burn people unless he was challenged to do so. It just so happened that he felt it was often young women who would initiate these competitive exchanges.24 In fact, he made this same point in a 1995 article on breaking in which he described b-girls being reluctant to battle him and his friends due to what he characterized as his group’s superior dancing abilities: “No brag, but girls didn’t want to go near us … we weren’t really trying to burn them but they weren’t chancing the embaresment [sic].”25 The fact that girls are used as the barometer of him and his friends’ breaking prowess, with no indication that females were sanctioned for engaging in competition, illustrates the extent to which young women were involved in the development of the dance. Another practitioner named Dancing Doug—who was from Harlem but frequented parties in the Bronx—has likewise explained that, “I used to burn guys and girls but it started with the girls.” He expounded upon this by

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describing a move wherein he would spin upright and put his hat in front of a rival dancer’s face.26 However, he does not characterize such gestures as part of any “ritual combat” or manifestation of male “aggression” but, rather, as part of the revelry both young men and women displayed at teenage parties during the early 1970s. GrandMixer DXT also recalls seeing girls burning in this fashion from a very young age. When we were in elementary school and we would have school parties, one of the things was the girls would burn you. You know, dancing. The hand is old. That’s from the ‘60s. Giving somebody the hand. A girl would drop down with both of her hands in her lap, and then come up and throw her hand in your face. You were done. You had to leave the circle.27 As can be seen, these accounts were given independently of one another, from individuals in different regions of the Bronx. Yet they all corroborate the fact that young women were involved in shaping the competitive format that breaking would become known for. Even those who do not attribute burning solely to females acknowledge the centrality of their involvement. “Guys started dancing with each other and then the girls got involved” is how early Afrika Bambaataa described breaking’s beginnings to Steve Hager. “Girls taking out other girls, girls taking out guys, all different types of break dancing.”28 Cholly Rock of the Zulu Kings has also stated that “there were a lot of girls who had reputations” as good burners in the 1970s, to which he listed off names such as Dancing Doll, D.D. Lawrence, Cokie, and others.29 What is especially interesting about these testimonies is their reference to young women taking part in breaking’s “combat” and “braggadocio,” so often attributed to be a masculine “battle of libido and ego.”30 However, if young women were involved in these activities—indeed, if they helped create them— how is it possible to characterize them as products of masculine aggression or too unfeminine for females to perform? Can such characterizations be

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FIGURE 5.1  Cindy Campbell performing a forward lunging two-step in her 1976 Dodge Vocational High School yearbook.

maintained if they do not comport with the perspectives and experiences of those who ushered them in (figure 5.1)? Although mainstream society may associate challenging a man on the dancefloor with “unladylike” behavior, such norms are applied differently according to their temporal, cultural, and institutional contexts. Just as young men in the Bronx did not view their expressive dancing as a “feminine” activity—as it is often stigmatized in dominant Western discourse31—neither did young women who were engaging in competition see themselves as

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performing “masculinity.” In other words, those who created breaking held different symbolic meanings for their expressions. Along these lines, it should be remembered that breaking was still a largely underground phenomenon in the Bronx, in that it was practiced only by a small, specialized set of partygoers. Even within the African American community, the dance was considered a marginal, youth-based activity that went against the more dominant strain of disco during the 1970s. Accordingly, rather than blanketly attributing competition to “masculinity,” it is important to examine the cultural context in which such exchanges took place and the extent to which alternative values may have been embedded in them.

“There Were Females That Danced Too” What about when breaking transitioned into more acrobatic displays on the floor? Did women continue their involvement in the dance or did its evolving movement vocabulary alter perceptions toward their performance? Although relevant information regarding this period is more mixed, first-hand accounts provide a vastly different picture than the one put forward in most hip-hop histories. As younger breakers in the mid-1970s increasingly adopted dynamic movements, contorted poses, and prolonged floor sequences to stand out from the rest of the crowd at Herc’s parties, the number of women taking part in the dance seems to have declined from the earlier burning era of breaking. Nevertheless, b-girls continued to play an important role in the dance according to those who were at the forefront of these aesthetic shifts. For example, Keith Smith of The Legendary Twins recalls b-girls being active during the floorward progression of breaking, stating that, “Now they have that terminology of ‘b-girls’ but there were females that danced too. Let me tell you

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man: Sister Boo, Janice and her little sister Saundra, Deusy.”32 Although Smith acknowledged that b-boys began to outnumber b-girls, he also suggests that the latter were not ridiculed or deterred from breaking but, rather, given respect. “It was a big deal to get in that circle,” he insisted when listing off early female figures. “You had to have heart and not everyone did. Only a select few.”33 Other young women said to have been involved in breaking during this period include names such as Kimmy, Yellow Banana, Doris, and Mother Earth. Like Keith Smith, Clark Kent also recalled several b-girls who danced at Herc’s parties, explaining that he would not hesitate to battle them if he was challenged in a circle: Yes … they also had a sister Kim who I dusted off back in the days as well, okay? Cause there were some B-Girls back then, you know? Wasn’t many of them but you know you had Kim, you had Janice … you had Deusy … there were quite a few girls that were very good … they just didn’t have better skills than me.34 Keith’s emphasis on the “heart” it took to enter a circle, Kent’s assurances that b-girls “didn’t have better skills than me,” and both of their recollections that males outnumbered females may be interpreted in multiple ways. On the one hand, it may signal an increasing discouragement of b-girls during this era, one which deemed them less capable of performing the dance and, thus, unable to outdo b-boys such as Kent. On the other hand, these comments could signal a transcendent approach toward gender, wherein b-girls were approached with the same braggadocious combativeness and seriousness as b-boys. In turn, Kent’s acknowledgement that “there were quite a few girls that were very good”—with no indication that they were derided for doing the dance—conveys a sense of respect for their participation, undermining the notion that breaking was created exclusively by men. Rather than directly confronting this dominant narrative—or, the opposite, overemphasizing and

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tokenizing the role of women—the above accounts indicate that b-girls were a part of the small coterie of dancers who set the foundation for the form. Many early hip-hop DJs also reference b-girls as active contributors to the dance. For instance, DJ Smokey, who played music for breakers at around the same time as Kool Herc, described the Luck-a-Trons, a b-girl counterpart to his b-boy collective, the Smoke-a-Trons, by saying: … we had a breakdance team called the Smoke-a-Trons and the Luck-aTrons. The reason for them being so popular back in the 70s, the girls that used to hang in our house … they liked to dance. Sister Boo, Pebblee Poo, Sheila, the Yellow Banana (her name was Vivien). These girls liked to dance and perform. So, they would come up with dance steps. We called them the Luck-a-Trons. And they were good, they were good girls.35 As with the above comment from Kent, Smokey’s description of his dancers being organized along gendered lines suggests that there were distinctions made between b-boys and b-girls. However, it is not clear whether such distinctions were a signal of discouragement (based on the perceived lesser abilities of young women), encouragement (based on mutual support among dancers with a shared identity), or some other undisclosed factor. Certainly, Smokey acknowledged that b-girls who danced at his parties “were good” and played a significant role in his career, so much so that he made it a point to highlight their contributions. In this same way, pioneering DJs Grandmaster Flash wrote in his autobiography that, “Sister Boo showed how the girls could get down just like the fellas”36 and Kool Herc has also referenced Sister Boo as an influential breaker.37 Cultural sociologist Mary Fogarty notes how the media often overlooks such references, demonstrating just “how much the journalists are responsible for gendering hip hop culture into a male pursuit.”38 Even pioneers who say females dropped out of the dance during the mid1970s tend to qualify such statements by acknowledging their continued contributions. For example, Zulu King Cholly Rock states “They [b-girls] didn’t go down to the floor like we did cause that just wasn’t, you know, girls

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weren’t really going to do that,” but quickly follows up this statement by saying, “Although we had some [b-girls] later on.”39 His contemporary GrandMixer DXT also relayed to me that “the girls kind of moved away from it for a minute” when competitions became intense, but added that “once it became more of your floor moves and your skills, and not burning, then the females became more involved again through just being b-girls.”40 Like The Twins and Clark Kent, these recollections reaffirm that young women were actively involved in the floor-based transition of breaking. Even more interestingly, many of the b-girls who danced during the mid1970s went on to become pioneering MCs, as well. One of the most wellknown is MC Sha-Rock of the rap group Funky 4 + 1. Prior to becoming a rapper, she was a breaker at Kool Herc’s parties and dedicated an entire chapter, titled “B-Girl Stance,” to this experience in her autobiography. In it, she describes learning floor moves such as the sweep and performing them at house parties in the summer of 1976. She also discusses both the consternation and admiration she received for being a young woman involved in the dance. “All of the guys looked at me like, ‘What the hell?’” she said about her first time breaking at a Kool Herc party. “But, at the same time, I could see that they respected that I was a part of the game and was good too.”41 Although some b-boys may have been taken aback by seeing her break, others seemed to have encouraged and aided it, as Sha-Rock described learning the dance from a schoolfriend named JJ and his cousins, Mike and Pee Wee. “JJ taught me to uprock with the swiftness, transition to the floor, execute my power move, and then transition out smoothly,”42 she writes. Pebblee Poo’s story is strikingly similar. As another pioneering MC, she always emphatically states that she got her start in hip-hop through breaking. When I started, I didn’t want to be no MC. I used to be a b-girl. I was breakdancing on the ground. I’m double-jointed, so I was competing with the guys. I was doing moves that no other person could do. They didn’t understand it. I was getting all the “oohs” and the “ahs.”43

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Like Sha-Rock, she explains that a young male friend in her junior high school taught her how to do the dance.44 Between classes, Pebblee would practice moves such as the sweep and perform at local block parties when DJs such as Smokey would play music outside. The accolades she received as a b-girl eventually led her to pursue rhyming, as well, with fellow b-boys such as T La Rock—who also went on to be an influential MC—giving her praise and encouraging her to get on the mic.45 She proved to have just as much of a commanding presence on the stage as she did on the dancefloor, later becoming one of Kool Herc’s official MCs and going on to record rap records such as “Funkbox Party” (1982) with The Masterdon Committee. Zulu Queen Lisa Lee, a noted member of the early rap groups Soul Sonic Force and Us Girls, also associates her entry into hip-hop with breaking c. 1976. I just remember the b-boying and break dancing. I did that before I started rapping. And having those memories of breakdancing at those parties to those beats that Bam played. He still plays different beats from anybody else. You know it’s Afrika Bambaataa when he plays his music cause it’s completely different from anybody else’s. And those are my favorite moments.46 In an early interview, Lee characterized breaking as something that all her peers were doing, suggesting that female involvement was not viewed as an aberration at the time.47 The influential Zulu Kings breaking group, through which the Zulu Nation collective that she joined emerged, also had a female faction called the Zulu Queens (akin to the Smoke-a-Trons and Luck-a-Trons collectives described above). Pow Wow, a leading member of the Zulu Kings, described teaching several Zulu Queens how to break,48 most notably Trina Tee, whom some in the Southeast Bronx have referred to as “one of the first b-girls” in their area.49 MC Kimba, who is also from this region, likewise insisted that she got her start in hip-hop around 1976 as a b-girl who would

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dance in the Bronxdale Houses with b-boys Cooky and Cleamont (figure 5.2). “I was a break dancer, that was the thing to do,”50 she explains. The prevalence of such testimonies undermines the dominant narrative that breaking was created exclusively by men. As part of a reconsideration of this narrative, it is important to remember that hip-hop was a mixedgender movement where young people—ranging in the ages of thirteen to eighteen—were socializing and expressing themselves at parties. Breaking was a specialized dance at these events, nestled within a broader context of partner dancing, courting, drinking, and enjoying music. That some young women took part in these activities just as much as young men should come as no surprise. Indeed, hip-hop itself emerged out of a back-to-school party thrown by a young woman, Cindy Campbell. The localized, informal, teenage context of these events facilitated an atmosphere where attendees were exposed to

FIGURE 5.2  Flyer for the Zulu Nation’s “Funk in Heaven ’77” event, held at Junior High School 123 in the Bronx on October 28, 1977. Courtesy of Johan Kugelberg hip-hop collection, #8021. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library

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various movement practices and chose which ones to participate in. That a select few would break, while most did conventional social dances, was in line with the specialized character of breaking itself. Just as importantly, the alternative cultural values enshrined in breaking made such involvement acceptable to early hip-hop audiences, just as it had been for African American jook participants in the past. As dance scholar Imani Kai Johnson has demonstrated, female artists within the African American community have a long history of embodying alternative, independent, and assertive forms of womanhood alongside their male peers. She draws insightful connections between b-girls and female blues singers, arguing that women who break are not trying to “act like a man” but, rather, enacting a countercultural form of femininity that positions them as producers, rather than passive consumers, within the hip-hop movement. Johnson also argues that female involvement in breaking should not be viewed through the lens of dominant societal standards but, rather, through the framework of what she calls “badass femininity”: confident and, at times, confrontational performativity that goes against mainstream notions of “proper” and “ladylike” behavior.51 The history of early b-girls also reiterates the extent to which breaking and hip-hop deviated from the more predominant disco scene of the 1970s. Unlike the latter’s more formalized movement expressions, which, speaking generally, were encapsulated in the partner-based dance The Hustle, breaking provided participants with a relatively open-ended, gender-inclusive structure. This is not to say that b-boys and b-girls did not embody gender through their performances or that they refrained from engaging in coupled dancing. On the contrary, hip-hop’s emphasis on creativity gave participants room to experiment with various aesthetics and symbolic meanings. Those who entered breaking circles were encouraged to bring their individual styles with them, and this included movements and gestures that may have conveyed femininity. However, the framework of adornment underpinning breaking allowed dancers to decide how they would express these aspects of their

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identity, with audiences receptive to displays that went beyond the norm of traditional expectations. As a result, there were no formal gender codes proscribed within early breaking. Whether executing a squat drop, forward-lunging two-step, confrontational gesture against an opponent, floor-based spin, or sweep, young women shared in the dance’s movement vocabulary alongside young men. In fact, I have yet to come across any testimony suggesting that b-girls were barred from performing any aspect of the dance. As Thomas DeFrantz has pointed out, this relatively egalitarian approach has reappeared in most other hip-hop dance styles, as well. “It may be argued that all social dance contains roles for men and women defined by gender,” he writes. “[A]s a solo form, however, hip hop dance generally resists this sort of gendered categorization.”52 In theory, but not always in practice, this same egalitarian format continues to hold sway among breakers until today. As performance researcher Rachael Gunn explains: Despite the broader social assumptions that ‘women shouldn’t do that’, b-boys and b-girls have access to the same movement vocabulary, in that unlike other forms of dance, such as ballet, there is no division of labour or difference between vocabularies. B-boys and b-girls not only attend the same classes and workshops, but also learn the same moves and techniques, which exposes the underlying power of socio-cultural assumptions in limiting female bodily capacity.53

Female Founders As with many other aspects of hip-hop history, the considerable number of b-girls who went on to become prominent rappers also stands out when analyzing the above testimonies from early practitioners. Indeed, given the

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general neglect of embodied practices in hip-hop studies,54 there would likely be no publicly available accounts from founding b-girls were it not for the many MCs who have discussed their breaking backgrounds. However, beyond the implications of this connection for the dance’s historiography, the prevalence of b-girls-turned-MCs aligns with the broader relationship between movement and music seen throughout African American history. “Any emcee that was on the scene at the time, that were like true, bonafide emcees,” explained Sha-Rock, “they were b-boys or b-girls before they began to become an MC.”55 The experience of Lady Sweet, of the all-girl group Inner City Disco, similarly aligns with this recollection, as she associates her hiphop beginnings with breaking. “The music, it just gets you and that’s how you start,”56 she explains when recounting how she got into the dance, adding that she “burned quite a few brothers” in the 1970s. Such testimonies suggest that dancing helped pave the way for musical expression and identity formation among early female MCs. Why else would so many point to their b-girl past, despite not being asked about it by interviewers and knowing that breaking is commonly associated with “masculinity”? As ethnomusicologist Kyra Gaunt has argued, young African American women have a distinct tradition of developing musical styles through embodied forms of expression. Although she focuses on youth games such as handclapping songs, double-dutch jump rope, and cheering, her analysis can be extended to include the many b-girls who developed the same “in-body formulas” of music and movement that Gaunt calls attention to.57 Rather than treat dance and music as two separate spheres of activity, the jook institutions in which hip-hop emerged gave these women room to enact their creativity in a manner that was both physical and musical in form. Accordingly, as Gaunt and other scholars have argued,58 far greater analysis is needed into the interconnection between music and dancing in hip-hop studies. Taking the mixed-gender composition of early hip-hop parties into account also provides insights into the way b-girls transitioned into rapping.

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The insulation of these parties from more commercial and mainstream institutions provided females an avenue for embodying alternative forms of womanhood, and this included getting on the mic to rhyme before a crowd. Rather than constructing identities according to notions of deference and passivity, b-girls danced assertively in circles and rapped on stages alongside their b-boy counterparts. In turn, b-girls were recognized by b-boys for their contributions, helping further bolster their participation and social validation. According to Sha-Rock, breaking at parties provided her with a sense of confidence that she needed in her life, and which she later utilized as a young rapper. “So what I had to do was basically be able to say that I was as prolific as the next man or male artist at the time. Because we were trying to prove ourselves to our communities,” adding that she did not feel marginalized for being a young woman involved in hip-hop. “So they didn’t look at me as, ‘ShaRock is a female emcee.’ They looked at it as, ‘Sha-Rock is a prolific emcee.’”59 Like the African American jook women before her, she participated in the culture’s burgeoning expressions and continues to remain one of the most revered pioneers of her generation. The prevalence of such testimonies points to the need for scholars to question the assertion that hip-hop, as a whole, began as an exclusively masculinized movement,60 especially the notion that “there are no women who have contributed profoundly to rap’s artistic growth.”61 On the contrary, in addition to the females already mentioned above, there were influential early MCs such as Queen Kenya, Sweet & Sour, RD Smiley, Sherri-Sher, Little Lee, Little Bit, Baby T, Debbie D, Taste, and Lady B, as well as prominent DJs such as Baby D, LaSpank, Pambaataa, Wanda Dee, Lady Love, Jazzy Joyce, and the original Spinderella, to name a few. In the realm of aerosol art, there were pioneering female writers such as BARBARA 62, EVA 62, MICHELLE 62, CHARMIN 65, BARMAID 36, S. PAT 169, POO-NI 167, ROCKY 184, STONEY II, and countless others. In this way, young women made just as significant an impact on DJing, rapping, and aerosol art as they did on breaking. However, when

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viewing hip-hop history through a mediated lens, such contributions are often invisibilized, given that the culture has consistently been characterized “as male in the face of a significant and sustained female presence.”62 Attending to the experiences and contributions of the many young women who made their mark on the dance might, therefore, help address gendered misconceptions in the musical, poetic, and artistic expressions of hip-hop.

The Queens of the Jook As Zora Neale Hurston emphasized in her famous 1934 essay on African American culture, women have been historically essential to working-class expressions, so much so that she dubbed them “the queen of the Jook.”63 She also noted how their attitudes, performative styles, and body types differed from the standards mandated by mainstream society. Consequently, Hurston insisted that the expression of women in jooks should be evaluated according to the values and viewpoints of their practitioners, not those of dominant society. Unfortunately, when it comes to breaking, the failure of commentators to account for the African American beginnings of the form has led to a great deal of confusion about the role of women in the dance and the role of gender in its performance. As has been discussed in this chapter, many of the moves associated with masculinity in breaking today are the same ones early practitioners credit b-girls for shaping and being involved in: the competitive exchanges of burning, prolonged floor moves such as the sweep, and, later, the acrobatic “power moves” of the dance. This dichotomy between what happened in the past and what is conceptualized in the present exemplifies the extent to which notions of gender are culturally contingent and, therefore, need to be interrogated according to the temporal, institutional, and ideological contexts in which they are expressed.

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When rethinking these conceptualizations, it should also be remembered that questions of history and gender are not merely intellectual exercises. Their reproduction and internalization by both commentators and practitioners have had profound effects on how people break around the world. As scholar Mary Fogarty has argued, the dance’s modern practice is tightly bound by claims to historic legitimacy. Everything from what music to play for practitioners, to the proper criteria on which to judge their performances, is predicated on notions of “origins” and “authenticity.”64 The dominant narrative that breaking is rooted in masculinity has, therefore, barred many women from adopting the dance, while those who take part in it face the bifurcated challenge of having to perform “like a man,” while also being objectified under the male gaze and pressured to enact stereotypical attributes of femininity.65 As scholar Imani Kai Johnson has also pointed out, “b-girls incur a much greater social cost for participating in a dance culture that is seen as being by and for young men.”66 The early influence of b-girls also reemphasizes the need to contextualize hip-hop according to the experiences and testimony of its African American founders. Rather than assume the culture was an exclusively masculinized movement according to media narratives from the 1980s, we would do well to look at the first-hand accounts of practitioners and the mixed-gender institutions in which they moved and made music together. Specifically, we must attend to the working-class African American traditions practitioners grew up with in their homes and the autonomous jook joints that allowed them to come together with one another on a participatory level. Such contexts gave both young men and women the freedom to enact a more defiant form of both corporeal and musical expression. However, at the same that these alternative approaches drove the dance and culture forward, they also garnered considerable antagonism from detractors during the 1970s. Given that breaking was about going beyond the norm of what audiences expected, this naturally led to some negative reactions. Again, like the jook joints of yesteryear, which were commonly derided as “bawdy”

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houses,67 breaking’s underground activities were deemed to be unseemly and crude by many followers of the more prominent disco scene of that era. Such opposition further heightened the in-group camaraderie of b-boys and b-girls themselves, and it was within this context that the values of inclusion, openness, and participation became enshrined in the form’s early structure. In turn, the aesthetic principles and social attitudes of breaking’s young, working-class, African American constituency affected the way subsequent practitioners would continue to confront social challenges during the dance’s ethnic expansion in the late 1970s.

6 Breaking’s Latino Adoption

This chapter will explore the ethnic expansion of breaking in the late 1970s, when young, mostly Latino practitioners began gravitating toward this predominantly African American dance. In addition to outlining how this expansion took place, my aim is to examine how conceptualizations of cultural identity among these two communities affected breaking’s aesthetics and symbolic meanings. However, before I turn to this topic, it is important to take a step back and illustrate the climate of ethnic interaction in New York even prior to hip-hop’s emergence. When Kool Herc first arrived in the Bronx in 1967, his family settled in the East Tremont neighborhood of the borough and he began attending the local Junior High School 118. Given that his hair had a reddish tint and he dressed differently from his African American peers, some at his school assumed that Herc was Latino. “Come te llamas?” Spanish-speaking students would ask him, to which he would respond perplexedly in English that he was Jamaican. Herc’s recollection of this experience suggests that he was initially hanging out with Latinos when he moved to the Bronx.1 However, one day, while playing soccer on the field, he got into a fight with another student named Miguel. According to Herc’s account, he won the fight but learned that the latter was getting his friends to jump him after school. It was at this point that two African American youth, who were affiliated with a nationalist-religious movement known as the Five Percent Nation, stepped

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in to protect Herc.2 As a result, he began gravitating more toward the African American community and adjusting everything from his hobbies to his accent to fit in with his newfound friends.3 In addition to reiterating how Herc assimilated into the African American community, this story illustrates how perceptions of cultural difference affected life for young people in the Bronx during the 1970s. Contrary to what has been written in most hip-hop histories, relations between people of color were not always harmonious. Although not as extreme as the racism they faced from many white residents, there was nevertheless a distance maintained between African Americans and Latinos in the borough, as well. As a newly arrived immigrant from the Caribbean, Herc had to find his place in this bifurcated system of race relations. His eventual association with the African American community was by no means a given but, rather, predicated upon his early encounters and constructions of identity. Although historical hypotheticals are merely speculative, there is no telling how Herc’s teenage years would have evolved had he never got into a fight with Miguel or been protected by his African American peers. Oddly enough, this same East Tremont neighborhood where Herc first settled later became the hub of early Latino breaking.4 Numerous influential groups such as the Rockwell Association, The Bronx Boys/Girls Rocking Crew, The Disco Kids, and Starchild La Rock emerged from within this vicinity in the late 1970s. In fact, Junior High School 118 later became a central performance location for Latino DJs such as Charlie Chase and b-boys such as Spy and Trac 2. Other nearby locations where Latinos cultivated the dance included “The Dungeon,” which was a clubhouse furnished out of an abandoned building near Tremont Park; Mapes Pool, which was an outdoor community pool next to Junior High School 129; Mom & Pop’s Disco, which was a basement just north of East Tremont; and St. Martin of Tours Church, which was located in the nearby Belmont section.5 I am not suggesting that Herc’s presence in East Tremont had anything to do with this influx of Latinos breakers there a

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decade later. Nor am I suggesting that this area alone was responsible for the latter’s adoption of the dance. Rather, my aim in pointing out this historical coincidence is to compare how the climate of ethnic interaction in the Bronx shifted from Herc’s initial arrival in the late 1960s to the expansion of hip-hop in the late 1970s. This chapter will examine how prevailing conceptualizations of racial identity and belonging in the borough were affected when young, mostly Puerto Rican, breakers began gravitating toward this commonly coded “Black” dance. How did the Latino adoption of breaking occur in the first place? Was it contentious or harmonious? Did it involve a general continuation of the dance’s aesthetics or a sudden rupture away from previous practices? How did the interaction between African Americans and Latinos within the dance contrast with similar interactions in other avenues of life? Finally, what effect did breaking’s jook-based institutions and framework of individuation have on the Latino youth who embraced it? While highlighting the role b-boys and b-girls played in expanding the multicultural makeup of hip-hop, I also situate these developments within a broader context of race relations in New York, arguing that the dance played an important role in mending social divisions and fostering interethnic communication at a time when such interaction was generally lacking. I also take time throughout this chapter to discuss the spread of breaking during the late 1970s through its surfacing aboveground from private African American jook spaces into more public outdoor venues such as schoolyards, playgrounds, and parks. The dynamic aesthetics that resulted and the factors behind breaking’s appeal will also be discussed in relation to this expansionary period of the dance. Finally, much like their African American predecessors, the considerable social consternation Latinos faced when adopting breaking will also be discussed. Once again, this consternation related to dominant notions of “sophistication,” “legitimacy,” and “seriousness,” often tied to categories

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of age, race, class, gender, and social belonging. I examine how b-boys and b-girls navigated these issues, both within their immediate community and in the hip-hop movement, more generally. That the dance brought together teenagers despite social opposition speaks, in my view, to the recurrent pattern of practitioners transgressing dominant norms, both on and off the dancefloor.

Putting Your Best Foot Forward As the popularity of Herc’s parties grew in the mid- to late-1970s, the underground spaces in which he cultivated his movement also continued to expand. In addition to playing in clubs like the Hevelow and Executive Playhouse, Herc began giving all-age parties at venues such as the Police Athletic League (PAL) on Webster Avenue and the Claremont Neighborhood Center, located in the Legendary Twins’ neighborhood of The Nine.6 Herc also moved his traditional block parties from the courtyard of his West Bronx apartment building to Cedar Playground, just a few blocks north, while also recruiting two young b-boys-turned-DJs named Timmy Tim and Clark Kent to assist him in his parties. By expanding into such public venues, Herc began attracting younger African American and non-African American teenagers who began gaining a glimpse of what had previously taken place in mostly jook spaces. Since there were fewer age restrictions in parks and block parties, these younger attendees were now able to participate without having to negotiate their way into Herc’s parties, as The Twins initially had to. At the same time, other breakbeat-oriented DJs began to emerge in the Bronx and establish their own independent venues. DJ Smokey, for example, held an event called Over the Dover in a small, refurbished hall above the Dover Theatre in the Morrisania section of borough,7 while, a few blocks south, DJ Flash—who was himself a former breaker named “Rubberband Man”8—played at a party in the basement of a building in Hunts Point, called

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Garrison’s Basement.9 His friend and associate Lovebug Starski would also throw parties in a nearby Burger King restaurant.10 As can be gleaned from these brief descriptions, such venues were often unsanctioned and autonomous spaces where young people gathered without regard for any rules beyond their own sociocultural order. Crowds of mostly African American teenagers would socialize at these events and further popularize the obscure, percussive beats associated with hip-hop. As newer DJs emerged, break-specific music also began to be played outdoors, in more public arenas, especially during the summer months. This was for two main reasons: (1) aspiring DJs wanted to promote themselves and (2) it was often too hot to play indoors during the summer. DJ Flash, for example, was famous for throwing parties in 63 Park and 23 Park in the South Bronx, helping, in turn, publicize his admission-charged, indoor events. A group of breakers known as the D-Squad (short for Def Squad)—which included figures such as Fuji, Flippin’ Mike, Melle Mel, and Mr. Ness—would help Flash liven up the crowd at these events, serving as his official dancers.11 DJ Afrika Bambaataa similarly associated himself with b-boys who became known as the Zulu Kings, based out of the Bronx River Houses. They would attend his parties and eventually become the nucleus for his Zulu Nation collective. Bambaataa also collaborated with another DJ and promoter named Disco King Mario, who had b-boys from the Chuck City Crew accompanying him. In this way, loosely affiliated networks of DJs and dancers began to emerge as the bedrock for hip-hop’s growth. Often modeled off Herc’s original “B-Boys” collective, these dancers would provide everything from promotional support and entertainment to security and equipment assistance for local DJs. In addition, breakers continued to provide inspiration for DJs who made musical innovations. For instance, by 1977, many breakers were recreating Herc’s Merry-Go-Round technique by splicing together short snippers of the “get down part” of songs on their stereo cassette decks. This practice became popularly known as making “pause button tapes.”12 DJ Flash would later

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refine this practice on his turntables, developing a more precise technique for looping break beats back and forth, manually, without interruption. He called his innovation the “Quick Mix Theory”13 and it became another major turning point in hip-hop’s evolution, as even the shortest percussive samples could now be extended at a party ad infinitum. Flash credited b-boys and b-girls specifically for motivating this innovation, writing in his autobiography that, “some of these dancers now were really good—they were doing their moves on time … They needed a DJ to extend time, and percussively rearrange the beat” [italics in the original].14 As in the past, the desire to invoke excitement and energy on the dancefloor spurred contributions from DJs, who were themselves often former dancers. In turn, the soundtrack for breaking expanded as more and more DJs played records for b-boys and b-girls. In fact, so many DJs began to appear c. 1976–77 that some practitioners became what GrandMixer DXT calls “nomadic b-boys,” traveling from one neighborhood to another, seeking out new parties and beats to dance to.15 Given the hunger for percussive music among these partygoers, newer DJs curated playlists that built off the records that Herc had popularized. For instance, DJ Afrika Bambaataa earned the title “Master of Records” during this period, due to the large collection of eclectic, obscure, and funk-based beats he introduced.16 As the hip-hop canon continued to expand in this fashion, breakers found more DJs catering to their expressions and greater numbers of crews began to emerge. Breakers also responded to this growth of hip-hop’s trajectory by innovating even more floor-bound steps, transitions, and combinations within the dance. “The basic floor moves was universal,” explains DXT when recalling the modifications made during this period. “Everybody, no matter where you were from, had their own little finesse they would add based on their physical ability.”17 For example, the sweep became augmented by changes in direction, additional steps, poses, shuffle patterns, and fusion with other moves such as the spinning top rotations of The Twins. The extension of these movements led

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to the development of much more elaborate, floor-based sequences that b-boys and b-girls would perform using their hands and feet in a crouched position, commonly referred to today as “footwork.” Such sequences increasingly concentrated the dance on formalized patterns that went in a circular motion, many of which grew out of breaking’s earlier emphasis on animated story telling and musicality. As in the past, the individual creativity that spurred the dance forward increasingly became abstracted into a commonly shared vocabulary that emphasized physicality and form, in addition to humor and expression. Dynamic moves also continued to evolve out of this shared conceptual foundation, as the hip-hop movement maintained its emphasis on adornment, competition, and improvisation. GrandMixer DXT specifically highlights the impact competition had on breaking’s aesthetic development (figure 6.1). As it became more physical, guys started to battle even harder. Now you go down and spin on the floor. You freeze on the floor. Instead of freezing on your feet, you jump down and … one hand on the floor and both your feet straight out and you freeze, holding your eyes or holding your ear or something. The natural progression of that to outdo the next person is to not do one move and freeze, but to do two moves and freeze. And so on and so on and so on. To where now, you’re doing sequences of moves before you freeze. And that’s where we are today.18 Indeed, battling during this era took on an even greater importance, as breaking circles spread beyond Kool Herc’s parties. The more dancers increased, the more opportunities practitioners had for advancing breaking’s aesthetics by testing their skills against one another. Younger breakers were just as central to this evolutionary period within the dance as they were to its formation, with perhaps the most famous group during the late 1970s being a sub-division of the Zulu Kings known as the “Lil Zulu Kings.” Members of this group are often referenced today

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FIGURE 6.1  GrandMixer DXT breaking at The Roxy in Manhattan, where he was also the house DJ, September 24, 1981. ©David Corio/Redferns, Courtesy of Getty Images.

as having added greater velocity and variation to the floor moves they saw their predecessors perform.19 Although many were roughly eleven to fourteen years old—and unable to get into the clubs where Herc, Smokey, Flash, and other hip-hop DJs would perform—they were able to experience the outdoor block parties and community events now flourishing throughout the Bronx. As younger Zulu members, they took to breaking specifically to express their adolescent identity. Indeed, names such as Beaver, Robby Rob, Swain, and Lil Boy Keith are commonly cited today as having patented wholly new footwork

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patterns, steps, poses, spins, and acrobatic twists in the air.20 These unique displays proved so compelling that others soon adapted them and, as will be seen below, their impact reverberated even beyond breaking’s original African American constituency.

Breaking as a Bridge By the summer of 1977, hip-hop’s influence was spreading beyond the Bronx into nearby areas such as Harlem and Mount Vernon, with even some disco DJs gravitating toward hip-hop music.21 Rapping and turntablism were also beginning to mature, with the innovations of figures like Flash and his MCs, which included b-boys such as Melle Mel and Scorpio, drawing even more audience attention. And, although the crowds at hip-hop parties were still overwhelmingly African American, the growing popularity of the scene was attracting other ethnicities as well. However, before discussing the dance’s adoption during this period, it is important to reiterate breaking’s original demographic makeup, given the misconceptions surrounding this issue. “B-boying was going on. It was a Black thing,” insists Kevie Kev, a pioneering member of the hip-hop group The L-Brothers. “I saw no Puerto Ricans around this time. We was in the Bronx, those b-boys, they was Black and they was goin’ off! It’s a whole ‘nother rhythm.”22 Virtually every early practitioner I have come across confirms Kev’s assessment. Indeed, much of the first-hand testimony regarding breaking’s cultural background is issued in response to the mischaracterization that breaking was “a Puerto Rican entity.”23 For instance, when asked if he ever danced against Puerto Ricans, Beaver of the Lil Zulu Kings emphatically states, “No!!! No!! They came on the scene later on … like I after I [sic] got out of it.”24 Shakey Shake, an African American b-boy from the West Bronx, also explained to me that, in his early years, “you would just find the morenos [Spanish for dark-skinned] doing this dance. But, later

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on, you had the Hispanics that was liking this dance.”25 Similar responses are given when practitioners are asked about non-African American participants in hip-hop, overall. “Latinos weren’t involved in hip-hop directly that much in the early days of hip-hop,” explains Grandmaster Caz, an influential African American DJ and MC who was partners with two of the earliest Latino DJs, Disco Wiz and Charlie Chase. “Puerto Ricans was playing congas and timbales in the park while we was playing turntables.”26 That such statements are often given in response to interviewers asking about race speaks to the broader implications of breaking’s historical obfuscation. Firstly, many African American pioneers are aware that the dominant narrative in the media and academia is that breaking was created by Latinos. However, this misconception does not align with their own experiences of going to parties where both audiences and practitioners were overwhelmingly African American. In other words, their personal memories do not comport with the prevailing depictions of breaking and hip-hop history. The discomposure that results may explain why so many practitioners refrain from bringing up the issue of race at all. Instead, they tend to offer clarifications about early breaking being African American when asked about such topics by interviewers. At the same time, pioneering practitioners tend to espouse an ethos of multicultural unity when discussing breaking and hip-hop culture. Kool Herc is especially known for stating that, “Martin Luther King’s dream came in the form of hip-hop” with “little white boys, little Black girls walking together, breakdancing together, rapping together, making clothes together, doing business together.”27 Such statements are reminiscent of the “beloved community” ideology of the civil rights movement of Herc’s youth, as well as the messages of prominent funk and soul artists from the late 1960s and early 1970s. Another quote that Herc regularly cites when espousing what he calls the “we thing” of hip-hop is funk singer Baby Huey’s declaration that, “There’s three kinds of people in this world. There’s Black people, white people, and then there’s my people.”28

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In this regard, it should be remembered that leading funk artists regularly professed multicultural aspirations, as when Sly Stone sang about “different strokes for different folks” and “we got to live together” in his hit single “Everyday People” (1968), or when James Brown sang about “the long-haired hippies and the Afro Blacks / can all get together across the tracks / And they party” in his “Get on the Good Foot” single (1972). Of course, the following passage from the famous b-boy anthem “It’s Just Begun” (1972) by the Jimmy Castor Bunch also speaks to such transcendent sentiments: “Peace will come / this world will rest / once we have / Togetherness.” Given the prevalence of such messaging in the funk movement that hip-hop came from, it should come as no surprise that pioneers continue to champion such principles. When comparing his experiences in writing and hip-hop with the segregation he saw growing up in the Bronx, PHASE 2 also celebrated the fact that “this art brings all of the cultures here together as one,”29 while GrandMixer DXT pointed to hip-hop’s remarkable reach around the globe as a testament to its humanistic character. “The hip-hop culture is universal,” he insisted during a panel at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum in 1999. “There are no color lines.”30 At the same time, this inclusive ethos among pioneers is coupled with an equally strong penchant for correcting misconceptions surrounding breaking history. For instance, the following unpublished poem by PHASE 2 indicated his strong desire to affirm the dance’s beginnings without sacrificing its inclusivity. LET’S TAKE IT BACK EARLY 70’S JACK DJ’S BLACK NEIGHBORS BLACK B-BOYS DESTROY MORE BLACK, BLACK, BLACK PARTY PEOPLE BLACK

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HEARTY PEOPLE BLACK EVERYBODY FOR A FACT BLACK NOW THIS ISN’T SAID TO DISMISS ANY GENERATION THAT CAME INTO THE MIX AFTER THE ORGINALS DID JUST GIVE THE CREDIT WHERE IT’S DUE, FROM ITS BIRTH RESPECT OUR HISTORY STRICTLY FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH31 As can be seen, PHASE 2 was unambiguous in characterizing early b-boys as Black, but he coupled this with an equally strong emphasis on not dismissing those who came later. The core of his assessment is not racial exclusivity but, rather, historical reality and “giv[ing] the credit where it’s due,” not unlike choreographers on Tik Tok today who call for the proper acknowledgment of Black contributors. In an interview posted online, pioneering DJ and early b-boy Breakout likewise maintains that the “originators” of breaking were all African American but follows this up with an acknowledgment that, “When the Spanish people took over they went to another level with it.”32 Such testimonies delineate the dance’s evolution and contextualize subsequent contributions to the form, rather than treating historical origins as a zero-sum game of ethnic entitlement. Similarly, many hip-hop pioneers have publicly stated that, although Latinos were not at Kool Herc’s early parties—despite countless authors erroneously claiming they were33—their eventual involvement added a great deal to the movement’s expansion. This nuancing of the ethnic makeup of hiphop’s early years is meant to illustrate how the culture evolved and overcame obstacles, especially in regard to interethnic communication during the late 1970s.34 Herc himself has spoken about being positively surprised by Latinos who began attending his events at the turn of the decade, stating how it was “good” to suddenly see “another element of the neighborhood” involved in the scene.35 Unfortunately, most hip-hop historians have overlooked this

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gradual expansion of the culture and, instead, put forward a one-dimensional story of original co-creation. What is especially missing from this misguided framework is the aesthetic transformation that breaking underwent as it passed through various communities and cultural contexts. As indicated in Kevie Kev’s above quote, early African American practitioners had “a whole ‘nother rhythm” when they danced; and, as Breakout suggested, Latinos “went to another level with it” when they adopted the form. These shifts, both at the level of movement and meaning, are glossed over when scholars assume that breaking was either “an expressive form associated with Puerto Rican youth”36 or a product of cultural “cross-fertilization.”37 Instead, as has been argued throughout this book, these practices emerged from a distinctly working-class African American tradition and were later adapted and modified by subsequent communities. And just as African Americans refashioned the cultural resources within their community when creating breaking, subsequent practitioners brought in new approaches and outlooks informed by their own ethnic backgrounds. In addition, contrary to the widespread misconception that African Americans and Latinos existed in harmony with one another in New York during the 1970s, many practitioners recall a climate of racial distance, and even tension, exhibited between these two communities. For instance, much like Herc’s early experience in East Tremont, pioneering Latino DJ Disco Wiz describes having racist encounters with not only whites but also people of color in his neighborhood. “Blacks and Latinos were not united,” he wrote in his autobiography, “so not only were [Grandmaster] Caz and I about to become pioneers of the Hip Hop game, we were becoming pioneers in our own neighborhoods.”38 In this way, Wiz saw his involvement in hip-hop as a challenge to the prevailing status quo. “We were showing people that it was all right for Blacks and Latinos to share a bond of brotherhood and we both took a lot of shit for it,” he explained.39 In nearby Spanish Harlem, African American aerosol artist and DJ Kay Slay similarly remembered Latinos being

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antagonistic toward breaking when it first began. “Look at these Morenos cleaning up the floor,” he recalled people in his building saying when they danced, adding that Latinos would throw eggs out of their windows at people breaking in the local courtyard. In turn, African Americans would hurl wet tissues at musicians who played bongos and Latino percussion outside.40 Kay Slay relayed such episodes as an illustration of the rifts that existed at the time, which he proudly credited hip-hop for overcoming. Early Latino hip-hop dancer Jorge “Popmaster Fabel” Pabon similarly describes ethnic tension in Spanish Harlem when he first got involved in hip-hop. There was a time when there was some racial tension. Certain Black folks would look at us and say, “Pssh, why you trying to do our thing?” And then there were times where we would dis ourselves, like “Why you trying to do that cocolo thing?” And then we had our parents, the older generation, older sisters and brothers saying, “Why you dressing like a cocolo? Why you want to be like them?” Man, it was hard.41 Given the prevalence of such testimonies, it is clear that breaking did not simply emerge out of the so-called melting pot of New York City. Instead, the inclusivity exhibited by hip-hop’s founders was, in many ways, an exception to the generally strained state of ethnic relations during this period. In his early study of hip-hop, Hager emphasizes the alternative that breaking provided for young people living in these environments, writing that the dance served as a bridge in the Bronx “during a time when communication between blacks and Puerto Ricans was somewhat limited.”42 Hip-hop promoter Michael Holman also noted how breaking brought segmented communities together for the first time, while also maintaining that the “missing link” between the African American founders of the dance and their Puerto Rican successors “has never been explained.” How and when did the young Puerto Rican Breakers of New York today pick up the art from the older Black breakdancers of the 70s? Who are the

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people that were involved? How did the moves change from simple floor exercise footwork, sweeps and comedy to the more acrobatic gyroscopic backspins, headspins and 1990 moves of the future?43 It is important to realize that these important questions are left unanswered when the dance’s history is collapsed into a simple narrative of cross-cultural fusion. Accordingly, my examination of the “missing link” between African American and Latino breakers below is meant to nuance how breaking’s aesthetics and ethnic makeup eventually expanded, as well as how the dance provided an outlet for young people to come together in New York during the late 1970s.

Out into the Open As has been discussed throughout this study, one of the most important aspects of the jook continuum in which breaking developed was its insulation from dominant society. The small, independent venues where Herc threw his parties were generally beyond the bounds of state regulation, adult supervision, or disco-oriented notions of sophistication. It was in these more autonomous environments that a movement with its own sociocultural rules and values was allowed to develop. Once a critical mass of followers coalesced around this movement, its practices were made more visible through outdoor events and community gatherings. And it was in these transitory moments of public exposure that the alternative values embodied in breaking began attracting adherents beyond its original demographic. “Everything, all the breaking and stuff, was considered underground until Kool Herc brought everything out into the open,” states Trac 2, a wellknown early Latino b-boy. “All the in-house, all the hallway dancers and all the house party dancers were brought out to the street. And the more they took it to the street, the more nationalities got involved in it. It was no

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longer an Afro-American thing.”44 BOM 5, a well-known Latino b-boy and writer affiliated with groups such as The Bronx Boys and, later, Rock Steady Crew, similarly recalled seeing Herc for the first time when he brought his music outdoors to Cedar Park. “I never went to the party,” he relayed when asked about his hip-hop beginnings. “I went to the park jam because you had to be older to go to the house party or inside anywhere.” He went on to explain that he found out about these parties from his mentor, pioneering African American b-boy El Dorado Mike. “Just to see these original b-boys that rocked mostly on top and did routines and stuff, was kind of dope,” BOM 5 remembered. “It just opened my eyes to everything.”45 By expanding into more public arenas in the late 1970s, hip-hop allowed its jook-based expressions to resonate with Latino youth living in these same working-class neighborhoods. However, even prior to this expansionary period of the dance, there were a small number of Latinos associated with hip-hop. Yet they tended to be mostly darker complexioned individuals who passed as Black, to the point that many of their peers did not even know that they were Latino. Just as Kool Herc assimilated into the African American community upon arriving from Jamaica—with many hip-hoppers at the time being unaware of his Jamaican background46—the earliest Latino breakers subsumed themselves within local African American culture. Like Herc, they did not necessarily hide their ethnicity but neither did they call much attention to it. For instance, the Shaka Zulus breaking group had a member named Angelo “Angel” Rodriguez who is said to have been “a black Puerto Rican” that “didn’t look Spanish,”47 while the Rock City Crew had Carlos “Charlie Rock” Ortiz (not to be confused with Cholly Rock from the Zulu Kings), whose acquaintances jokingly said “fooled” them by not telling them about his Latino background.48 Early rapper Whipper Whip also reportedly asked members of his group, The Fantastic Five, “not to tell the world he was Puerto Rican, ‘cause he felt they would accept him in a different way.”49

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These examples illustrate how conceptualizations of race and ethnicity affected hip-hop’s formation, even within ethnically mixed neighborhoods. Many darker-skinned Latinos were essentially better able to blend in at early hip-hop parties and, as a result, avoid the potentially negative perceptions of racial difference occurring around them. On the other hand, pioneering DJ Disco Wiz—who is relatively lighter-skinned and, thus, more noticeably Latino—described feeling conspicuous at early hip-hop parties and facing animosity from some within the scene. A couple of times I’d be going to a club with Caz and I’d be carrying records and the guy [the bouncer, an African American] would have a stupid look on his face, like, ‘Fuck, it’s a Spanish guy.’ And Caz would say, ‘That’s my fucking DJ!’ That’s how it was.50 When breaking began to gain exposure through park jams and communitybased events, these issues of visibility and difference affected Latino breakers, as well. “I know for a fact that when I went to some parts, it was rare to see a Puerto Rican dancer breaking,” says Jojo, a founding member of the Rock Steady Crew. “And when they did it was like, ‘Oh shit, check out the Puerto Rican B-Boy,’ you know?”51 Given the African American background of the dance, many participants were initially taken aback by seeing visibly Latino practitioners break. “There wasn’t really too many of us out there,” explained Jojo in another interview, “so, when they seen one of us dance it was a big thing.”52 Depending on the region and context, reactions toward Latino dancers would be expressed in everything from backlash and ridicule to positive feedback and support. However, judging from the testimony of early Latino practitioners, most African American pioneers seemed to have been generally receptive to the former’s involvement. Indeed, virtually everyone I have encountered credits an African American pioneer for teaching them how to break: BOM 5 lists El Dorado Mike, PHASE 2, Sisco Kid, and Beaver as his b-boy mentors;53 Batch, a founder of The Bronx Boys, is said to have been

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introduced to breaking from a “Black kid” named Tee Tee Rock;54 Jojo first learned basic footwork and floor-based transitions from an African American in his junior high school named Mark White;55 and Willie Will and Trac 2 learned the dance from friends who were taught by the Zulu Kings.56 Such transmissions of knowledge proved essential for those who took an interest in the dance, helping ameliorate their concerns over race, facilitate their adoption of breaking, and form new bonds of friendship in the borough. However, even among these early adopters, there was some apprehension toward performing a dance coded as Black. The potential for being stigmatized as “Other” within an unfamiliar milieu, or a “traitor” to one’s own culture, seems to have been significant obstacles for many Latinos in those early years. For instance, Lucky Strike, a Latino gang member who became a b-boy in the late 1970s, described the anxiety he felt when going to his first Kool Herc party. I felt awkward because that was the first place I ever been to that was Black and at that time I was down with the Savage Skulls. That day I wanted to just experience and go have a party with a couple of friends. I felt weird because people were looking at me. I looked pale and weird to them (laughs). As the night went on there was no beef. No nothing. So I felt comfortable.57 As can be seen, Lucky Strike’s concern was conditioned by his previous involvement in the mostly Latino Savage Skulls gang. “I had like this hate for Black people at that time,” he said when recalling the segregation of street life in those years. “It was so stupid.”58 However, when he saw that there was little antagonism being exhibited toward him at hip-hop parties, it drew him even closer to the movement. In other words, the dance and the music offered him an alternative approach to race relations in the Bronx, one which diverted from the divisions of his gang past. Ken Swift, a highly influential b-boy from the Rock Steady Crew, similarly described his hesitancy when he first saw “flashes” of breaking as a twelveyear-old. “I didn’t see any Latinos or Hispanics doing it,” he admitted. “So,

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I was kind of like, you know … not knowing if I should do it, believe it or not.”59 This doubt was alleviated, however, when he came across a Latino group known as the Number One Sure Shot Crew. “[T]hey inspired me more ‘cos all I saw was brothers, but when I saw Puerto Ricans I felt more comfortable about Breaking.”60 Beyond skin color, a large part of this ease had to do with knowing someone who can accompany you to the underground social environment of hip-hop events. The benefit of seeing other Latinos also provided a sense of camaraderie and meaning to aspiring breakers, allowing them to assimilate more comfortably into these social settings. In turn, even some Bronxites who were positioned as white—such as Mr. Freeze of the Rock Steady Crew, who is of Franco-Jewish descent, and the Eastside Juniors crew from the North Bronx, who are described as a “group of white b-boys”61—adopted breaking during the late 1970s. Beyond skin color and social acceptance, another barrier Latino practitioners had to overcome dealt with breaking’s stigma of unorthodox expression. Just as African American disco adherents derided the lack of “sophistication” within breaking, many in the Latino community objected to the dance’s sporadic movements on the floor. “My parents and other adults used to call B-Boying ‘dania ropa’ [wash your clothes],” says Trac 2, “because they thought we were ruining our clothes and we felt we were expressing ourselves.”62 Crazy Legs of the Rock Steady Crew likewise recalls being embarrassed for his family when he first saw his older brother breaking with DJ Afrika Islam. “I didn’t understand why my brother was throwing himself on the floor,”63 he explains. The dance’s penchant for seemingly frenzied movements on the ground was a radical concept for those accustomed to the more traditional upright dancing prevalent in discos at the time. B-boys and b-girls were deemed to be deviating from the norm of acceptable expression, leading many to deride the dance as lesser and crude. In turn, Latino youth who gravitated toward breaking were defying social standards through their performances, just as much as they defied

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racial divisions through their association with African Americans. It is for this reason that Imani Kai Johnson’s characterization of breaking as a manifestation of “outlaw culture” is apt, as its practitioners were certainly disrupting societal norms circulating within the Bronx. Not surprisingly, exponents of traditional propriety—both within the borough and, later, mainstream society—tended to denounce this “outlaw” practice for its perceived cultural transgressions.64 Along these same lines, numerous Latino practitioners recall being scolded by their community for allegedly abandoning their heritage. “My mom used to call me a light-skinned black, blah-blah-blah,” Mr. Wiggles, from the Rock Steady Crew, is quoted as saying. “That was just another generation. They didn’t understand.”65 MARE 139, an influential Latino aerosol artist from the late 1970s, similarly withstood criticism for adopting hip-hop fashion. “I used to have the mock necks and the shell toes, and the Pro-Keds,” he explained, “and my mom used to be, like, ‘What up? Why you want to be a Moreno?’”66 These stories demonstrate how some deemed breaking and hip-hop as an anathema to Latino culture. Those who came from families that stressed their ethnic heritage especially felt the pressure to maintain their traditional customs. However, Latino practitioners responded by emphasizing the freedom breaking gave them to tap into their heritage and introduce new steps inspired by their culture, just as African Americans had before them. “That’s the beauty of rocking to b-boying,” explains Trac 2 when reflecting on this freedom. “Because no matter where you come from, it allows each person to interpret it, keeping the essence of the dance in its context and makes it look different every time.”67 Dance scholar Halifu Osumare has also documented how breaking’s Africanist aesthetics have allowed its practitioners to adorn the dance with moves from one’s heritage, resulting in what she calls the “intercultural body” of local movements combined with breaking’s African American foundation. She argues that this openness to creativity and hybridity has been central to breaking’s proliferation, suggesting that it may even offer a vision for transcending artificial boundaries

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between states and nationalities.68 Indeed, for Latino youth living in the Bronx in the late 1970s, the opportunity to maintain their culture when breaking, while also forging closer ties with their African American neighbors, proved appealing enough for them to disregard the social opposition around them and join the rapidly growing hip-hop movement.

No Cardboard, No Linoleum One of the most interesting aspects of early breaking testimony, especially as it relates to changes within the dance in the late 1970s, is the constant reference to the surfaces practitioners performed on. “When we used to go down on the floor,” explains Keith Smith of The Twins, “we didn’t get dirty. And we didn’t dance on linoleum, we didn’t dance on cardboard. We danced on the cement.”69 Cholly Rock of the Zulu Kings likewise maintains that their generation did not wear pads or lay out soft flooring when they danced. “No cardboard! None of that! Anybody who’s an original b-boy will tell you that in no uncertain terms,” he proclaims.70 Beatmaster Doc Ice also echoed this sentiment when he wrote that you had to “pick the little shards of glass out of your hands when you came up” from breaking in the mid- to late-1970s. We broke everywhere in schools, playgrounds, gyms, clubs, halls, centers, everywhere. There was no plastic moldings or anything on the ground in the parks to save you from injury. Everything was steel, wood, aluminum and the ground was concrete, asphalt and tar. All that other stuff came later.71 At first glance, such statements may seem like a “when I was your age” lament about the relative hardship earlier breakers faced. It may also be interpreted as a rejoinder to yet another myth in hip-hop studies: the notion that breaking developed from youth “reappropriating” scraps of linoleum and cardboard on street corners.72 However, what I have found in my research is that such

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statements are often made to explain how Latino youth transformed the aesthetics of breaking at the turn of the decade. The central argument is that the dynamic spins and full-body maneuvers introduced by this community were a result of the greater access to conducive flooring that they had. “That linoleum made all the difference because it allowed them to do that head spinning,” said Cholly Rock in reference to groups such as Rock Steady Crew. “We weren’t able to do that on the concrete and were [sic] weren’t thinking about doing it.”73 Yet, as with other speculations about breaking history, this argument does not hold up when examined according to first-hand testimony. For instance, Latino breakers did not dance on cardboard and linoleum until the early 1980s,74 when moves such as the headspin, backspin, and other fullbody spins were already in wide circulation. Indeed, many of these moves were developed in the late 1970s by both African Americans and Latinos who did not have the benefit of padded dancefloors. For instance, in Hager’s early study, a well-known Latino b-boy from the Bronx named Willie Will is quoted as saying that he learned to break from the Zulu Kings, who he says performed “footwork, headspins, backspins” on rough surfaces. “We used to break on the concrete in Belmont Park. If you did a backspin, you’d only spin around once or twice,”75 he is quoted as saying. Other Latino b-boys such as Jojo similarly insist that, originally, “Rock Steady came from the bumps and bruises we sustained from hitting the floor, ‘cause we didn’t use cardboard then.”76 In the DVD extras of the documentary The Freshest Kids (2002), Trac 2 also stated that “breaking was done on concrete with no cardboard” back then, adding that several acrobatic movements such as the headspin and chair freeze were developed by African American b-boys such as Swain and Robby Rob from the Zulu Kings, respectively. Therefore, the idea that the Rock Steady Crew introduced acrobatic spinning—which is commonly referred to today as “power moves”—on linoleum in the 1980s is not borne out by publicly available testimony. Instead, just as with their predecessors, younger practitioners who came of age during the late 1970s enacted their creativity

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through adding more daring movements as part of their drive to carve out their own identity. And, as in the past, such moves were cultivated in hallways, community centers, schoolyards, indoor clubs, and concrete pavements—not on cardboard or linoleum (figure 6.2). Nevertheless, the consistent espousal of the “no cardboard, no linoleum” theory by early breakers exemplifies an awareness that the dance’s vocabulary shifted quite dramatically by the late 1970s. The speculation surrounding this shift, however, stems mainly from the fact that earlier breakers moved on from the dance by the time Latinos and younger African Americans became involved in it. “[W]e were done by 1978,” admits Cholly Rock in reference to his cohort of the Zulu Kings and their contemporaries such as The Twins and Clark Kent. Like their burning and breaking predecessors, these b-boys and b-girls began distancing themselves from breaking as they approached the end of their adolescence. “[W]e got older, plus you’re not going to keep spinning around on the floor, so it kind of went on hiatus,” he concludes.77

FIGURE 6.2  Unknown breakers posing on Fox Street in the South Bronx, mid1980s. ©Ricky Flores.

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Because of this, many practitioners from the mid-1970s never saw how the next generation of breakers innovated the form. Instead, they relied on mediated depictions of cardboard-wielding breakers from the 1980s to speculate about its evolution. Interestingly, what is revealed when demystifying such speculation is how much breaking continued to be shaped by the formation of adolescent identity. As can be seen in many other forms of popular dance,78 breaking was an exclusively teenage activity in the late 1970s, with practitioners expected to leave it behind when they reached adulthood. The resulting turnover meant that younger dancers embodied an age-specific identity through its performance. While older practitioners may have considered it “uncool” or “improper” to continue breaking, younger dancers were given room to take ownership of the form, instill their own cultural influences within it, and innovate new movements out of what had come before. The aesthetic shifts that resulted— including more dynamic spins, poses, and prolonged floor movements using the entire body (not just the hands and feet)—had to do mainly with this cultivation of symbolic creativity, not the utilization of linoleum or cardboard. It is also important to reiterate that African Americans who distanced themselves from breaking during this period did so because of what they perceived to be age-appropriate behavior, not cultural abandonment, as it has been suggested in some hip-hop studies.79 In fact, Latino practitioners who picked up the dance in the late 1970s similarly stopped breaking by the time they reached adulthood in the early- to mid-1980s.80 For instance, Hager points out how many early Latino b-boys “felt they were too old to continue rolling around on concrete, getting skin cuts and tearing their clothes”81 when he met them in the mid-1980s. Just as early Latino adopters relay how their predecessors considered breaking played out, those who were at the forefront of breaking’s commercialization regularly spoke about their mentors having quit the dance. This demonstrates how social attitudes confined breaking within a particular age range in its early years, further encouraging younger b-boys and b-girls to

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develop their own sense of identity through its performance. “If my self-esteem was real low, I probably would’ve never been a dancer,” explains Jojo when describing how older practitioners distanced themselves from breaking. “Not to dis the brothers but they started downplaying something that we loved,” he says. However, he and his young friends were able to overcome these hurdles as they developed camaraderie among each other. “We got bigger, better, stronger” is how he characterizes their perseverance in the face of practitioner turnover.82 Young women also continued to play a considerable role in breaking as it expanded ethnically during this period. For example, b-girls such as Bambi from The Bronx Girls have insisted that breaking was “a mixture of boys and girls” in the late 1970s. “Of course, there was always more boys but there was a big, large group of girls.”83 Journalist Cristina Veran echoed this sentiment when highlighting prominent Latina b-girls such as Mama Maribel, Sunkist Evie, and Bunny Lee. “While never as great in number as their b-boy counterparts,” she wrote, “a few brave girls began stepping out from the sidelines as well.”84 Indeed, there were also b-girls such as Wanda Gonzalez, who is said to have been “bad at breakdancing” and served as the founder of The Mexican Crew breaking group.85 Shakey Shake also recalled seeing young women breaking at parties and formal dance contests during this period,86 while another African American b-boy named Pee Wee Dance insisted that it was acceptable for girls to enter breaking circles at parties back then. “Things weren’t about ‘me,’ ‘me,’ ‘me,’” he told me regarding the inclusivity of the dance. “We turned the ‘m’ around and made it about ‘we.’”87 Indeed, even in the early 1980s, as breaking gained mainstream exposure, all-female breaking groups such as the ethnically diverse Dynamic Dolls, an offshoot of the Dynamic Breakers from Queens, New York, began to perform professionally.88 In this way, young women continued to figure prominently within breaking circles, even as it expanded beyond the Bronx. While their predecessors may have moved on from the dance, it is important to reiterate that younger members of the African American community

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continued to break during the late 1970s and early 1980s period, as well. For example, Frosty Freeze, an African American b-boy from Manhattan’s Rock City Crew, was breaking well into the early 1980s, helping popularize the dance with his subsequent group, the Rock Steady Crew. “[M]y crew had just stopped,” stated Freeze in reference to Rock City, “but, like I always used to go down if I see anybody else go down, cuz it was played out to me, but then again it was still in me.”89 Indeed, the Rock Steady Crew itself is said to have been co-founded by an African American b-boy named Jimmy Dee and a Latino practitioner named Jimmy Lee, exemplifying the ethnic interaction that was taking place during the late 1970s. Lil Boy Keith of the Zulu Kings also explains that there were several African American DJs still catering to breaking when hip-hop began gravitating toward rapping, turntablism, and newer social dances in the late 1970s. Other dances came out like The Freak … stuff like that but Breakdancing really never went nowhere. If you went to those places where they would start to do all these other dances you probably thought breakdancing had gone somewhere but I always went to places where people was breakdancing. I went to a lot of block parties, talent shows … stuff like that … there were still a lot of DJs that were DJing outside … like Theodore or Flash … so we always had something to do and some place to go to … I mean we would also break at house parties. Dancing was always our thing, it kept us out of trouble.90 By dancing together in clubhouses, basements, schoolyards, parks, and community centers, many younger members of these communities broke down ethnic divisions in the Bronx. Their affinity for a shared expressive practice helped cultivate a sense of solidarity, even as they competed in heated exchanges. “When the Hispanics started getting down,” recalls Shakey Shake, “we were all growing up on the same block, same hood. So, everybody is now doing this dance.”91 Frosty Freeze also stated that there would be competitions

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“between the Blacks and the Spanish trying to outdo each other, from either playing sports or to this dance thing.”92 Rather than spurring antagonism, however, such battles reinforced a common, albeit loosely defined, competency in the format and vocabulary of the dance. This helped forge a new sense of respect, community, and reciprocity. “I hung out with a lot of my Black friends in school but, when the school year was over, they would go their way, we would go our way,” said Trac 2, when recalling his interactions with African Americans prior to hip-hop. “But when these jams were happening more and more often, in park jams and schoolyard jams, it allowed us to come together.”93 Hip-hop parties helped facilitate a form of interethnic dialogue that did not necessarily exist in other avenues of life, a process that has similarly been repeated through breaking’s global expansion.94 By serving as a forum for exchange, breaking became the central conduit through which large numbers of Latinos began making their way into hip-hop, helping boost the movement’s overall expansion throughout New York. In the words of Grandmaster Caz: In ’78–79, more Latinos started migrating toward hip-hop through dancing, as b-boys. They kind of changed the whole fabric of the breakdancing thing as b-boys but it was a gradual thing as far as Puerto Ricans getting involved into hip-hop.95

Changing with the Times In addition to the age-specific identity embodied by these new breakers, the evolving sonic landscape of hip-hop also had a profound effect on how practitioners from the late 1970s “changed the whole fabric of the breakdancing thing.” As mentioned above, DJ Flash, who took on the title of “Grandmaster” around 1978, extended Herc’s Merry-Go-Round technique by synchronizing breakbeats on his turntables. This made it possible for the

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percussive sections of records to now be played without interceding vocals or melodies, and for turntables to be used as instruments through manipulative scratching techniques. As MCs recited more complex rhymes over these instrumentations—advancing the earlier microphone incantations of Kool Herc, Coke La Rock, and others—breakers also employed more dynamic movements to match the music’s intensity. “As a b-boy in the 70s, scratching helped build our creativity”96 is how Trac 2 explained the reciprocal relationship between music and movement in his era. “When the DJ changed the pace of the music, we changed our dancing and that helped build our creativity.” Accordingly, musical choices continued to shape what happened on the dancefloor and vice versa. The climactic “get down” part—which was now being looped more precisely and repeatedly— compelled breakers to develop extended steps, shuffles, and combinations in their crouched-down footwork patterns. Again, many of these combinations built on the existing vocabulary of the dance, making it more daring and acrobatic with each new wave of practitioners. For example, moves such as the “swipe” developed out of the sweep, as dancers gradually began lifting their legs off the ground to do an about turn with their torso when swinging their legs. Practitioners began elevating the move even higher during the late 1970s by extending their hips into the air when doing the swipe, pushing up into semi-handstands as they rotated. As dancers lifted their bodies in the air, some began exploring dynamic spins on their hands in an upside down position, as well. According to Trac 2, the unique hand placement of a chair freeze, where a dancer’s torso rests on the back of their elbow as their legs extend into a bridge in one direction and their head grips the floor in the other, was also an essential addition to breaking’s evolution. By serving as a fulcrum for the body, creating a human tripod structure, this position provided a pivot point through which floor rotations such as the “track,” elevated spins such as the “hand glide,” and, most famously, the continuous backspin (popularly known as a “windmill”) were able to develop.97 Many of

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these movements were also made possible by younger practitioners who did not have qualms with placing their backs, shoulders, or head on the floor, in addition to their hands and feet. As breaking’s infrastructure compounded in this fashion, many younger adherents formalized these movements into concentrated acrobatic combinations, rather than pursuing the humor, character, and story telling that fueled the dance in its early years. In addition, the looped breakbeats that came to the fore in this era helped younger practitioners “add more flava to something that already existed.”98 However, this did not mean that b-girls and b-boys took more time when they danced. Instead, they concentrated their performances into shorter bursts of intense, dynamic displays, matching the quick mixing of DJs looping beats on turntables. For instance, rather than dance for the entire duration of a song, which was common at Kool Herc parties, practitioners would now dance in a circle for less than a minute, conserving their energy for more difficult feats and match the shorter fragments of music being rotated. Consequently, the upright dancing of breaking (commonly referred to today as “top rocking”) began to recede into the background. Ken Swift of the Rock Steady Crew affirms how his generation began focusing more on floor-based sequences, rather than upright dancing during this period. “Ninety five percent of what you did in breaking was on the floor,” he explains, adding that he incorporated a brief, forward-lunging two-step when he started because a mentor told him it “was just something you had to do.”99 Although practitioners continued to dance on their feet—with some even incorporating stylistic flourishes from salsa and other Latin dance styles—they did so mainly out of a regard for the bodily blueprint of breaking. As discussed in Chapter 3, this blueprint consisted of a steady sequence of upright dancing prior to the execution of more explosive movements, which was dictated by the ebb and flow of funkbased music. However, once the soundtrack of the dance shifted through turntable innovations, the intricacy and variety of such dancing became less and less of a priority. As the years went on, especially as breaking moved into

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the commercialized period of the 1980s, this emphasis on musicality dissipated even further. “To me, a top rock is a two-step that never lasts more than three seconds before you go down”100 is how Alien Ness, a Bronx-based Latino b-boy from the 1980s, summarizes his era’s approach. In contrast, founding African American b-boys and b-girls placed a premium on rhythmic dancing from the beginning to end of their performances, to the point that even virtuosic moves were deemed a supplement to upright steps done to the beat. “You had to dance on time or if you did a stutter step you had to bring it back to time,” writes Beatmaster Doc Ice when discussing how “original breakers” were not “just doing moves and acrobatics.”101 PHASE 2 similarly stated that upright dancing was like an “art form” for his generation. “Now it’s kind of lost. You see guys saying they’re topping but they’re not really putting that energy into it.”102 Such comments reflect an awareness among pioneers of a considerable aesthetic, and perhaps cultural, shift within the dance, reminiscent of the above comments regarding the absence of linoleum in their era. However, it is my contention that, in addition to the cultural norms and outlooks of younger Latino practitioners in the late 1970s, the concentration of looped breakbeats in hip-hop music during this period had a dramatic effect on the increasingly floor-based focus of the dance. Nevertheless, although earlier practitioners seem discontent with some of these changes, they generally do not deride those who transformed breaking at the turn of the decade. Instead, they express appreciation, and even admiration, for those who carried the form forward. “They took it [breaking] to the next level for sure,” stated Grandmaster Flash in a 1993 interview. “It died for a while then it came back and it was this new acrobatic, gymnastic type of style.”103 PHASE 2—who later co-founded the influential New York City Breakers group—also praised Latinos for contributing to breaking. “I would have to be blind in the ‘80s not noticing that the Latin kids were on some next ish [sic],” he explained to me. “It was surprising.”104 Beatmaster Doc Ice characterizes this transition as overwhelmingly positive when he writes that “a whole new crop of younger,

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acrobatic, mostly Latino brothers took it [breaking] and ran with it. It was time.”105 Kool Herc also insists that, “The Puerto Ricans carried breakdancing,”106 while GrandMixer DXT credits them for rejuvenating the dance. The Puerto Rican community kicked in on the dance part and brought it back. Brought it back big. They did their thing. They brought new moves to the dance … It came from just uprocking and jumping down, and coming back up, and putting your hand in the face—to spinning on your head.107 These comments illustrate the transcendent outlook many early practitioners held toward breaking and hip-hop’s adoption. The differing ethnic background of those who became involved did not deter pioneers from recognizing their talents and contributions. Nor did the open-ended structure of breaking fluctuate according to the ethnic makeup of its practitioners. Instead, the alterity of the dance was manifested in its ongoing emphasis on youth identification, individualized expression, and a commitment to the broader tenets of the hip-hop movement. This framework was passed down from one generation to the next and continued to encourage innovation according to the values of its youth-based constituency. That breaking was tied to a broader community of independent events, shared musical tastes, and self-governing principles only reinforced this ethos of inclusivity and going beyond the norm. Indeed, it was this openness to new practitioners and community that drew Latino youth closer to the dance in the first place, helping eventually change and disseminate its aesthetics around the world.

Growing Pains By the time breaking appeared in the mainstream media in 1981, the dance had already undergone a decade of development in the Bronx and surrounding areas. At that point, it had become multicultural, with ethnically Latino,

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African American, and even some white and Asian participants taking part in its performance.108 Unfortunately, overreliance on media depictions from this period—coupled with a general neglect of those who wrote about its African American pioneers109—has led to an obfuscation of breaking’s formative years of development. More crucially, it has led to the invisibilization of the dance’s African American founders. Contrary to the claim that breaking emerged from “diverse origins”110 or a “polycultural social construct,”111 the above testimony from early practitioners demonstrates that perceptions of racial difference affected how Bronx residents interacted with one another. In turn, such perceptions affected breaking’s expansion in the late 1970s, with virtually all Latino pioneers describing their ambivalence toward adopting a form coded as Black. Nevertheless, the alternative, working-class, youth-based aesthetics of the form resonated with these practitioners, to the point that they were willing to defy social opposition to take part in them. Much like their African American predecessors, they came together with like-minded peers in the face of social disapproval to build a sense of common identity, belonging, and resilience through the dance. In addition, the jook-based institutions in which breaking developed provided its practitioners with an independent environment where they could cultivate their creativity and build social bonds. Rather than subscribe to dominant notions of racial division, these jook spaces encouraged participants to embody more inclusive values and aesthetics. Just as b-girls and b-boys danced back against notions of “legitimate” performance, so too did they dance back against prevailing notions of racial difference. Indeed, the multicultural ethos of hip-hop first saw large-scale enactment through the influx of Latino breakers in the late 1970s. This demonstrates the critical role dancing played in not only the musical and organizational development of hip-hop but also its sociocultural makeup. The transcendent appeal of moving together to music and exercising symbolic creativity made breaking a rare and appealing outlet

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for young people during this period, helping mend racial divisions in New York, at least within the underground confines of the hip-hop movement. Taking these complex cultural dynamics into account is crucial for understanding breaking’s history, as well as its ongoing appeal to young people around the world. Indeed, many scholars have documented how, like the Bronx of the late 1970s, most countries who adopted hip-hop did so through the introduction of breaking in the 1980s, not necessarily rap music.112 Such developments raise important questions regarding the relationship between music and movement in hip-hop history, as well as their implications for notions of social and cultural identity. As scholar Mary Fogarty has shown, DJs and dancers have continued to work together to develop “imagined affinities” through their shared cultural tastes in breaking communities throughout the world.113 Similarly, dance scholar Halifu Osumare has argued that “connective marginality” has been the driving force of the underground hip-hop movement internationally, with young people gravitating toward the emancipatory appeal of its Africanist aesthetics.114 For these reasons, whether in regard to the crosscultural interaction or the impact of dancing on musical innovations, it is essential to incorporate greater discussion of hip-hop’s embodied expressions when examining both the culture’s past and present proliferation.

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Epilogue: Back to the Beginning

Following Sally Banes’ 1981 feature on breaking in The Village Voice,1 the downtown New York art scene became fascinated with what they deemed to be this radical new “street dance.” The group that appeared in Banes’ article, the Rock Steady Crew, were subsequently invited to perform at local bastions of avant-garde art, such as The Kitchen, and nightclubs such as The Ritz, Negril, and Studio 54. Independent filmmakers also began capturing footage of the dance at local clubs and community-based venues, while impresarios and modern dance choreographers began booking breakers for shows. By 1983, Hollywood caught up to the growing interest in the dance and featured a sequence from the Rock Steady Crew in Paramount Pictures’ blockbuster hit Flashdance (1983). What followed was an avalanche of media coverage, advertisements, movies, tours, and music videos featuring breaking, helping spread the form throughout North America and the entire world.2 As Banes herself would later write, “By 1984 only a hermit could not have known about breaking” [italics in the original].3 But just as quickly as these institutions had embraced breaking, they discarded the dance as a trend whose time had passed. By 1985, both the downtown art scene and the entertainment industry lost interest in the form

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and began focusing on other expressions they deemed to be more fashionable. With media attention subsiding, members of the Rock Steady Crew and other groups earning money from the dance moved on to other activities. Like their predecessors in the Bronx, they felt they were too old to continue taking part in a dance that was no longer reaping them economic benefits. Meanwhile, hip-hop adherents took on newer social dances that were emerging outside of the scope of the media and mainstream institutions.4 In Europe, however, those who had seen breaking on television and in movies kept the dance going for a more prolonged period. They continued to innovate new movements during the late 1980s and began organizing formal competitions such as the well-known Battle of the Year event held in Hanover and Celle, Germany.5 Some of these practitioners also took pilgrimages to New York to meet the dancers who had inspired them. By the early 1990s, a new generation of practitioners had begun to emerge in the United States, as well, with many of them being reinvigorated by the European breakers who advanced the form. This new generation of b-boys and b-girls could be seen in underground hip-hop events, drum and bass raves, and independently organized battles and festivals organized by remerging groups from the 1980s, such as the Rock Steady Crew in New York and Air Force Crew in Los Angeles.6 Rather than rely on mainstream institutions, these practitioners sought to cultivate the dance independently and exchanged information with one another through media technologies such as VHS tapes and, later, the Internet, creating a transnational network of shared tastes and aesthetic practices.7 The modern international breaking scene of major competitions sponsored by the likes of Red Bull, Monster, and other corporate brands is a direct product of this grassroots movement. Yet, as was explained at the outset of this book, the invisibilization of breaking’s African American founders has not been limited to academic scholarship. It has also occurred within this modern breaking scene itself, with few practitioners, promoters, or commentators today knowing about

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the African American pioneers who founded the dance. Following the commercialization of breaking in the 1980s and its global spread in the 1990s and 2000s, most practitioners were only exposed to media and scholarly depictions of the dance’s history. As a result, rarely were African American pioneers invited to judge or speak at competitions, let alone consulted for educational initiatives or mentioned in discussions regarding the form’s aesthetics. In one of the rare occasions where a founding b-boy—in this case, GrandMixer DXT—was invited to judge a major battle, attendees were so unaware of who he was that they complained about him serving on the judging panel (figure 7.1). The event was called the Ultimate B-Boy Championship and it was held in August 2010 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada, with the cash prize for the winning team reported to be fifty thousand dollars. While the three Latino judges on the panel were described as “founders” of the dance, GrandMixer DXT was presented as merely “a special invited judge,” whose major achievement was having been the first DJ to receive a Grammy Award.8 This emphasis on his musical achievements, rather than his dance background, understandably confused competitors at the event, with the losing team even approaching DXT afterward to complain that he was not qualified to judge them. As DXT explained to me in our interview: He [member of losing team] was like, “You don’t know nothing about dancing!” I’m looking at him going, “See, he’s talking to a first-generation b-boy.” It would take too much time to explain to him that he wouldn’t even be dancing if it wasn’t for someone like me. I didn’t want to go through it cause they were being just rude and disrespectful. And they were looking like they were getting ready to jump me. So, he said, “You don’t have no moves!” So, I showed him. I just showed him. I said, “Man, I’m a b-boy. Like before you were born.” I just showed him some of my moves and they were like, “Oh shit. Okay. He actually is.”9

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This episode demonstrates the extent to which breaking’s African American founders remain undetectable to most b-boys and b-girls around the world. It was not until DXT—who was around fifty years old at the time—hit the floor and battled these competitors that they realized he was a pioneering b-boy. Several individuals who were there that day also relayed to me that DXT’s unique steps and floor combinations were unlike any they had seen before. “I did some moves to show them like, ‘Listen. For real?’” DXT confirmed to me. “And it was moves that none of them did.”10 Unfortunately, the invisibilization of breaking’s African American founders continues with the recent announcement that breaking will be featured in the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris. To my knowledge, no African American pioneers have been interviewed or quoted in any of the mainstream media reports regarding this dramatic development. Instead, journalists and

FIGURE 7.1  GrandMixer DXT, far right, judging at the Ultimate B-Boy Championship in Las Vegas, Nevada, August 6, 2010. ©Martha Cooper.

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commentators have, once again, turned to “legends” and “pioneers” from the 1980s to contextualize the dance’s history.11 The International Olympics Committee has likewise not reached out to any African American founders for consultation or involvement in the Olympics process, leaving the creators of breaking sidelined by the very individuals and institutions who have benefited from their innovations. My central aim in this study has been to counter this disturbing cycle of invisibilizing breaking’s African American founders, namely by challenging the dominant narrative that the dance was a product of ethnic “crossfertilization”12 or “an expressive form associated with Puerto Rican youth.”13 On the contrary, in its first decade of existence, the dance was an exclusively African American practice. Failing to properly acknowledge this history has barred modern practitioners from learning about breaking’s early aesthetics, values, and symbolic meanings. For instance, the lack of awareness regarding the many b-girls who developed the form in the 1970s—and even the 1980s— has led to numerous misconceptions regarding the supposed “masculine” quality of breaking, which has served as a formidable barrier to female participation today.14 Similarly, the erroneous narrative that breaking emerged from gangs in the Bronx has led many b-boys and b-girls to embody a persona of aggression in their performances, just as many rappers have adopted a narrative of criminality and violence in their lyrics.15 Such choices are not incidental but, rather, a product of the skewed conceptualizations of historical “authenticity” in hip-hop, demonstrating how narrow depictions of the past can condition outcomes in the present. Of course, the essential structure and movement vocabulary of breaking also traces its roots back to the African American community of the 1970s. When b-boys and b-girls compete in 2024 at the Paris Olympics, they will be performing forward lunging two-steps, transitioning to the floor with pin drops, executing footwork on their hands and feet, spinning in multiple

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rotations using various body parts, and carrying out other moves that were innovated by the dance’s African American pioneers in the Bronx. The musical soundtrack, terminology, emphasis on individuality, and competitive format of the dance also extend directly from this lineage. Therefore, if we want to understand breaking’s “foundation,”16 a word practitioners regularly use to refer to the movement’s vocabulary and history, we must inevitably pay attention to the African Americans who made it possible. More importantly, acknowledging the African American founders of breaking is essential if we wish to remedy the epistemic violence caused by their ongoing invisibilization. Although this requires challenging years of misinformation in hip-hop history, such reconsideration is paramount if scholars hope to understand this influential movement on its own terms—as opposed to the unreliable, and often harmful, depictions of external actors. As hip-hop pioneer PHASE 2 emphatically warned prior to his passing: From what I’ve seen, people who don’t have a clue tend to stretch their imagination and theoretics far beyond what the actual factual reality is. Such is the case in almost everything written in hip-hop’s so-called ‘history.’ … With hip-hop, it’s some Tarzan-of-the-Jungle type nonsense, with a tinge of the butcher Christopher Columbus tossed in. We already know what came after that. The way I see it, it’s like time is repeating itself in a different way. As opposed to the hip-hop masses being wiped out, the integrity of its reality and past is being raped and massacred.17 Only by heeding such warnings and questioning hip-hop’s dominant discourse can we hope to prevent the disturbing cycle of erasure from “repeating itself in a different way” in the future. In addition, it is only through such questioning that researchers can gain a fuller understanding of the influences, institutions, and ideas that continue to generate new styles of hip-hop dance, music, and culture.

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“The Most Important Place in America” When I first began this study, grappling with these issues proved to be challenging. As a breaker who had been active in the community for over two decades, I felt that I had a strong sense of the dance’s history but I quickly found my assumptions being challenged by the testimony of founding African American b-boys and b-girls. Although I did not fully throw out my previous assumptions, I realized I had to adjust them and thread together new patterns of information emerging from my research. Foremost among these was my assumption that breaking had developed outdoors, in parks and street corners, as is commonly asserted. However, founding practitioners, especially figures from the early 1970s, rarely referred to breaking outside or in public places. Instead, they referred to dancing in independent clubs, house parties, community centers, dance halls, and building lobbies. Indeed, upon some simple reflection, I realized that New York’s harsh winters precluded the dance, and hip-hop more generally, from emerging as a mostly outdoor phenomenon. As I became aware of this additional contradiction in hip-hop history, I also read dance scholar Katrina Hazzard-Gordon’s seminal study on African American jook institutions. I was struck by her distinction between commercial and underground establishments within the African American community18 and, although she maintained that “black core culture is deteriorating” and that the traditional “jook continuum” of underground dance spaces had been subsumed within the “commercial urban complex”19 of officially licensed venues in the 1960s and 1970s, my research demonstrated that breaking was, in fact, steeped in a continuation of the jooks she emphasized in her writings. Not only did breaking develop in underground clubs and autonomous spaces but it was also characterized by the same working-class, Africanist traditions she identified as pivotal to core African American culture.

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As I have argued throughout this study, this jook continuum was critical to the cultivation of alternative values within the breaking scene. Herc’s youthbased, breakbeat-oriented events provided dancers a forum “where new cultural concepts can be tested free from restrictions,”20 as breaking was largely forbidden in more established discos throughout New York. In addition to developing new ways of moving, the independent confines of the hip-hop movement cultivated principles of creativity, community, and unity in the face of social constriction. In other words, these events provided an alternative environment where young people could socialize and embody values distinct from mainstream society. Had the jook continuum been subsumed within the commercial urban complex of the 1960s and 1970s, as Hazzard-Gordon maintained, breaking would likely have never developed. Furthermore, the centrality of jooks to hip-hop’s emergence pointed to the unacknowledged role of African American dancers in hip-hop history. Ignoring these early b-boys and b-girls has led to numerous misconceptions regarding the percussive soundtrack, organizational impetus, and even microphone incantations at the heart of the early culture. Many of the dominant myths pervading hip-hop history—such as the notion that Kool Herc transmuted Jamaican sound system culture to the Bronx or that Latino street drumming influenced hip-hop DJs—stem from this overall neglect of dancing in hip-hop studies, with breaking often being relegated as a backdrop to discussions of rap music. As several scholars have convincingly argued,21 this devaluing of embodied performance forms part of a broader Eurocentric tradition of ignoring the body in scholarly analysis. In turn, just as breakers at the Ultimate B-Boy Championship assumed that DXT could not be both a pioneering DJ and a b-boy, scholars of various backgrounds have neglected the dance beginnings of hip-hop’s founders. Pioneers such as Kool Herc, PHASE 2, Grandmaster Flash, Melle Mel, Sha-Rock, Grandmixer DXT, DJ Breakout, Pebblee Poo, Afrika Islam, and countless others got their start in the culture through breaking, but rarely have scholars or commentators explored this

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interconnection between music and dancing. Many subsequently influential rap artists such as Dr. Dre, Ice T, Jermaine Dupri, 2Pac, Bushwick Bill, and Common have similarly come from a hip-hop dance background. The famous “golden era of hip-hop” in the late 1980s and early 1990s was also marked by the widespread incorporation of dance groups alongside rappers: Scoob and Scrap with Big Daddy Kane, the IOU Dancers with Salt N Pepa, the IBM dancers with Nice and Smooth, Steezo and Fendi with EPMD, the Soul Brothers with Def Jeff, Kid and Play as both dancers and rappers, and so on.22 Even today, many recording artists such as Soulja Boy, Drake, Meagan the Stallion, Doja Cat, and Lil Nas X have gained viral popularity through social media dance challenges that have made their songs hits. Yet examinations of embodied movement in relation to hip-hop’s musical and artistic production continue to remain scant in the scholarly literature. Outside of the music industry, young working-class African Americans continue to develop new dance styles in a pattern akin to that of early hip-hop, as well, with the jook continuum figuring prominently in recent developments. For example, krumping evolved as a dance style in Los Angeles through the institutional channel of neighborhood gatherings, local performances, and competitions organized by a promoter named Tommy the Clown. The free form dancing he encouraged young people to perform at birthday parties and the major Battle Zone events that he organized in the early 2000s propelled dance styles such as “clowning” and krumping forward outside of the scope of the mainstream media.23 In New York, figures such as AG the Voice of Harlem similarly played a critical role in encouraging a style of dance called litefeet, which developed out of popular social dances such as the Harlem Shake, Tone Wop, and Chicken Noodle Soup in the mid- to late-2000s. During the halftime shows at basketball games and at local community gatherings, figures like AG would embolden dancers to perform their individualized moves while energizing them with clever rhymes and shout outs. These events developed an alternative sociocultural movement in many of the same areas of New York

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where breaking took hold over thirty years earlier.24 Similar developments can be seen with current dance styles such as jooking in Memphis, turfing in the Bay Area, Chicago footwork in Chicago, jitting in Detroit, and flexing in Brooklyn, all of which have expanded beyond their localities, influencing musical innovations and dance practices throughout the world. Yet this inextricable link between movement and music in hip-hop culture remains largely overlooked in mainstream depictions, leaving practitioners unacknowledged for their multiple talents and, more importantly, leaving the public unaware of how corporeal expressions have congealed with musical innovations in the jook continuum. Indeed, it should be remembered that dancing in autonomous spaces has been central to African American cultural forms such as funk, rock ‘n’ roll, jazz, and the blues, making the jook continuum a remarkably resilient historical constant that requires far more academic attention. As Zora Neale Hurston insisted as far back as 1934, “Musically speaking, the Jook is the most important place in America.”25

NOTES

Chapter 1 1

Kalhan Rosenblatt, “‘Give Credit Where It’s Due’: TikToker Speaks Out about Black Creator Strike,” NBC News, June 24, 2021, https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/ pop-culture-news/give-credit-where-it-s-due-tiktoker-speaks-out-about-n1272287

2 Ibid. 3

On recent estimates of breaking participants around the world, see “Breakdancing Has Become Big Business—and It’s Heading to the Olympics | Sunday TODAY,” YouTube video, 4:23, posted by “TODAY,” July 28, 2019, https://youtu.be/ VAmqMU6Bzf0; Sam Ball, “An Art, a Sport, a Culture’: Breakdancing to Make Olympic Debut,” France 24, August 12, 2020, https://www.france24.com/en/ sport/20201208-an-art-a-sport-a-culture-breakdancing-to-make-olympic-debut

4

Michael Holman, Breaking and the New York City Breakers (New York: Freundlich Books, 1984), 53.

5

The Freshest Kids: A History of the B-Boy, directed by Israel (2002; United States: Image Entertainment).

6

Ken Swift, “History of Dance in NY” (presentation, Hip-Hop: A Cultural Expression, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Cleveland, OH, September 11, 1999).

7

Jim Fricke and Charlie Ahearn, Yes Yes Y’all: The Experience Music Project Oral History of Hip-Hop’s First Decade (Cambridge: Da Capo Press, 2002), 112.

8

Cristina Veran, “(Puerto) Rock of Ages,” Rap Pages, September 1996, 47.

9

Dance scholar Brenda Dixon-Gottschild coined the term “invisibilization” to describe how dominant forces have historically expunged representations of Africanist influences in American modern dance practices. See her Digging the Africanist Presence in American Performance: Dance and Other Contexts (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1996), 1.

10 For a discussion of how commercial forces shifted the meaning of the term hip-hop away from its communal context of performance toward the commodified realm of the music industry, see Greg Dimitriadis, “Hip Hop to Rap: Some Implications of an Historically Situated Approach to Performance,” Text and Performance Quarterly 19, no. 4 (1999): 355–69.

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NOTES

11 Several scholars have critiqued the neglect of dance in hip-hop studies, yet research on the topic continues to remain scant. See Greg Dimitriadis, “Hip Hop: From Live Performance to Mediated Narrative,” Popular Music 15, no. 2 (May 1996): 179–94; Joseph G. Schloss, Foundation: B-Boys, B-Girls, and Hip-Hop Culture in New York (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 8–10; Thomas DeFrantz, “Hip-Hop Habitus v.2.0,” in Black Performance Theory, ed. Thomas DeFrantz and Anita Gonzalez (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014), 227; Imani Kai Johnson, “Hip-Hop Dance,” in The Cambridge Companion to Hip-Hop, ed. Justin A. Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 22; and Mary Fogarty, “The Body and Dance,” in The Routledge Reader on the Sociology of Music, ed. John Shepherd and Kyle Devine (New York: Routledge, 2015), 245–6. 12 Samir Meghelli, “Remixing the Historical Record: Revolutions in Hip Hop Historiography,” The Western Journal of Black Studies 37, no. 2 (2013): 95. 13 John Langston Gwaltney, Drylongso: A Self-Portrait of Black America (New York: Vintage Books, 1981), xxiii. 14 Danny Hoch, “Toward a Hip-Hop Aesthetic: A Manifesto for the Hip Hop Arts Movement,” in Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop, ed. Jeff Chang (New York: Basic Civitas, 2006), 351. 15 Zora Neale Hurston, “Characteristics of Negro Expression,” in Negro: An Anthology, ed. Nancy Cunard (1934; repr., New York: Frederick Ungar, 1970), 29. 16 Hazzard-Gordon put forward the historical concept of “the jook continuum,” which encompassed African American community-based dance spaces unconstrained by mainstream institutions. She differentiated these from what she called “the commercial urban complex” of African American dance spaces reliant on establishment approval and susceptible to outside influence. In other words, Hazzard-Gordon made a clear distinction between commercial and underground venues within the African American community and, like Hurston, privileged the latter by suggesting that jooks “may very well be the most significant development in American popular dance and popular music history.” Katrina HazzardGordon, Jookin’: The Rise of Social Dance Formations in African-American Culture (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990), 76. 17 Cholly Rock, interview by Michael Wayne, YouTube video, 10:46, posted by “Michael Waynetv,” October 17, 2013, https://youtu.be/EGiWxc7GUss 18 GrandMixer DXT, interview by TheBeeShine, YouTube video, 34:54, posted by “TheBeeShine,” August 19, 2013, https://youtu.be/e6NZjQLpI0Y 19 Sally Banes, “Breaking Is Hard to Do: To the Beat, Y’all,” Village Voice, April 22–8, 1981, 31. 20 Sally Banes, “Breaking,” in Fresh: Hip Hop Don’t Stop, ed. Nelson George, Sally Banes, Susan Flinker and Patty Romanowski (New York: Random House/Sarah Lazin Books, 1985), 84.

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21 Steven Hager, Hip Hop: The Illustrated History of Break Dancing, Rap Music, and Graffiti (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984), x. 22 Ibid., 89. 23 For a detailed accounting of her research experience with breaking in the early 1980s, see Sally Banes, “Breakdancing: A Reporter’s Story,” in Folklife Annual, 1986, ed. Alan Jabbour and James Hardin (Library of Congress, Washington, DC: American Folklife Center, 1987). 24 Vanessa Fleet Lakewood, “The Camera in the Cypher: High Times and Hypervisiblity in Early Hip Hop Dance,” in The Oxford Handbook of Hip Hop Dance Studies, ed. Mary Fogarty and Imani Kai Johnson (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022), 32–57. 25 Banes, “Breaking Is Hard to Do,” 31–3. 26 Joyce Mollov, “Getting the Breaks,” Ballet News 6, no. 2 (1984): 15. 27 James Haskins, Break Dancing (Minneapolis: Lerner Publications Company, 1985), 11. 28 Marty Cooper, interview by Ivor L. Miller, December 2000, Box T10, Folder 348, Ivor L. Miller Papers, Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Amherst, MA. 29 Hager, Hip Hop, 103. For a critique of this erroneous gang origin narrative, see my “Hip-Hop, Gangs, and the Criminalization of African American Culture: A Critical Appraisal of Yes Yes Y’all,” Journal of Black Studies 50, no. 3 (2019): 298–315. 30 Hager quoted in Frank Owen, “Breaking’s New Ground,” Village Voice, May 26, 1998, 62. 31 See, for example, the discussions of breaking in the two leading hip-hop studies collections: William Eric Perkins, ed., Droppin Science: Critical Essays on Rap Music and Hip Hop Culture (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996) and Murray Forman and Mark Anthony Neal, eds., That’s the Joint! The Hip Hop Studies Reader (New York: Routledge, 2004). 32 Tricia Rose, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (Hanover: Wesleyan University Press, 1994); Raquel Z. Rivera, New York Ricans from the Hip Hop Zone (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). It should also be added that most hip-hop scholars who have written about breaking have done so as a means of contextualizing rap music. For instance, Rose’s work is recognized as being the seminal academic study on hip-hop history and culture. However, she includes only about seven pages total on breaking and hip-hop dance. Rivera similarly explains that her main interest is rap music and that her discussion of breaking and hip-hop is aimed at giving rap a more well-rounded historical context. 33 See, for example, Rose, Black Noise; Rivera, New York Ricans; Jeff Chang, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation (New York: St. Martin’s Press); and Schloss, Foundation.

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NOTES

34 Robert Farris Thompson, “Hip-Hop 101,” Rolling Stone, March 27, 1986, 98. 35 Holman, Breaking and the New York City Breakers, 53–6. 36 Banes, “Breaking,” in Fresh: Hip Hop Don’t Stop, 103. 37 Rose, Black Noise, 21n4. 38 Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (New York: Verso, 1993), 103. 39 Juan Flores, “Rappin’, Writin’, & Breakin’,” Trotter Review 7, no. 2 (1993): 27–8. 40 Nelson George, Hip Hop America (New York: Penguin Books, 1993), 15–16. 41 Ibid., 57. 42 Joseph C. Ewoodzie, Break Beats in the Bronx: Rediscovering Hip-Hop’s Early Years (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017), 215n129. 43 Ibid., 133. 44 Hoch, “Toward a Hip-Hop Aesthetic” and Tony Mitchell, “Introduction: Another Root—Hip-Hop Outside the USA,” in Global Noise: Rap and Hip-Hop Outside the USA (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2001). 45 Juan Flores, “Puerto Rocks: New York Ricans Stake Their Claim,” chap. 4 in Droppin Science: Critical Essays on Rap Music and Hip Hop Culture, ed. William Eric Perkins (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), 86. 46 Rivera, New York Ricans, 67–77. 47 Mandalit Del Barco, “Rap’s Latino Sabor,” chap. 3 in Droppin Science: Critical Essays on Rap Music and Hip Hop Culture, ed. William Eric Perkins (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), 64–5. 48 Schloss, Foundation, 63. For similar complaints about the rap industry’s marginalization of Latinos, see del Barco, “Rap’s Latino Sabor,” 82, and Charla Ogaz, “Learning from B-Girls,” chap. 9 in Feminism in Popular Culture, ed. Joanne Hollows and Rachel Moseley (New York: Berg, 2006), 167. 49 For a discussion of how scholars and commentators use hip-hop history to ascribe cultural “authenticity” in modern rap music, see Anthony Kwame Harrison, “Claiming Hip Hop: Race and the Ethics of Underground Hip Hop Participation,” chap. 3 in Hip Hop Underground: The Integrity and Ethics of Racial Identification (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2009). 50 Imani Kai Johnson, “Dark Matter in B-Boying Cyphers: Race and Global Connection in Hip Hop” (doctoral dissertation, USC, 2009), 119, http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/ digital/collection/p15799coll127/id/265317 51 Schloss, Foundation, 16, 153.

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52 Ibid., 16. 53 Crazy Legs, “The Missing Link,” Rap Pages 6, November 1996, 9. 54 “Latino contributions to Hip Hop,” Instagram video, 59:58, posted by “Crazylegsbx,” July 1, 2020, https://www.instagram.com/tv/CCHup6OJkNk/. Luis “Trac 2” Mateo similarly began downplaying the role of original b-boys such as The Legendary Twins in the 2000s, and strangely claimed that a well-known contemporary of theirs named Sasa was Puerto Rican, when he is, in fact, African American. “Trac 2 Interview on the Super B-Beat Show Part 2 of 7,” YouTube video, 13:00, posted by “Superbbeatshow,” October 28, 2012, https://youtu.be/qQmIwRNtfB0 55 As suburban white audiences increasingly began buying rap records in the early 1990s, journalist David Samuels noted how the music increasingly began painting “an age-old image of blackness” defined by “a foreign, sexually charged, and criminal underworld against which the norms of white society are defined.” David Samuels, “The Rap on Rap,” The New Republic, November 11, 1991, 24–9. For a broader discussion of how working-class African American communities and their cultural expressions have historically been criminalized, see Robin D.G. Kelley, Yo’ Mama’s Disfunktional! Fightin the Culture Wars in Urban America (Boston: Beacon Press, 1997). 56 The original name given to the Smith brothers by Kool Herc and his partner Coke La Rock was, in fact, the “Ni**a Twins.” Since 2015, they have publicly disavowed this moniker due to the negative connotations associated with the n-word, preferring to go by the title of The Legendary Twins. See Chapter Four for further discussion of this name and their decision to move away from it. 57 For a comprehensive analysis of this early underground scene, see Mary Fogarty, “‘Whatever Happened to Breakdancing?’ Transnational B-Boy/B-Girl Networks, Underground Video Magazines and Imagined Affinities” (master’s thesis, Brock University, 2006), https://dr.library.brocku.ca/bitstream/handle/10464/2826/Brock_ Fogarty_Mary_2007.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y 58 Brian Josephs, “KRS-One Says Afrika Bambaataa Detractors Should ‘Quit Hip-Hop,’” SPIN, July 20, 2016, https://www.spin.com/2016/07/krs-one-afrika-bambaataaquit-hip-hop/#:~:text=CREDIT%3A%20Getty%20Images-,KRS%2DOne%20 Says%20Afrika%20Bambaataa,Should%20’Quit%20Hip%2DHop’&text=%E2%80%9CSome%20of%20us%20are%20infallible,four%20people%2C%20 that’s%20weak.%E2%80%9D 59 Chang, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop, 89. 60 Antonio T. Tiongson, Filipinos Represent: DJs, Racial Authenticity, and the Hip-Hop Nation (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013), 26. 61 Hurston, “Characteristics of Negro Expression.”

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NOTES

Chapter 2 1

Langston Hughes, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” The Nation, June 23, 1926, https://www.thenation.com/article/negro-artist-and-racial-mountain/

2

Zora Neale Hurston, “Characteristics of Negro Expression,” in Negro: An Anthology, ed. Nancy Cunard (1934; repr., New York: Frederick Ungar, 1970). Many scholars and commentators have similarly noted how African American culture has historically emanated from the working- and lower-classes. See especially Richard W. Thomas, “Working-Class and Lower-Class Origins of Black Culture: Class Formation and the Division of Black Cultural Labor,” Minority Voices 1 (1977): 81–103. See also Tony Bolden, “Groove Theory: A Vamp on the Epistemology of Funk,” American Studies 52, no. 4 (2013): 9–34; John Langston Gwaltney, Drylongso: A Self-Portrait of Black America (New York: Vintage Books, 1981); Leroi Jones, Blues People: Negro Music in White America (New York: Morrow Quill Paperbacks, 1963); Albert Murray, Stomping the Blues (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976); Katrina Hazzard-Gordon, Jookin’: The Rise of Social Dance Formation in African-American Culture (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990); Laurence W. Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978); Robin D.G. Kelley, Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class (New York: The Free Press, 1994).

3

Sam Goodman, “The Golden Ghetto: The Grand Concourse in the Twentieth Century; Part II, 1960 to the Present,” Bronx County Historical Society Journal 42, no. 2 (2005): 80–99.

4

Evelyn Gonzalez, The Bronx (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), 144, 111.

5

Goodman, “The Golden Ghetto,” 87.

6

Brian Purnell, “Desegregating the Jim Crow North: Racial Discrimination in the Postwar Bronx and the Fight to Integrate the Castle Hill Beach Club (1953–1973),” Afro-Americans in New York Life and History 33, no. 2 (2009): 47–78; Constance Rosenblum, Boulevard of Dreams: Heady Times, Heartbreak, and Hope along the Grand Concourse in the Bronx (New York: New York University Press, 2009), 151; and Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2017), 274.

7

Mark Naison and Bob Gumbs, Before the Fires: An Oral History of African American Life in the Bronx from the 1930s to the 1960s (New York: Empire State Editions, 2016), xiii, 60–1, and Purnell, “Desegregating,” 51.

8 Rosenblum, Boulevard of Dreams, 181. 9

Ultan quoted in Renee Epstein, “Ethnic Change in Longwood,” Bronx County Historical Society Journal 28, no. 2 (1991): 64.

NOTES

177

10 See Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, “Color Blind Racism: How to Talk Nasty about Blacks without Sounding ‘Racist’,” Critical Sociology 28, no. 1/2 (2002): 41–64; William Ryan, Blaming the Victim, rev. ed. (New York: Vintage Books, 1976). 11 Herbert E. Meyer, “How Government Helped Ruin the South Bronx,” Fortune, November 1975, 145. 12 Perez, “‘Movin’ on Up’”; Megan Roby, “The Push and Pull Dynamics of White Flight: A Study of the Bronx between 1950 and 1980,” Bronx County Historical Society Journal 45, no. 1/2 (2008): 34–53; and Rosenblum, Boulevard of Dreams. 13 Jonathan Rieder, Canarsie: The Jews and Italians of Brooklyn against Liberalism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985). 14 Emily E. Straus, Death of a Suburban Dream: Race and Schools in Compton, California (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014). 15 Baldwin quoted in Lloyd Ultan and Barbara Unger, Bronx Accent: A Literary and Pictorial History of the Borough (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2000), 217. 16 Cholly Rock, interview by Michael Wayne, YouTube video, 8:46, posted by “Michael Waynetv,” June 7, 2016, https://youtu.be/9s8FMyFUc5g 17 Ivan Sanchez and Louis “DJ Disco Wiz” Cedeno, It’s Just Begun: The Epic Journey of DJ Disco Wiz, Hip Hop’s First Latino DJ (Brooklyn: Powerhouse Books, 2009), 20. 18 PHASE 2, n.d., “PHASE II,” Box 16, Folder 22, International Graffiti Times Archive, #8067, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY. 19 Jeff Chang, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation (New York: St. Martin’s Press), 11; Joseph C. Ewoodzie, Break Beats in the Bronx: Rediscovering Hip-Hop’s Early Years (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017), 21; Steven Hager, Hip Hop: The Illustrated History of Break Dancing, Rap Music, and Graffiti (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984), 1–3; Cheryl L. Keyes, Rap Music and Street Consciousness (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002), 46; Russell A. Potter, Spectacular Vernaculars: Hip-Hop and the Politics of Postmodernism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), 142; Marcus Reeves, Somebody Scream! Rap Music’s Rise to Prominence in the Aftershock of Black Power (New York: Faber and Faber Inc, 2008), 15; Tricia Rose, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (Hanover: Wesleyan University Press, 1994), 31. 20 Hager, Hip Hop, 2–3. 21 Many have even repeated Hager’s inaccurate claim that the Cross Bronx Expressway began construction in 1959. Hager, Hip Hop, 1; Rose, Black Noise, 30–1; Keyes, Rap Music, 46; and Johan Kugelberg, ed., Born in the Bronx: A Visual Record of the Early Days of Hip Hop (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 2007), 38. It is not clear where this date comes from, as Hager’s book does not cite any sources, but

178

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construction on the Cross Bronx Expressway began a decade earlier, in 1948, with its one-mile stretch in East Tremont being completed by 1960. Robert Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974), 886; Ray Bromley, “Cross-Bronx Expressway,” in Robert Moses and the Modern City: The Transformation of New York, ed. Hilary Ballon and Kenneth T. Jackson (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007), 217–18. 22 Ray Bromley, “Not So Simple! Caro, Moses, and the Impact of the Cross-Bronx Expressway,” Bronx County Historical Society Journal 35, no. 1 (1998): 4–29. 23 Ibid., 25. In the second edition of his autobiography, Marshall Berman himself admitted that white residents would have left the Bronx even if the Cross Bronx had never been built. Berman writes, “the Bronx of my youth was possessed, inspired, by the great modern dream of mobility” and that this “frenzied economic and psychic pressure” pushed residents to suburbia, “breaking down hundreds of neighborhoods like the Bronx, even where there was no Moses to lead the exodus and no Expressway to make it fast.” All That Is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity, 2nd ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 1988), 326–7 (my italics). 24 Potter, Spectacular Vernaculars, 142. 25 Chang, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop, 13; Ewoodzie, Break Beats, 24; Keyes, Rap Music, 44; and Rose, Black Noise, 28–9. 26 Roger Waldinger, Still the Promised City? African-Americans and New Immigrants in Postindustrial New York (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996). 27 Steven V. Roberts, “Grand Concourse: Hub of Bronx Is Undergoing Ethnic Changes,” New York Times, July 21, 1966, 35, 39. 28 Goodman, “The Golden Ghetto,” 81–2. 29 “Text of the Moynihan Memorandum on the Status of Negroes,” New York Times, March 1, 1970, 69. 30 Kim Phillips-Fein, Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2017). 31 Rosenblum, Boulevard of Dreams, 9, 183. 32 Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985); Thomas J. Sugrue, “Crabgrass-roots Politics: Race, Rights, and the Reaction against Liberalism in the Urban North, 1940–1954,” The Journal of American History 82, no. 2 (1995): 551–78. 33 Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorder (New York: Dutton, 1968). 34 PHASE 2, interview by Adam Mansbach, Adam Mansbach (blog), accessed May 30, 2022, http://adammansbach.com/other/phase.html

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35 Roland G. Fryer and Steven D. Levitt, “The Causes and Consequences of Distinctively Black Names,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 119, no. 3 (August 2004): 767–805. 36 George Lipsitz, “Who’ll Stop the Rain? Youth Culture, Rock ‘n’ Roll, and Social Crises,” in The Sixties: From Memory to History, ed. David Farber (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 216. 37 Nelson George, The Death of Rhythm & Blues (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988), 108–10. 38 Afrika Bambaataa, interview by Jim Fricke, October 28, 2000, Yes Yes Y’all, TMS #2000.576.1, Museum of Popular Culture, Seattle, WA. 39 “STAFF 161,” Subway Outlaws (blog), accessed May 30, 2022, http://subwayoutlaws. com/Interviews/STAFF%20161%20page.htm 40 DJ Smokey, interview by Sir Norin Rad, Castles in the Sky (blog), April 8, 2018, http:// preciousgemsofknowledge79.blogspot.com/2018/04/interview-with-dj-smokeymaster-plan.html 41 Rickey Vincent, Funk: The Music, the People, and the Rhythm of The One (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1995), 15. 42 R.J. Smith, The One: The Life and Music of James Brown (New York: Gotham Books, 2012), 209. 43 Cecil Brown, “James Brown, Hoodoo, and Black Culture,” Black Review 1 (1971): 180–5; Rickey Vincent, “James Brown: Icon of Black Power,” in The Funk Era and Beyond: New Perspectives on Black Popular Culture (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 51–71. 44 James McBride, Kill ‘Em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2016), 21, 65. 45 Brown quoted in Tony Bolden, “Theorizing the Funk: An Introduction,” in The Funk Era and Beyond: New Perspectives on Black Popular Culture, ed. Tony Bolden (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2008), 56. 46 Ibid., 52. 47 Cliff White and Harry Weinger, liner notes to James Brown, Star Time, Polydor Records, February 1991, four-CD box set, 38. 48 Sharon Leigh Clark, “Rock Dance in the United States, 1960–1970: Its Origins, Forms, and Patterns” (doctoral dissertation, NYU, 1974), ProQuest (AAT 7412833). 49 Hurston, “Characteristics of Negro Expression,” 24. 50 Murray, Stomping the Blues, 181.

180

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51 Cecil Brown, “James Brown, Hoodoo, and Black Culture”; LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), “1966: The Changing Same (R&B and New Black Music),” in his Black Music (New York: Da Capo Press, 1968), 185–7. 52 Bolden, “Groove Theory,” 30. 53 Smith, The One, 356. Nelson George also points out that, “A great many of Brown’s pioneering dance jams were cut following concerts, including the early funk experiment from 1967, ‘Cold Sweat,’ and the landmark 1970 single ‘Sex Machine.’” George, The Death of Rhythm & Blues, 101. 54 For the historic connection between dance and music in African American culture, see Samuel A. Floyd, Jr., “Ring Shout! Literary Studies, Historical Studies, and Black Music Inquiry,” Black Music Research Journal 11, no. 2 (1991): 265–87; Brian Harker, “Louis Armstrong, Eccentric Dance, and the Evolution of Jazz on the Eve of Swing,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 6, no. 2 (2008): 67–121; Jacqui Malone, Steppin’ on the Blues: The Visible Rhythms of African American Dance (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1996); Murray, Stomping the Blues; Robert Pruter, “Chicago Black Dance,” in his Chicago Soul (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 187–210; Howard Spring, “Swing and the Lindy Hop: Dance, Venue, Media, and Tradition,” American Music 15, no. 2 (1997): 183–207; Christi Jay Wells, Between Beats: The Jazz Tradition and Black Vernacular Dance (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021). For literature on the influence of dance in funk music, see Steven F. Pond, “‘Chameleon’ Meets ‘Soul Train’: Herbie, James, Michael, Damita Jo and JazzFunk,” American Studies 52, no. 4 (2013): 125–40; Bolden, “Groove Theory.” 55 “Caught up with the 1st. B-Boy of Breakdancing ‘A1 B-Boy Sasa’, 1973–1976 #dance #hiphop #bboy PART 1,” YouTube video, 22:22, posted by “Funky Blue Stuff,” December 14, 2021, https://youtu.be/FljpCJzd4uM; Kool Herc quoted in Angus Batey, “DJ Kool Herc DJs his First Block Party (His Sister’s Birthday) at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, Bronx, New York,” The Guardian, June 13, 2011, https://www. theguardian.com/music/2011/jun/13/dj-kool-herc-block-party; “The Legendary Twins: The ORIGINAL BBoys | Pro:File,” YouTube video, 7:18, posted by “Breakin’ Convention BCTV,” April 30, 2019, https://youtu.be/O3jRBtvZ-ws; Mandalit Del Barco, “Breakdancing, ‘Present at the Creation,’” National Public Radio, October 14, 2002, https://www.npr.org/2002/10/14/1151638/breakdancing-present-at-thecreation 56 Kool Herc, interview by Combat Jack, The Combat Jack Show, podcast audio, October 10, 2015, https://soundcloud.com/thecombatjackshow/the-kool-herc-episode 57 Kool Herc, interview by D. Davey, Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner (blog), accessed May 30, 2022, https://www.daveyd.com/interviewkoolherc89.html 58 Kool Herc, interview by Terry Wilson, Midnight Ravers, WBAI 99.5 FM, December 28, 2015. 59 Kool Herc, interview by Combat Jack.

NOTES

181

60 Andrew Noz, “Distant Relatives at National Geographic,” Washington City Paper, December 15, 2009, https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/435852/distantrelatives-at-national-geographic/. Herc himself explains that “being Jamaican wasn’t fashionable” in the early 1970s, adding that gangs were “throwing Jamaicans in garbage cans” in the Bronx during that period. Chang, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop, 72. 61 Kool Herc, interview by Combat Jack. 62 Kool Herc, interview by Frank Broughton, Red Bull Music Academy Daily (blog), accessed May 30, 2022, https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2018/01/kool-hercinterview 63 Like many other myths in hip-hop history, the Jamaican origin narrative associated with Herc seems to have begun with Steven Hager, who wrote in 1982 that Herc’s “DJ style was patterned after the great Jamaican DJs, who had developed a technique for talking over instrumental records known as ‘toasting.’” Steven Hager, “Afrika Bambaataa’s Hip Hop,” Village Voice, September 21, 1982, 72. This was despite the fact that Herc plainly told Hager in 1982 that he was unfamiliar with Jamaican toasting when he came to New York at the age of twelve. Steven Hager, Hip Hop: The Illustrated History of Break Dancing, Rap Music, and Graffiti (1984; repr., New York: Smashwords, 2012) e-book, 60. Nevertheless, Hager’s narrative was picked up by other researchers such as David Toop, who more recently admitted that he found it difficult to find information on hip-hop history in the early 1980s, so he based his misconceptions about Jamaican origins on Hager’s writings, who he believed was “much more connected than I was.” David Toop, interview by Bill Brewster, Red Bull Music Academy Daily (blog), accessed May 30, 2022, https:// daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2018/03/david-toop-interview. Most scholars and researchers since have taken the Jamaican origin narrative to be a matter of common sense and reproduced it with little critical reflection. See S.H. Fernando, “Rap’s Raggamuffin Roots,” chap. 2 in The New Beats: Exploring the Music, Culture, and Attitudes of Hip-Hop (New York: Anchor Books, 1994); Paul Gilroy, “There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack”: The Cultural Politics of Race and Nation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 192–3; Dick Hebdige, “Rap and Hip Hop: The New York Connection,” chap. 16 in Cut “N” Mix: Culture, Identity and Caribbean Music (New York: Routledge, 1987); Rose, Black Noise, 68. For a rare scholarly refutation of the Jamaican origin narrative in hip-hop history, see Mark Katz, Groove Music: The Art and Culture of the Hip-Hop DJ (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 26. 64 Hager, Hip Hop, 45. 65 Kool Herc, interview by Frank Broughton. 66 Hazzard-Gordon, Jookin’, x. 67 Ibid., 174. 68 Kool Herc, interview by Terry Gross, National Public Radio, March 30, 2005, https:// www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4567450.

182

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69 IGTimes, Style: Writing from the Underground: (R)evolutions in Aerosol Linguistics (Viterbo, Italy: Stampa Alternativa, 1996). 70 Kool Herc, interview by Frank Broughton. 71 Kool Herc, interview by Combat Jack. 72 Kool Herc, interview by Frank Broughton. 73 Kool Herc, interview by Combat Jack; PHASE 2, “ORIGINAL BBODY FLAVOR,” Facebook post, March 13, 2018, https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fb id=pfbid02Q6XUssfpbth89doxr3yQfAzXh7itjwVF3n3oHtePmKZKyQddiKWz3s rRrhbLfiPql&id=1060787330644347; Hager, Hip Hop, 31; PHASE 2, “TURNOUT TIME AT THE P.T.,” Facebook post, July 10, 2017, https://www.facebook. com/1060787330644347/photos/a.1062043187185428/1487419244647818/; PHASE 2, “PLAZA TUNNEL BRONX CITY,” Facebook post, November 8, 2017, https:// www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid02qogTh6paZNVooCNBavecim 3T6VZMuqVxzGQc6NheQt455bF5pd5aFwTVbn5ADVTtl&id=1060787330644347 74 Coke La Rock, interview by Steven Hager, YouTube video, 10:52, posted by “Steven Hager,” September 12, 2010, https://youtu.be/Hqi-_g894ss 75 Jim Vernon, Hip Hop, Hegel, and the Art of Emancipation: Let’s Get Free (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 108. 76 PHASE 2, interview by Adam Mansbach. 77 Marshall Stearns and Jean Stearns, Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance (1968; repr., New York: Da Capo Press, 1994), 268. 78 Marian Horosko, “Technique: Taps, Be-Bop, Breaking,” Dance Magazine, September 1984, 96. 79 Malone, Steppin’ on the Blues, 5. 80 IGTimes, Style, 4. 81 Coke La Rock, interview by Troy L. Smith, The Foundation (blog), 2008, http://www. thafoundation.com/coke.htm 82 Tyrone the Mixologist, interview by Disco Daddy, Hip Hop Ya Don’t Stop, podcast audio, March 11, 2017, https://www.blogtalkradio.com/ gumboforthesoul/2017/03/11/hip-hop-ya-dont-stop-hosted-by-michael-khalfaniaka-disco-daddy 83 Kool Kyle, interview by Disco Daddy, Hip Hop Ya Don’t Stop, podcast audio, January 6, 2017, https://www.blogtalkradio.com/gumboforthesoul/2017/01/07/hip-hop-yadont-stop-hosted-by-the-father-of-west-coast-hip-hop-disco-daddy 84 Katrina Hazzard-Donald, “Dance in Hip Hop Culture,” chap. 9 in Droppin Science: Critical Essays on Rap Music and Hip Hop Culture, ed. William Eric Perkins (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), 225.

NOTES

183

85 PHASE 2, “Dance or Die!!!,” If These Floor Could Talk (blog), August 31, 2010, http://alienness.blogspot.com/2010/08/dance-or-die.html 86 Vanessa Fleet Lakewood, “The Camera in the Cypher: High Times and Hypervisiblity in Early Hip Hop Dance,” in The Oxford Handbook of Hip Hop Dance Studies, ed. Mary Fogarty and Imani Kai Johnson (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022), 32–57. 87 900 G.C. Affiliates, Inc., and Joseph Caspi v. The City of New York et al., 367 F. Supp. 1 (Dist. Court, SD New York 1973). 88 John Corry, “Concourse Plaza Hotel Fights City’s Closing of Discotheque Catering to Blacks,” New York Times, May 17, 1973, 45. 89 Ken Fowler, “6 Arrests Linked to Discotheque: All Made in Final 8 Weeks of the Tunnel’s Operation,” New York Times, May 24, 1973, 29. 90 Corry, “Concourse Plaza,” 45. 91 Ibid., 86. 92 Jill Jonnes, South Bronx Rising: The Rise, Fall and Resurrection of an American City (New York: Fordham University Press, 2002), 285. 93 Corry, “Concourse Plaza,” 45. 94 “Metropolitan Briefs: Revoking of License Upheld,” New York Times, June 29, 1973, 41. 95 Hager, Hip Hop, 31; Chang, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop, 77. 96 Kool DJ Herc, interview by Michael Gonzalez, October 1, 1999, Yes Yes Y’all, TMS #1999.953.1, Museum of Popular Culture, Seattle, WA. 97 Fat Mike, interview by Michael Wayne, YouTube video, 23:06, posted by “Michael Waynetv,” December 17, 2017, https://youtu.be/2Egxzd1Eqaw 98 Elizabeth Hinton, From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2016), 31. 99 900 G.C. Affiliates, Inc., and Joseph Caspi v. The City of New York et al., 367 F. Supp. 1 (Dist. Court, SD New York 1973). 100 Chang, “Blood and Fire, with Occasional Music: The Gangs of the Bronx,” chap. 3 in his Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop; Jim Fricke and Charlie Ahearn, “Rocking: Gang Culture and the Beginnings of Hip-Hop,” chap. 1 in Yes Yes Y’all: The Experience Music Project Oral History of Hip-Hop’s First Decade (Cambridge: Da Capo Press, 2002); Hager, “The Bronx on Fire,” chap. 1 in his Hip Hop. 101 Stearns and Stearns, Jazz Dance, 145. 102 Lewis A. Erenberg, “The Crowd Goes Wild,” chap. 2 in Swingin’ the Dream: Big Band Jazz and the Rebirth of American Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998). 103 H. Rap Brown, “Street Talk,” chap. 14 in Rappin’ and Stylin’ Out: Communication in Urban Black America, ed. Thomas Kochman (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977).

184

NOTES

104 Imani Kai Johnson, “Battling in the Bronx: Social Choreography and Outlaw Culture Among Early Hip-Hop Streetdancers in New York City,” Dance Research Journal 50, no. 2 (2018): 62–75. 105 Serouj Aprahamian, “Hip-Hop, Gangs, and the Criminalization of African American Culture: A Critical Appraisal of Yes Yes Y’all,” Journal of Black Studies 50, no. 3 (2019): 298–315. 106 As scholar Jim Vernon effectively argues, the early culture “expressed no explicit rage against external authority or political rebellion against state repression, but remained operative only within the isolated community itself. The energy one might normally predict would lash out on the surrounding and oppressive order was channeled into novel, joyous forms of collective creation” [italics in the original]. Hip Hop, Hegel, and the Art of Emancipation, 35. 107 Hughes, “The Negro Artist.” 108 Marcus Reeves, Somebody Scream! Rap Music’s Rise to Prominence in the Aftershock of Black Power (New York: Faber and Faber Inc., 2008), 14. 109 For example, Kool Herc was the oldest of six children in a two-parent household, with his father employed as a mechanic for Clark’s Equipment Company and his mother working as a nurse. Kool Herc, interview by Frank Broughton. The famous 1520 Sedgwick Avenue apartment where they lived had been built in 1967 as part of New York’s Mitchell-Lama Housing Program for middle-income residents. Cindy Campbell, interview by Kevin Powell, YouTube video, 58:40, posted by “SummerStage,” August 21, 2020, https://youtu.be/Vj4HKp61bV0. As Cholly Rock from the Zulu Kings also explains, “The stereotypical narrative is, you know, they show the Bronx as just the South Bronx with burnt out buildings and all this stuff. And that these deprived kids made this culture because they didn’t have anything. That’s a nice, romantic, stereotypical version of it but the reality is there are parts of the Bronx, where I lived in the North Bronx, where people had private houses, people had jobs, had middle-class things.” Choly Rock, interview by Profo Won, Facebook video, 1:10:01, posted by “Profo Wons Professional Page,” April 15, 2017, https:// www.facebook.com/profowonFLGZ/videos/1262396987189691

Chapter 3 1

Kool Herc, interview by Combat Jack, The Combat Jack Show, podcast audio, October 10, 2015, https://soundcloud.com/thecombatjackshow/the-kool-herc-episode

2

Kool Herc, interview by Michael Gonzalez, October 1, 1999, TMS #1999.953.1, Yes Yes Y’all, Museum of Popular Culture, Seattle, WA.

NOTES

185

3

Kool Herc, interview by Stretch & Bobbito, YouTube video, 19:11, posted by “Will C,” August 13, 2018, https://youtu.be/3aFEnrLptwY

4

Kool Herc, YouTube video, 10:03, from a speech in Rotterdam, Netherlands, posted by “JaapenFrank,” July 23, 2009, https://youtu.be/PmIkoAGTZjk

5

Jeff Chang, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation (New York: St. Martin’s Press), 78.

6

Tricia Rose, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (Hanover: Wesleyan University Press, 1994), 73.

7

Robert Farris Thompson, “Hip-Hop 101,” Rolling Stone, March 27, 1986, 98.

8

PHASE 2, “History of Dance in NY” (presentation, Hip-Hop: A Cultural Expression, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Cleveland, OH, September 11, 1999).

9 Rose, Black Noise, 47. 10 Joseph C. Ewoodzie, Break Beats in the Bronx: Rediscovering Hip-Hop’s Early Years (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017), 17. 11 The Freshest Kids: A History of the B-Boy, directed by Israel (2002; United States: Image Entertainment), 8:54–10:03. 12 Sally Banes, “Breaking Is Hard to Do: To the Beat, Y’all,” Village Voice, April 22–8, 1981, 31. 13 Curtis Marlow, Breakdancing (Cresskill: Sharon Publications, 1984), 14. 14 Rose, Black Noise, 47. 15 James Haskins, Break Dancing (Minneapolis: Lerner Publications Company, 1985), 10–11. 16 Thomas Kochman, “The Kinetic Element in Black Idiom,” in Rappin’ and Stylin’ Out: Communication in Urban Black America, ed. Thomas Kochman (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1972). 17 Thomas F. DeFrantz and Anita Gonzalez, “Introduction: From ‘Negro Expression’ to ‘Black Performance,’” in Black Performance Theory, eds. Thomas F. DeFrantz and Anita Gonzalez (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014), 3. 18 We Was All Kings, directed by Atsushi Numata (2005; United States: Agit Props Film), 56:00, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAF0o51B7-U 19 The Freshest Kids. 20 Thomas F. DeFrantz, “Performing the Breaks: Notes on African American Aesthetic Structure,” Theater 40, no. 1 (2010): 35. 21 PHASE 2, “Words from the Wise: Hiphop Icon—PHASE 2,” The Bboy Spot, April 5, 2017, http://www.thebboyspot.com/words-from-the-wise-hiphop-icon-phase–2/

186

NOTES

22 Steven Hager, Hip Hop: The Illustrated History of Break Dancing, Rap Music, and Graffiti (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984), 32; Angus Batey, “DJ Kool Herc DJs his First Block Party (his Sister’s Birthday) at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, Bronx, New York,” The Guardian, June 13, 2011, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/jun/13/djkool-herc-block-party 23 Cindy Campbell, interview by MC Debbie D, YouTube video, 32:32, posted by “MC Debbie D,” October 17, 2017, https://youtu.be/n1B3onhCBNw 24 Langston Hughes, “When the Negro Was in Vogue,” in Autobiography: The Big Sea (Collected Works of Langston Hughes, Vol 13), ed. Joseph McLaren (1940; repr., Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2002), 223. 25 Cindy Campbell, interview by Davey D, YouTube video, 10:48, posted by “mrdaveyd,” March 11, 2010, https://youtu.be/7SMVGLEr6nA 26 Jamie M. Arjona, “Homesick Blues: Excavating Crooked Intimacies in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Jook Joints,” Society for Historical Archaeology 51 (2017): 43–59. 27 GrandMixer DXT, interview by TheBeeShine, YouTube video, 34:54, posted by “TheBeeShine,” August 19, 2013, https://youtu.be/e6NZjQLpI0Y 28 Alice Kemp-Habib, “How Bad Urban Planning Led to the Birth of a Billion-Dollar Genre,” The Fader, August 18, 2016, https://www.thefader.com/2016/08/18/hip-hoparchitecture-mike-ford-interview 29 B-Boy Sasa, interview by Nemesis, Facebook video, 1:06:45, posted by “Pro Breaking Tour,” June 16, 2020, https://www.facebook.com/probreakingtour/ videos/737438740400258/ 30 Cholly Rock, interview by Allcity TaxiTalk Show, YouTube video, 35:11, posted by “Allcity TaxiTalk Show,” August 16, 2020, https://youtu.be/P4rqbg-ujHo 31 Chang, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop, 17. 32 Dorian Lynskey, “Grandmaster Flash: ‘Hip-Hop’s Message Was Simple: We Matter’,” The Guardian, August 7, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/aug/07/ the-get-down-baz-luhrmann-grandmaster-flash-hip-hop 33 For an excellent critique of the notion that hip-hop’s expressions were externally determined by material conditions, rather than the agency of founding practitioners, see Joseph G. Schloss, Making Beats: The Art of Sample-Based Hip-Hop (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2004), 25–30; Jim Vernon, Hip Hop, Hegel, and the Art of Emancipation: Let’s Get Free (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 39–40. For a rebuttal of the notion that cuts in music programs forced hip-hoppers to rely on turntables, see Mark Katz, Groove Music: The Art and Culture of the Hip-Hop DJ (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 41. 34 Kool Herc, interview by Combat Jack.

NOTES

187

35 Kool Herc, interview by Michael Gonzalez, October 1, 1999, TMS #1999.953.1, Yes Yes Y’all, Museum of Popular Culture, Seattle, WA.; Kool Herc, interview by Terry Gross, “Kool Herc: A Founding Father of Hip Hop,” National Public Radio, March 30, 2005, audio, 30:07, https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4567450; Kool Herc, interview by Will C. 36 Kool Herc, interview by Terry Gross. 37 Kool Herc, speech in Rotterdam. 38 Kool Herc, interview by Terry Gross. 39 Coke La Rock, interview by Tom Simjian, YouTube video, 5:08, posted by “Tom Simjian,” December 3, 2008, https://youtu.be/Q_Q4UHKUFuk 40 Kool Herc, interview by Michael Gonzalez. 41 Kool Herc, interview by Frank Broughton, Red Bull Music Academy Daily (blog), accessed May 30, 2022, https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2018/01/kool-hercinterview 42 Kool Herc, interview by Combat Jack. 43 Hager, Hip Hop, 32. 44 Nelson George, “Crossover: The Death of Rhythm & Blues,” chap. 6 in his The Death of Rhythm & Blues (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988). 45 Katz, Groove Music, 24–5. 46 William Eric Perkins, “The Rap Attack: An Introduction,” chap. 1 in Droppin Science: Critical Essays on Rap Music and Hip Hop Culture, ed. William Eric Perkins (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), 6; Raquel Z. Rivera, New York Ricans from the Hip Hop Zone (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 57; Joseph G. Schloss, Foundation: B-Boys, B-Girls, and Hip-Hop Culture in New York (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 39. 47 Keith Smith, “NY Meets CA. Coming Together of Dance Styles” (presentation, HipHop: A Cultural Expression, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Cleveland, OH, September 11, 1999). 48 Katz, Groove Music, 25. 49 Sasa, interview by Sir Norin Rad, Castles in the Sky (blog), June 5, 2017, http:// preciousgemsofknowledge79.blogspot.com/2017/06/ 50 Trixie, interview by Sir Norin Rad, Castles in the Sky (blog), December 3, 2017, http://preciousgemsofknowledge79.blogspot.com/2017/12/interview-with-originalb-boy-trixie.html 51 Keith Smith and Kevin Smith, “Early Days of Breaking” (presentation, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada, December 7, 2015).

188

NOTES

52 GrandMixer DXT, in discussion with the author, December 28, 2017. 53 Trixie, interview by Michael Wayne, YouTube video, 15:36, posted by “Michael Waynetv,” November 7, 2021, https://youtu.be/bj8JQwXtTY8 54 Hager, Hip Hop, 32. 55 Cholly Rock, interview by Troy L. Smith, Scribd (blog), 2016, https://www.scribd. com/document/336545484/troy-smith-interview-edited-revisions-charlierock?secret_password=gImDEfH9Rjc4rczDphL9#download&from_embed 56 The quotes are from Laurence W. Levine’s insightful discussion of the Dozens in his Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 347–8. 57 For a critique of how scholars have misinterpreted the Dozens and associated forms of African American expression, see Robin D.G. Kelley, Yo’ Mama’s Disfunktional!: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America (Boston: Beacon Press, 1997), 34. 58 PHASE 2, “Dance or Die!!!,” If These Floor Could Talk (blog), August 31, 2010, http://alienness.blogspot.com/2010/08/dance-or-die.html 59 PHASE 2, in discussion with the author, November 9, 2016. 60 We Was All Kings, 1:02:03. 61 Red Alert, interview by Troy L. Smith, Scribd (blog), 2006, https://www.scribd. com/document/330581219/yeeeeessss-d-j-red-alert?secret_password=t4ThloQlDg Y5XuKVBtNi#download&from_embed; James Bond, interview by Sir Norin Rad, Castles in the Sky (blog), July 19, 2017, http://preciousgemsofknowledge79.blogspot. com/2017/07/interview-with-original-b-boy-james.html 62 Cindy Campbell, interview by MC Debbie D. 63 Smith and Smith, “Early Days of Breaking.” 64 Cholly Rock, interview by Michael Wayne, YouTube video, 44:36, posted by “Michael Waynetv,” March 7, 2016, https://youtu.be/06bnBQRsE4I 65 Breakout, interview by Troy L. Smith, Scribd (blog), 2010, https://www.scribd.com/ document/340478181/breakout-and-barron-with-kk-rockwell?secret_password=RH ZfmuR09xdyTzpKYWnq#download&from_embed 66 Jorge “Popmaster Fabel” Pabon, “Physical Graffiti: The History of Hip-Hop Dance,” in That’s the Joint! The Hip Hop Studies Reader, ed. Murray Forman and Mark Anthony Neal (New York: Routledge, 2012), 59. 67 Schloss, Foundation, 149. 68 COCO 144, in discussion with the author, February 27, 2020. 69 BOM 5, interview by Charlie Ahearn, May 11, 2000, Box 5, Folder 28, Charlie Ahearn Hip-Hop Archive #8078, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections,

NOTES

189

Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY; Jorge “Fabel” Pabon, interview by Jim Fricke, October 1, 1999, TMS #1999.953.1, Yes Yes Y’all, Museum of Popular Culture, Seattle, WA; PJAY71, interview by Kostek, Rock Dance Poland (blog), December 2, 2012, https://rockdancepoland.blogspot.com/2012/12/interview-with-pjay71-forever-we.ht ml?fbclid=IwAR1cMEPgrbuSLYZuzrWzXomWHIwV9xfL3GkBrIYB9lbegaMN E0Y1Mo0J3yU; Amigo Rock, interview by Rock Dance Poland, YouTube video, 23:29, posted by “Rock Dance Poland,” March 14, 2013, https://youtu. be/8xYadIl7MuI; Schloss, Foundation, 149–54; King Uprock, interview by Joe Sepulveda, YouTube video, 1:52, posted by “Joe Sepulveda,” November 2, 2009, https://youtu.be/YahyY46GkMk; Break Easy, interview by Vitamin, YouTube video, 24:16, posted by “Vitamin Vision TV,” December 10, 2019, https://youtu.be/ LHo0TqPKKYQ 70 Kool Herc, “From DJ to Turntablist. Cam #2” (presentation, Hip-Hop: A Cultural Expression, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Cleveland, OH, September 11, 1999). 71 Much like “Give It Up or Turnit a Loose” (1970) was often referred to by the title of its album cover, Sex Machine, the second famous “anthem” of breaking, “Apache” (1973) by Michael Viner’s Incredible Bong Band, was often referred to as Bongo Rock, taken from the title of its album cover. 72 Kool Herc, interview by Frank Broughton; Kool Herc, interview by Tim Westwood, Radio 1 Rap Show, BBC Radio 1, December 28, 1996, audio, 1:35:02, https://archive. org/details/Radio1RapShow-19961228 73 Kool Herc, interview by Frank Broughton. 74 Grand Master Flash, interview by Michael Gonzalez, October 1, 1999, Yes Yes Y’all, TMS #1999.953.1, Museum of Popular Culture, Seattle, WA. 75 Joseph D. Eure and James G. Spady, ed., Nation Conscious Rap (New York: PC International Press 1991), xix. 76 Kool DJ AJ, interview by Bill Adler, July 16, 2001, TMS #2001.343.6, Yes Yes Y’all, Museum of Popular Culture, Seattle, WA. 77 Grand Master Flash, interview by Michael Gonzalez; Grandmixer DXT, interview by Disco Daddy, Hip Hop Ya Don’t Stop, podcast audio, March 11, 2017, http://www. blogtalkradio.com/gumboforthesoul/2017/03/11/hip-hop-ya-dont-stop-hosted-bymichael-khalfani-aka-disco-daddy 78 BeatMaster, “It’s a New Day,” in The BeatMaster Series, Scribd (blog), 2015, https://www.scribd.com/doc/270983561/beatmaster-records-historicalhiphopcom?secret_password=kAfaSBQm1kIE7Hbbl6oB#download&from_embed 79 Pete DJ Jones, in “Founding Fathers The Untold Story of Hip Hop,” YouTube video, 1:25:00, posted by “Itch FM,” March 10, 2017, https://youtu.be/Q__6DEpFSqo

190

NOTES

80 Cholly Rock, interview by Disco Daddy, Hip Hop Ya Don’t Stop, podcast audio, March 11, 2017, https://www.blogtalkradio.com/gumboforthesoul/2017/02/04/hiphop-ya-dont-stop-hosted-by-disco-daddy-the-father-of-west-coast-hip-hop 81 Nelson George, “D.J. Herc and his ‘B-Beats,’” Amsterdam News, July 1, 1978, D12. 82 For instance, Herc was introduced to “Apache” (1973) by a young b-boy named Timmy Tim and the duplicate copy of this hard-to-find record was gifted to him at the Hevelow by b-boy Clark Kent. Kool Herc, interview by Tim Westwood; Clark Kent, interview by Kay Slay, YouTube video, 21:53, posted by “DJ Kayslay,” March 20, 2017, https://youtu.be/6cgZEqZWj3U 83 Coke La Rock, interview by Violators, Violators Unlimited Radio Show, podcast audio, July 22, 2017, http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/106115685; Kool Herc, interview by Davey D. and Mark Skillz, YouTube video, 51:20, posted by “mrdaveyd,” January 23, 2012, https://youtu.be/AJkojOSppUE 84 Pabon, “Physical Graffiti,” 58. 85 Cholly Rock, interview by Michael Wayne. 86 Cindy Campbell, interview by Terry Wilson, “A Moment in Hip Hop,” Midnight Ravers, WBAI 99.5 FM, December 28, 2015. 87 GrandMixer DXT, discussion. 88 Ibid. 89 Cindy Campbell, interview by Davey D. 90 Afrika Islam, interview by Robbie Etelson, Red Bull Music Academy (blog), September 29, 2015, https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2015/09/zulu-nationradio-feature 91 “Afrika Islam Remembers: When Hip-Hop Was about Dancing!” BangkokNightlife, August 15, 2013, http://www.bangkoknightlife.com:80/bangkok-club-vibe/afrikaislam

Chapter 4 1

Michael Holman, Breaking and the New York City Breakers (New York: Freundlich Books, 1984), 53.

2

Keith Smith and Kevin Smith, “Early Days of Breaking” (presentation, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada, December 7, 2015.

3 Ibid.

NOTES

191

4

Steven Hager, Hip Hop: The Illustrated History of Break Dancing, Rap Music, and Graffiti (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984), 32.

5

Smith and Smith, “Early Days of Breaking”; Mark Naison and Bob Gumbs, Before the Fires: An Oral History of African American Life in the Bronx from the 1930s to the 1960s (New York: Empire State Editions, 2016).

6

Keith Smith, “History of Dance in NY” (presentation, Hip-Hop: A Cultural Expression, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Cleveland, OH, September 11, 1999).

7

Keith Smith, YouTube video, 7:18, from Breakin’ Convention feature on The Legendary Twins, posted by “Breakin’ Convention BCTV,” April 30, 2019, https://youtu.be/O3jRBtvZ-ws

8

Smith and Smith, “Early Days of Breaking.”

9

Clark Kent, interview by Kay Slay, YouTube video, 21:53, posted by “DJ Kayslay,” March 20, 2017, https://youtu.be/6cgZEqZWj3U

10 Kurtis Blow, interview by Jacob Uitti, Pop Matters (blog), November 11, 2019, https://www.popmatters.com/kurtis-blow-interview-2641198423.html 11 Tricia Rose, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (Hanover: Wesleyan University Press, 1994), 22. 12 Rayvon, interview by Troy L. Smith, The Foundation (blog), 2004, http:// thafoundation.com/rayvon.htm 13 Keith Smith, “History of Dance in NY.” 14 Ibid. 15 Hager, Hip Hop, 32. 16 Michael Gonzales, “Party Over Here: An Oral History of Kool Herc’s Historic Back-to-School Jam,” Mass Appeal, August 11, 2017, https://web.archive.org/ web/20170811231449/https://massappeal.com/kool-herc-oral-history-party-overhere-birth-of-hip-hop/ 17 Grandmaster Flash quoted in Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton, “Grandmaster Flash: Scientist of the Mix,” in The Record Players: DJ Revolutionaries (New York: Black Cat, 2010), 183. 18 Sha-Rock, interview by Jim Fricke, August 25, 2001, Yes Yes Y’all, TMS #2001.382.1, Museum of Popular Culture, Seattle, WA., 2001b, 6. 19 Jason Williams, “Historicizing the Breakbeat: Hip-Hop’s Origins and Authenticity,” Song and Popular Culture 56 (2011): 139n17. 20 Gonzales, “Party Over Here.”

192

NOTES

21 Luis Cedeno, interview by Mark Naison and Oneka LaBennett, January 29, 2008, Bronx African American History Project. BAAHP Digital Archive at Fordham University, Bronx, NY, https://research.library.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?filen ame=0&article=1148&context=baahp_oralhist&type=additional 22 Grandmaster Caz, YouTube video, 1:52:12, from panel conversation at Cornell University, posted by “Cornell University,” April 14, 2009, https://youtu.be/ FpxekpzP-AA 23 Gonzales, “Party Over Here.” 24 Grandmixer DXT, interview by DJ Kayslay, YouTube video, 24:36, posted by “DJ Kayslay,” May 31, 2017, https://youtu.be/yYFW9QsGass 25 Gonzales, “Party Over Here.” 26 Sha-Rock and Iesha Brown, Luminary Icon: The Story of the Beginning and End of Hip Hop’s First Female MC, read by Trinise Crowder (Humble, TX: Pearly Gates Publishing, 2011), audiobook; 3 hrs., 8 mins. 27 Kool DJ AJ, interview by Troy L. Smith, The Foundation (blog), 2006, http:// thafoundation.com/AJ.htm 28 The Freshest Kids: A History of the B-Boy, directed by Israel (2002; United States: Image Entertainment). 29 Kai Fikentscher, “You Better Work!” Underground Dance Music in New York City (Hanover: Wesleyan University Press, 2000), 80–1. 30 Katrina Hazzard-Gordon, Jookin’: The Rise of Social Dance Formation in AfricanAmerican Culture (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990). 31 See Barbara Ehrenreich, Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006). 32 Hazzard-Gordon, Jookin’, x–xi. 33 Keith Smith, “History of Dance in NY.” 34 DJ Baron, interview by Charlie Ahearn, March 17, 2001, Box 5, Folder 28, Charlie Ahearn Hip-Hop Archive #8078, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY. 35 We Was All Kings, directed by Atsushi Numata (2005; United States: Agit Props Film), 56:00, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAF0o51B7-U 36 PHASE 2, in discussion with the author, November 11, 2015. 37 Jim Vernon, Hip Hop, Hegel, and the Art of Emancipation: Let’s Get Free (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 90–1. 38 The Freshest Kids.

NOTES

193

39 On April 15, 2000, The Twins gave a panel presentation at a breaking event in Las Vegas, Nevada, called “Concrete Soul.” The organizer of the event, Darrick “Quali-D” Fields, remembered both Keith and Kevin talking about their experiences at Herc’s parties and emphasizing how, being the youngest ones there, they felt lucky to even be in attendance. They also explained how they took inspiration from older breakers and sought to impress Herc’s audiences with their own unique dancefloor contributions. Quali-D, in discussion with the author, March 24, 2020; Smith, “History of Dance in NY.” 40 Hager, Hip Hop, 32; Smith and Smith, “Early Days of Breaking.” 41 We Was All Kings. 42 The Freshest Kids. 43 We Was All Kings. 44 Marshall Stearns and Jean Stearns, Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance (1968; repr., New York: Da Capo Press, 1994), 269. 45 Trac 2, YouTube video, 4:04, excerpt from Everything Remains Raw documentary, posted by “IntangibleRoots,” August 6, 2013, https://youtu.be/mBjdDtXiycY 46 James Bond, interview by Sir Norin Rad, Castles in the Sky (blog), July 19, 2017, http://preciousgemsofknowledge79.blogspot.com/2017/07/interview-with-originalb-boy-james.html 47 Cholly Rock, interview by Troy L. Smith, Scribd (blog), 2016, https://www.scribd. com/document/336545484/troy-smith-interview-edited-revisions-charlierock?secret_password=gImDEfH9Rjc4rczDphL9#download&from_embed 48 Cholly Rock, interview by Troy L. Smith. 49 Cholly Rock, interview by Michael Wayne, YouTube video, 44:36, posted by “Michael Waynetv,” March 7, 2016, https://youtu.be/06bnBQRsE4I; Pow Wow, interview by Sir Norin Rad, Castles in the Sky (blog), September 1, 2018, http:// preciousgemsofknowledge79.blogspot.com/2018/09/interview-with-b-boy-mc-powwow-zulu.html 50 Cholly Rock, interview by Michael Wayne, YouTube video, 10:46, posted by “Michael Waynetv,” October 17, 2013, https://youtu.be/EGiWxc7GUss 51 Pow Wow, interview by Norin Rad; Sha-Rock, interview by Disco Daddy, Hip Hop Ya Don’t Stop, podcast audio, January 6, 2017, https://www.blogtalkradio.com/ gumboforthesoul/2017/01/07/hip-hop-ya-dont-stop-hosted-by-the-father-of-westcoast-hip-hop-disco-daddy 52 Hager, Hip Hop, 33; PHASE 2, “Dance or Die!!!,” If These Floor Could Talk (blog), August 31, 2010, http://alienness.blogspot.com/2010/08/dance-or-die.html 53 Vernon, Hip Hop, Hegel, and the Art of Emancipation, 107.

194

NOTES

54 Samuel A. Floyd, Jr., “Ring Shout! Literary Studies, Historical Studies, and Black Music Inquiry,” Black Music Research Journal 11, no. 2 (1991): 265–87. 55 Marcia B. Siegel, “Bridging the Critical Distance,” chap. 11 in The Routledge Dance Studies Reader, ed. Alexandra Carter (New York: Routledge, 1998), 96. 56 Rossy, interview by Sir Norin Rad, Castles in the Sky (blog), July 24, 2018, https:// preciousgemsofknowledge79.blogspot.com/2018/07/interview-with-original-b-boyrossy-a.html 57 Mike G, interview by Michael Wayne, YouTube video, 44:36, posted by “Michael Waynetv,” March 7, 2016, https://youtu.be/06bnBQRsE4I 58 Hager, Hip Hop, 32. 59 Sha-Rock, interview by Mr. Biggs and Cholly Rock, Let’s Talk Hip Hop, podcast audio, August 15, 2019, https://anchor.fm/ric-wright/episodes/The-First-Lady-OfHip-Hop–Sha-Rock-e7sa7n 60 The Freshest Kids. 61 Cholly Rock, interview by Disco Daddy, YouTube video, 1:16:50, posted by “VIBESLIVE,” May 25, 2019, https://youtu.be/tu0X0pqDoNM 62 Sasa, interview by Sir Norin Rad, Castles in the Sky (blog), June 5, 2017, http:// preciousgemsofknowledge79.blogspot.com/2017/06/ 63 Steven Hager, “Afrika Bambaataa’s Hip Hop,” Village Voice, September 21, 1982, 72. 64 R. Milton Clark, “The Dance Party as a Socialization Mechanism for Black Urban Pre-Adolescents and Adolescents,” Sociology and Social Research 58, no. 2 (1974): 145. 65 Ibid., 153. 66 Thomas F. DeFrantz, “Unchecked Popularity: Neoliberal Circulations of Black Social Dance,” in Neoliberalism and Global Theatres: Studies in International Performance, ed. Lara D. Nielson and Patricia Ybarra (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 128. 67 Paul Willis, Common Culture: Symbolic Work at Play in the Everyday Cultures of the Young (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1990), 8. 68 Stearns and Stearns, Jazz Dance. 69 Herbert Kohl, “Names, Graffiti, and Culture,” Urban Review 3 (April 1969): 29. 70 James Bond, interview by Sir Norin Rad. 71 Hager, Hip Hop, 47. 72 Gonzales, “Party Over Here.” 73 Smith and Smith, “Early Days of Breaking.”

NOTES

195

74 Keith Smith, “Breakin’ Convention” (guest address, Apollo Theater, New York, NY, October 16, 2015). 75 Sha-Rock, interview by Disco Daddy. 76 Keith Smith, “History of Dance in NY.” 77 Ibid.; James Bond, interview by Sir Norin Rad. 78 Grandmixer DXT, in discussion with the author, December 28, 2017. 79 Cholly Rock, interview by Troy L. Smith. 80 Smith and Smith, “Early Days of Breaking.” 81 James Bond, interview by Sir Norin Rad. 82 Trixie, interview by Sir Norin Rad, Castles in the Sky (blog), December 3, 2017, http://preciousgemsofknowledge79.blogspot.com/2017/12/interview-with-originalb-boy-trixie.html 83 PHASE 2, “Dance or Die!!!” 84 Ibid. 85 Kool Herc quoted in Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton, “Kool Herc: Father of Hip Hop,” in The Record Players: DJ Revolutionaries (New York: Black Cat, 2010), 171. 86 BeatMaster, “Ride, Sally Ride,” in The BeatMaster Series, Scribd (blog), 2015, https:// www.scribd.com/doc/270983561/beatmaster-records-historicalhiphop-com?secret_ password=kAfaSBQm1kIE7Hbbl6oB#download&from_embed 87 Fresh Dressed, directed by Sacha Jenkins (2015; United States: Mass Appeal). 88 Nelson George, Buppies, B-Boys, Baps, & Bohos: Notes on Post-Soul Black Culture (Cambridge: Da Capo Press, 2001), xv. 89 Rahiem, interview by Mr. Dre, YouTube video, 9:06, posted by “Get It Done Entertainment,” June 9, 2014, https://youtu.be/1lAhc3Prksc 90 Cholly Rock, interview by Disco Daddy, Hip Hop Ya Don’t Stop, podcast audio, February 3, 2017, https://www.blogtalkradio.com/gumboforthesoul/2017/02/04/ hip-hop-ya-dont-stop-hosted-by-disco-daddy-the-father-of-west-coast-hip-hop; Cholly Rock, interview by Michael Wayne, YouTube video, 6:06, posted by “Michael Waynetv,” March 7, 2014, https://youtu.be/5lEMVD_tTqs 91 For a few of the many accounts from pioneers affirming the early derogatory use of “hip-hop,” see Grandmixer DXT, interview by Leonard Lopate, “The Leonard Lopate Show,” WNYC, August 24, 2017, audio, 18:27, https://www. wnyc.org/story/conlon-dxt/; Melle Mel, interview by Joe Pascal, YouTube video, 1:14, posted by “hudsonunionsociety,” August 6, 2014, https://youtu. be/5eeK7OMhFZs; PHASE 2 quoted in Jason Cory Mendez, “The BX Chronicles: Exploring the Complexities of Life int eh South Bronx,” (doctoral dissertation,

196

NOTES

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2008), 8, https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/ concern/dissertations/5t34sk09n?locale=en 92 Kool Herc, YouTube video, 49:43, from the documentary The Hip Hop Years, posted by “Firehouse SoundLabs,” January 6, 2011, https://youtu.be/LhrSlOa2bsA 93 Cholly Rock, interview by Disco Daddy. 94 Peter Jones, interview by the Bronx African American History Project, October 1, 2004, Bronx African American History Project. BAAHP Digital Archive at Fordham University, Bronx, NY, https://research.library.fordham.edu/baahp_oralhist/253/ 95 Joseph C. Ewoodzie, Break Beats in the Bronx: Rediscovering Hip-Hop’s Early Years (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017), 75. 96 Cholly Rock, interview by Disco Daddy; The History of Rap, directed by Tommy Sowards (2000; United States: Krush Groove Films). 97 Grandmixer DXT, interview by Disco Daddy, Hip Hop Ya Don’t Stop, podcast audio, March 11, 2017, http://www.blogtalkradio.com/gumboforthesoul/2017/03/11/hiphop-ya-dont-stop-hosted-by-michael-khalfani-aka-disco-daddy 98 Ewoodzie, Break Beats, 75. 99 Cheryl L. Keyes, Rap Music and Street Consciousness (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002), 43; Ewoodzie, Break Beats, 45; Houston A. Baker, Jr., “Hybridity, the Rap Race, and Pedagogy for the 1990s,” in Technoculture: Cultural Politics, Volume 3, ed. Constance Penley and Andrew Ross (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991), 198. 100 Nelson George, The Death of Rhythm & Blues (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988), 153. 101 Mark Jacobson, “Hollyw-o-o-o-d! The Return of the New York Disco,” New York Magazine, July 1, 1974, 46. 102 Cholly Rock, interview by Disco Daddy. 103 Ced Gee, interview by DJ Vlad, YouTube video, 9:32, posted by “Djvlad,” September 1, 2020, https://youtu.be/FyxjgaCbua8 104 For a critique of how scholars have overlooked the Africanist aesthetics and roots of disco, see Thomas F. DeFrantz, “The Black Beat Made Visible: Hip Hop Dance and Body Power,” chap. 4 in Of the Presence of the Body: Essays on Dance and Performance Theory, ed. André Lepecki (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2004), 68. 105 PHASE 2, in discussion with the author, January 19, 2017. 106 Kurtis Blow, liner notes to The History of Rap, Vol. 1: The Genesis, Rhino Records, 1997. 107 “Founding Fathers The Untold Story of Hip Hop,” YouTube video, 1:25:00, posted by “Itch FM,” March 10, 2017, https://youtu.be/Q__6DEpFSqo

NOTES

197

108 Stuart Hall, Cultural Studies (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016). 109 Kool DJ Dee, interview by Michael Wayne, YouTube video, 6:36, posted by “Michael Waynetv,” December 17, 2014, https://youtu.be/FIwu4Io6q2U 110 The History of Rap. 111 Hazzard-Gordon, Jookin’, 130. 112 Kyle Eustice, “Van Silk Explains How Both Keith Cowboy & Lovebug Starski Gave Hip Hop its Name,” Hip Hop DX, February 10, 2018, https://hiphopdx.com/news/ id.45932/title.van-silk-explains-how-both-keith-cowboy-lovebug-starkski-gave-hiphop-its-name# 113 Mendez, “The BX Chronicles,” 65. 114 Hazzard-Gordon, Jookin’. 115 Zora Neale Hurston, “Characteristics of Negro Expression,” in Negro: An Anthology, ed. Nancy Cunard (1934; repr., New York: Frederick Ungar, 1970), 28. 116 Langston Hughes, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” The Nation, June 23, 1926, https://www.thenation.com/article/negro-artist-and-racial-mountain/ 117 Tony Bolden, “Groove Theory: A Vamp on the Epistemology of Funk,” American Studies 52, no. 4 (2013): 18. 118 Cornel West, Race Matters (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993), 3. 119 Hager, Hip Hop, 103.

Chapter 5 1

Sally Banes, “Breaking Is Hard to Do: To the Beat, Y’all,” Village Voice, April 22–28, 1981, 31.

2

Sally Banes, “Breaking,” in Fresh: Hip Hop Don’t Stop, ed. Nelson George, Sally Banes, Susan Flinker and Patty Romanowski (New York: Random House/Sarah Lazin Books, 1985), 84.

3

Katrina Hazzard-Donald, “Dance in Hip Hop Culture,” chap. in Droppin Science: Critical Essays on Rap Music and Hip Hop Culture, ed. William Eric Perkins (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), 225, 227.

4

Susan L. Foster, “Choreographies of Gender,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 24, no. 1 (1998): 14.

5

bell hooks, Black Looks: Race and Representation (New York: Routledge, 2015), 35.

198

NOTES

6

Maxine Leeds Craig, Sorry I Don’t Dance: Why Men Refuse to Move (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014).

7

PHASE 2, in discussion with the author, May 1, 2018.

8

PHASE 2, interview by Ivor L. Miller, March 1989, Box T11, Folder 393, Ivor L. Miller Papers, Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Amherst, MA.

9

Marshall Stearns and Jean Stearns, Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance (1968; repr., New York: Da Capo Press, 1994), 228.

10 PHASE 2, interview by Ivor L. Miller. 11 We Was All Kings, directed by Atsushi Numata (2005; United States: Agit Props Film), 56:00, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAF0o51B7-U 12 Sharon Leigh Clark, “Rock Dance in the United States, 1960–1970: Its Origins, Forms, and Patterns” (doctoral dissertation, NYU, 1974), ProQuest (AAT 7412833), 74. 13 Karen Hubbard and Terry Monaghan, “Negotiating Compromise on a Burnished Wood Floor: Social Dancing at the Savoy,” chap. 7 in Ballroom, Boogie, Shimmy Sham, Shake: A Social and Popular Dance Reader, ed. Julie Malnig (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 133; Cynthia J. Novack, Sharing the Dance: Contact Improvisation and American Culture (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990), 42; Frances Rust, Dance in Society: An Analysis of the Relationship between the Social Dance and Society in England from the Middle Ages to the Present Day (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969), 125. 14 GrandMixer DXT, in discussion with the author, December 28, 2017. 15 Ibid. 16 GrandMixer DXT, interview by Disco Daddy, Hip Hop Ya Don’t Stop, podcast audio, March 11, 2017, http://www.blogtalkradio.com/gumboforthesoul/2017/03/11/hiphop-ya-dont-stop-hosted-by-michael-khalfani-aka-disco-daddy 17 Deusy, interview by Sir Norin Rad, Castles in the Sky (blog), December 20, 2021, https://preciousgemsofknowledge79.blogspot.com/2021/12/interview-with-b-girlduesy.html 18 B-Boy Sasa, interview by Nemesis, Facebook video, 1:06:45, posted by “Pro Breaking Tour,” June 16, 2020, https://www.facebook.com/probreakingtour/ videos/737438740400258/ 19 Craig, Sorry I Don’t Dance, 144. 20 Tyrone the Mixologist, interview by Disco Daddy, Hip Hop Ya Don’t Stop, podcast audio, March 11, 2017, http://www.blogtalkradio.com/gumboforthesoul/2017/03/11/ hip-hop-ya-dont-stop-hosted-by-michael-khalfani-aka-disco-daddy

NOTES

199

21 Ibid. 22 Kool Kyle, interview by Troy L. Smith, The Foundation (blog), 2005, http:// thafoundation.com/kyle.htm 23 PHASE 2, in discussion with the author, November 20, 2018. 24 Ibid. 25 PHASE 2, “Electrified Moments: A Look into B-Boy Dance Connection,” Represent 7, April/May, 1995, 29. 26 Dancing Doug, interview by Sir Norin Rad, Castles in the Sky (blog), July 2, 2017, https://preciousgemsofknowledge79.blogspot.com/2017/07/interview-with-originalb-boy-dancin.html 27 Clark Kent, interview by Sir Norin Rad, Castles in the Sky (blog), August 5, 2017, https://preciousgemsofknowledge79.blogspot.com/2017/12/interview-with-dj-clarkkent-herculoids.html 28 Steven Hager, Hip Hop: The Illustrated History of Break Dancing, Rap Music, and Graffiti (1984; repr., New York: Smashwords, 2012) e-book, 15. 29 Cholly Rock, interview by Profo Won, Facebook video, 1:10:01, posted by “Profo Wons Professional Page,” April 15, 2017, https://www.facebook.com/profowonFLGZ/ videos/1262396987189691 30 Sara LaBoskey, “Getting Off: Portrayals of Masculinity in Hip Hop Dance in Film,” Dance Research Journal 33, no. 2 (2001): 114. 31 Jennifer Fisher and Anthony Shay, eds., When Men Dance: Choreographing Masculinities across Borders (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009); Angela McRobbie, “Dance and Social Fantasy,” in Gender and Generation, ed. Angela McRobbie and Mica Nava (London: MacMillan, 1984), 143–4. 32 We Was All Kings. 33 Keith Smith and Kevin Smith, “Early Days of Breaking” (presentation, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada, December 7, 2015). 34 Clark Kent, interview by Sir Norin Rad. 35 DJ Smokey, YouTube video, 34:10, excerpt from The Dead Sea Scrolls of Hiphop documentary short, posted by “health is wealth,” August 7, 2019, https://youtu.be/ kUIROGcVWMo 36 Grandmaster Flash and David Ritz, The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash: My Life, My Beats (New York: Broadway Books, 2008), 38. 37 Kool Herc, interview by Terry Gross, National Public Radio, March 30, 2005, https:// www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4567450

200

NOTES

38 Mary Fogarty, “Dance to the Drummer’s Beat: Competing Tastes in International B-Boy/B-Girl Culture” (doctoral dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 2010), ProQuest (U574652), 33. 39 Cholly Rock, interview by Profo Won. 40 GrandMixer DXT, in discussion with the author, December 28, 2017. 41 Sha-Rock and Iesha Brown, Luminary Icon: The Story of the Beginning and End of Hip Hop’s First Female MC, read by Trinise Crowder (Humble, TX: Pearly Gates Publishing, 2011), audiobook; 3 hrs., 8 mins. 42 Ibid. 43 Pebblee Poo, interview by Rafika, The Key107, podcast audio, November 22, 2016, https://podbay.fm/podcast/676995235/e/1479864600 44 Pebblee Poo, YouTube video, 6:00, excerpt from From Mambo to Hip Hop documentary, posted by “Zeke62,” December 31, 2015, https://youtu.be/ vqOUKsRQcx0 45 Pebblee Poo, YouTube video, 1:52:12, from panel conversation at Cornell University, posted by “Cornell University,” April 14, 2009, https://youtu.be/FpxekpzP-AA 46 Lisa Lee, interview by TheBeeShine, YouTube video, 2:55, posted by “TheBeeShine,” March 10, 2014, https://youtu.be/e6NZjQLpI0Y 47 Michael Holman, Breaking and the New York City Breakers (New York: Freundlich Books, 1984), 139. 48 Pow Wow, interview by Sir Norin Rad, Castles in the Sky (blog), September 1, 2018, http://preciousgemsofknowledge79.blogspot.com/2018/09/interview-with-b-boymc-pow-wow-zulu.html 49 Cholly Rock, interview by Michael Wayne, YouTube video, 20:26, posted by “Michael Waynetv,” April 7, 2016, https://youtu.be/DX3u05mLaQw 50 MC Kimba, interview by Disco Daddy, Hip Hop Ya Don’t Stop, podcast audio, November 17, 2017, https://www.blogtalkradio.com/gumboforthesoul/2017/11/11/ mc-kimba-and-missy-dee-guest-on-hip-hop-ya-dont-ya-stop-when-it-was-hip-hop 51 Imani Kai Johnson, “From Blues Women to B-Girls: Performing Badass Femininity,” Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory 24, no. 1 (2014): 15–28. 52 Thomas F. DeFrantz, “The Black Beat Made Visible: Hip Hop Dance and Body Power,” chap. 4 in Of the Presence of the Body: Essays on Dance and Performance Theory, ed. André Lepecki (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2004), 77. 53 Rachael Gunn, “‘Don’t Worry, It’s Just a Girl!’: Negotiating and Challenging Gendered Assumptions in Sydney’s Breakdancing Scene,” Journal of World Popular Music 3, no. 1 (2016): 65.

NOTES

201

54 Greg Dimitriadis, “Hip Hop: From Live Performance to Mediated Narrative,” Popular Music 15, no. 2 (May 1996): 180; Joseph G. Schloss, Foundation: B-Boys, B-Girls, and Hip-Hop Culture in New York (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 8. 55 Sha-Rock, interview by Disco Daddy, Hip Hop Ya Don’t Stop, podcast audio, January 6, 2017, https://www.blogtalkradio.com/gumboforthesoul/2017/01/07/hip-hop-yadont-stop-hosted-by-the-father-of-west-coast-hip-hop-disco-daddy 56 Lady Sweet, interview by Disco Daddy, Hip Hop Ya Don’t Stop, podcast audio, January 20, 2017, https://www.blogtalkradio.com/gumboforthesoul/2017/01/21/hiphop-ya-dont-stop-hosted-by-disco-daddy 57 Kyra D. Gaunt, The Games Black Girls Play: Learning the Ropes from Double-Dutch to Hip Hop (New York: New York University Press, 2006), 2. 58 Greg Dimitriadis, “Hip-Hop to Rap: Some Implications of an Historically Situated Approach to Performance,” Text and Performance Quarterly 19, no. 4 (1999): 355–69; Mary Fogarty, “The Body and Dance,” in The Routledge Reader on the Sociology of Music, ed. John Shepherd and Kyle Devine (New York: Routledge, 2015), 245–6. 59 Sha-Rock quoted in Michael Friedman, “Why MC Sha Rock Is Still the Luminary Icon,” Psychology Today, June 1, 2016, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/ brick-brick/201606/why-mc-sha-rock-is-still-the-luminary-icon 60 Joseph C. Ewoodzie, “Race, Gender, and the Pursuit of Recognition,” chap. 5 in Break Beats in the Bronx: Rediscovering Hip-Hop’s Early Years (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017). 61 Nelson George quoted in Gwendolyn D. Pough, Check It while I Wreck It: Black Womanhood, Hip Hop Culture, and the Public Sphere (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2004), 8. 62 Tricia Rose, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (Hanover: Wesleyan University Press, 1994), 152. 63 Zora Neale Hurston, “Characteristics of Negro Expression,” in Negro: An Anthology, ed. Nancy Cunard (1934; repr., New York: Frederick Ungar, 1970), 30. 64 Fogarty, “Dance to the Drummer’s Beat.” 65 Gunn, “‘Don’t Worry, It’s Just a Girl!”; Tonje F. Langnes and Kari Fasting, “Gender Constructions in Breaking,”Sport in Society 2, no. 11 (2017): 1596–611; Jessica Nydia Pabon-Colon, “Writin’, Breakin’, Beatboxin’: Strategically Performing ‘Women’ in Hip-Hop,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 43, no. 1 (2017): 175–200. 66 Kai Johnson, “From Blues Women to B-Girls,” 16. 67 Hurston, “Characteristics of Negro Expression, 29.”

202

NOTES

Chapter 6 1

Steven Hager, Hip Hop: The Illustrated History of Break Dancing, Rap Music, and Graffiti (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984), 84; Kool Herc, interview by Combat Jack, The Combat Jack Show, podcast audio, October 10, 2015, https://soundcloud. com/thecombatjackshow/the-kool-herc-episode

2 Ibid. 3

Kool Herc, interview by Terry Gross, “Kool Herc: A Founding Father of Hip Hop,” National Public Radio, March 30, 2005, audio, 30:07, https://www.npr.org/templates/ story/story.php?storyId=4567450

4

Just as ironically, East Tremont was also the focus of Robert Caro’s chapter on the aftermath of the Cross Bronx Expressway. In it, he claims to have visited the community in the early 1970s and described it in such racist terms as that of a “jungle” that had now been “ravaged” by “urban gypsies” (poor minorities) and “roamed by narcotics addicts in gangs like packs of wolves.” Robert Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974), 893.

5

Thomas Guzman-Sanchez, Underground Dance Masters: Final History of a Forgotten Era (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2012), 132–3; Hager, Hip Hop, 83; U.net, Renegades of Funk: Il Bronx e le Radici dell’Hip Hop [The Bronx and the Roots of Hip Hop] (Milano, IT: Agenzia X, 2011), 93–4, 148.

6

Wayne Marshall, “Kool Herc,” in Icons of Hip Hop: An Encyclopedia of the Movement, Music, and Culture, ed. Mickey Hess (Westport: Greenwood, 2007); Keith Keith, interview by Troy L. Smith, The Foundation (blog), n.d., http://www.thafoundation. com/KeithCaesar.htm

7

Melle Mel, interview by Charlie Ahearn, April 11, 1991, Box 4, Folder 23, Charlie Ahearn Hip-Hop Archive #8078, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY.

8

Cholly Rock, interview by Michael Wayne, YouTube video, 10:26, posted by “Michael Waynetv,” October 7, 2015, https://youtu.be/KE0CyWAlEeU

9

Cholly Rock, interview by Troy L. Smith, Scribd (blog), 2016, https://www.scribd. com/document/336545484/troy-smith-interview-edited-revisions-charlierock?secret_password=gImDEfH9Rjc4rczDphL9#download&from_embed

10 Tony Tone, interview by Troy L. Smith, The Foundation (blog), 2004, http://www. thafoundation.com/tonytone.htm 11 Melle Mel, interview by Charlie Ahearn, May 26, 1991, Box 4, Folder 23, Charlie Ahearn Hip-Hop Archive #8078, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY.

NOTES

203

12 GrandMixer DXT, interview by Disco Daddy, Hip Hop Ya Don’t Stop, podcast audio, March 11, 2017, http://www.blogtalkradio.com/gumboforthesoul/2017/03/11/hiphop-ya-dont-stop-hosted-by-michael-khalfani-aka-disco-daddy; Rahiem, interview by Disco Daddy, Hip Hop Ya Don’t Stop, podcast audio, March 18, 2017, https://www. blogtalkradio.com/gumboforthesoul/2017/03/18/genius-is-common-presents-hiphop-ya-dont-stop-hosted-by-michael-khalfani; John “DJ Jazzy Jay” Byas, interview by Mark Naison, March 19, 2009, Bronx African American History Project. BAAHP Digital Archive at Fordham University, Bronx, NY, https://research.library.fordham. edu/baahp_oralhist/170/; Ski Jump, interview by Troy L. Smith, Facebook post, June 14, 2018, https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10215025768174119&set=a.12 13498374079&type=3&theater 13 Grandmaster Flash quoted in Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton, “Grandmaster Flash: Scientist of the Mix,” in The Record Players: DJ Revolutionaries (New York: Black Cat, 2010), 183. 14 Grandmaster Flash and David Ritz, The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash: My Life, My Beats (New York: Broadway Books, 2008), 54. 15 GrandMixer DXT, in discussion with the author, December 28, 2017. 16 William Eric Perkins, ed., Droppin Science: Critical Essays on Rap Music and Hip Hop Culture (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), 9. 17 GrandMixer DXT, in discussion with the author, December 28, 2017. 18 Ibid. 19 The Freshest Kids: A History of the B-Boy, directed by Israel (2002; United States: Image Entertainment). 20 Ibid. 21 GrandMixer DXT, interview by Disco Daddy. 22 Kevie Kev quoted in Jim Fricke and Charlie Ahearn, Yes Yes Y’all: The Experience Music Project Oral History of Hip-Hop’s First Decade (Cambridge: Da Capo Press, 2002), 41. 23 Joseph C. Ewoodzie, Break Beats in the Bronx: Rediscovering Hip-Hop’s Early Years (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017), 133. 24 Beaver, interview by Sir Norin Rad, Castles in the Sky (blog), May 21, 2018, https:// preciousgemsofknowledge79.blogspot.com/2018/05/interview-with-original-b-boybeaver.html?m=0 25 Shakey Shake, in discussion with the author, February 10, 2018. 26 Grandmaster Caz, interview by DJ Vlad, YouTube video, 3:35, posted by “Djvlad,” September 11, 2014, https://youtu.be/Bj9O-kN6Qk8 27 Kool Herc, interview by Combat Jack.

204

NOTES

28 Kool Herc, YouTube video, 37:07, from a speech in Coney Island, New York, posted by “UPTOWN AL,” January 13, 2016, https://youtu.be/sMuug1IOhIg 29 PHASE 2 quoted in Ivor L. Miller, “Aerosol Kingdom: The Indigenous Culture of New York Subway Painters,” (doctoral dissertation, Yale University, 1990), ProQuest (1349354), 5. 30 GrandMixer DXT, “Hip Hop as a Culture” (presentation, Hip-Hop: A Cultural Expression, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Cleveland, OH, September 11, 1999). 31 PHASE 2, in discussion with the author, September 11, 2019. 32 Breakout, interview by Troy L. Smith, Scribd (blog), 2010, https://www.scribd.com/ document/340478181/breakout-and-barron-with-kk-rockwell?secret_password=RH ZfmuR09xdyTzpKYWnq#download&from_embed 33 Shanice Davis, “Why Latinos Can’t be Left Out of the Hip Hop Narrative,” Vibe, August 15, 2016, https://www.vibe.com/features/viva/why-latinos-cant-be-left-outof-the-hip-hop-narrative-445344/; Gary Suarez, “Latinz Goin’ Platinum: How a Gang Peace Treaty in the Bronx Helped Forge Hip-Hop,” Remezcla, March 26, 2020, https://remezcla.com/features/music/latinz-goin-platinum-from-hoe-avenue-tosoul-clapp-latinxes-helped-give-birth-to-hip-hop/ 34 Douglas Colón, “We Have to Stop the Racism in the Bboy Community,” Facebook post, June 28, 2020, https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10205777860902217 &set=a.1213498374079&type=3&theater 35 Kool Herc, interview by Combat Jack. 36 Antonio T. Tiongson, Filipinos Represent: DJs, Racial Authenticity, and the Hip-Hop Nation (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013), 26. 37 Flores, “Rappin’, Writin’, & Breakin,’” 27; Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (New York: Verso, 1993), 103; Raquel Z. Rivera, New York Ricans from the Hip Hop Zone (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 43. 38 Ivan Sanchez and Louis “DJ Disco Wiz” Cedeno, It’s Just Begun: The Epic Journey of DJ Disco Wiz, Hip Hop’s First Latino DJ (Brooklyn: Powerhouse Books, 2009), 39. 39 Ibid. 40 DJ Kayslay, YouTube video, 15:33, from “What’s the Science” podcast, posted by “DJ Kayslay,” March 2, 2017, https://youtu.be/ylrMGGI9jVk 41 Jeff Chang, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation (New York: St. Martin’s Press), 117. 42 Hager, Hip Hop, 81. 43 Michael Holman, Breaking and the New York City Breakers (New York: Freundlich Books, 1984), 53.

NOTES

205

44 The Freshest Kids. 45 BOM 5, interview by Mathematics, YouTube video, 1:02:48, posted by “S.STREET MEDIA,” April 25, 2020, https://youtu.be/x1RRVQY1mS8 46 Johan Kugelberg, ed., Born in the Bronx: A Visual Record of the Early Days of Hip Hop (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 2007), 199. 47 Kusa, interview by Sir Norin Rad, Castles in the Sky (blog), December 7, 2019, https://preciousgemsofknowledge79.blogspot.com/2019/12/interview-with-b-boykusa-zulu-masters.html 48 Flip Rock, interview by Charlie Ahearn, April 10, 2000, Box 5, Folder 28, Charlie Ahearn Hip-Hop Archive #8078, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY. 49 Whipper Whip quoted in Fricke and Ahearn, Yes Yes Y’all, 248. 50 Disco Wiz quoted in Mark Katz, Groove Music: The Art and Culture of the Hip-Hop DJ (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 28. 51 The Freshest Kids. 52 From Mambo to Hip Hop, directed by Henry Chalfant (2006; United States: MVD Visual). 53 Joseph G. Schloss, Foundation: B-Boys, B-Girls, and Hip-Hop Culture in New York (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 49. 54 Aby, interview by Sir Norin Rad, Castles in the Sky (blog), December 27, 2018, https://preciousgemsofknowledge79.blogspot.com/2018/12/interview-with-b-boyaby-bronx-boys-aby.html 55 Jojo, interview by Vitamin, YouTube video, 29:31, posted by “Vitamin Vision TV,” January 7, 2021, https://youtu.be/2fBoO8TZ8cw 56 Hager, Hip Hop, 82; Cristina Veran, “(Puerto) Rock of Ages,” Rap Pages, September 1996, 47. 57 Lucky Strike, interview by Charlie Ahearn, December 14, 2001, Box 5, Folder 28, Charlie Ahearn Hip-Hop Archive #8078, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY. 58 Ibid. 59 Ken Swift, “History of Dance in NY” (presentation, Hip-Hop: A Cultural Expression, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Cleveland, OH, September 11, 1999). 60 Ken Swift, interview by M.Sinckler, Graphotism (blog), 1999, http://www. spartanicrockers.com/the-knowledge/interviews/ken-swift/ 61 U.net, Renegades of Funk, 93.

206

NOTES

62 Guzman-Sanchez, Underground Dance Masters, 140. 63 Crazy Legs quoted in Chuck Arnold, “How Jennifer Beals Helped Launch ‘Crazy Legs’ Colón to Break-Dancing Stardom,” New York Post, September 27, 2018, https:// nypost.com/2018/09/27/how-jennifer-beals-helped-launch-crazy-legs-colon-tobreak-dancing-stardom 64 Imani Kai Johnson, “Battling in the Bronx: Social Choreography and Outlaw Culture among Early Hip-Hop Streetdancers in New York City,” Dance Research Journal 50, no. 2 (2018): 66–7. 65 Mandalit Del Barco, “Rap’s Latino Sabor,” chap. 3 in Droppin Science: Critical Essays on Rap Music and Hip Hop Culture, ed. William Eric Perkins (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), 68. 66 Ibid. 67 Trac 2, interview by DJ Mane One, YouTube video, 12:25, posted by “Superbbeatshow,” October 28, 2012, https://youtu.be/Qk6RHK7Ldec 68 Halifu Osumare, “Global Breakdancing and the Intercultural Body,” Dance Research Journal 34, no. 2 (2002): 42. 69 The Freshest Kids. 70 Cholly Rock, interview by Michael Wayne, YouTube video, 44:36, posted by “Michael Waynetv,” March 7, 2016, https://youtu.be/06bnBQRsE4I 71 BeatMaster, “Juju Man,” in The BeatMaster Series, Facebook post, April 8, 2015, https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10205603195735697&set=a.1213498374 079&type=3 72 Tricia Rose, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (Hanover: Wesleyan University Press, 1994), 48; Danny Hoch, “Toward a Hip-Hop Aesthetic: A Manifesto for the Hip Hop Arts Movement,” in Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop, ed. Jeff Chang (New York: Basic Civitas, 2006), 353. 73 Cholly Rock, interview by Troy L. Smith. 74 The Freshest Kids. 75 Hager, Hip Hop, 82–3. 76 Joe Joe, interview by Charlie Ahearn, July 30, 2000, Box 5, Folder 28, Charlie Ahearn Hip-Hop Archive #8078, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY. 77 Cholly Rock, interview by Troy L. Smith. 78 Jennifer Fisher and Anthony Shay, eds., When Men Dance: Choreographing Masculinities across Borders (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 113.

NOTES

207

79 Ewoodzie, Break Beats in the Bronx, 133; Nelson George, Hip Hop America (New York: Penguin Books, 1993), 15–16; Tiongson, Filipinos Represent, 26. 80 Michael Norman, “Frosty Freeze and Kid Smooth Break for Fame at Roxy Disco,” New York Times, October 18, 1983, B1. 81 Hager, Hip Hop, 86. 82 Joe Joe, interview by Charlie Ahearn. 83 Bambi, interview by Edukate, Get Educated on Power Style Radio, podcast audio, January 20, 2015, https://soundcloud.com/djedukate/get-edukated-on-power-styleradio-bgirl-bambi-interview 84 Cristina Veran, “‘Breaking’ It All Down: The Rise and Fall and Rise of the B-boy Kingdom,” in The Vibe History of Hip Hop, ed. Alan Light (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1999), 55. 85 David from The Mexican Rocking Crew, interview by Kid Terrific, YouTube video, 21:32, posted by “Kid Terrific. Rockwell Association,” April 10, 2020, https://youtu. be/5n4DW5McnLs 86 Shakey Shake, in discussion with the author, February 10, 2018. 87 Pee Wee Dance, in discussion with the author, June 22, 2018. 88 Kim Valente, A B-Girl in a B-Boy World: From the Streets of Brooklyn to Breakdancing Stardom (Las Vegas: Virtualbookworm Publishing, 2015). 89 Lucky Strike, interview by Charlie Ahearn. 90 Lil Boy Keith, interview by Sir Norin Rad, Castles in the Sky (blog), November 6, 2018, https://preciousgemsofknowledge79.blogspot.com/2018/11/interview-with-bboy-lil-boy-keith.html 91 Shakey Shake, in discussion with the author, February 10, 2018. 92 We Was All Kings, directed by Atsushi Numata (2005; United States: Agit Props Film), 56:00, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAF0o51B7-U 93 Trac 2, interview by DJ Mane One, YouTube video, 13:00, posted by “Superbbeatshow,” October 28, 2012, https://youtu.be/Qk6RHK7Ldec 94 Imani Kai Johnson, “Dark Matter in B-Boying Cyphers: Race and Global Connection in Hip Hop” (doctoral dissertation, USC, 2009), 119, http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/ digital/collection/p15799coll127/id/265317; Osumare, “Global Breakdancing”; Mary Fogarty, “Dance to the Drummer’s Beat: Competing Tastes in International B-Boy/BGirl Culture” (doctoral dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 2010), ProQuest (U574652). 95 Grandmaster Caz, interview by DJ Vlad.

208

NOTES

96 Trac 2, “NY Meets CA: Coming Together of Dance Styles” (presentation, Hip-Hop: A Cultural Expression, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Cleveland, OH, September 11, 1999). 97 From Mambo to Hip Hop; Crazy Legs, interview by Brian Rose, YouTube video, 6:00, posted by “London Real,” April 27, 2017, https://youtu.be/R8yTYZD8kYo 98 Crazy Legs, interview by Davey D, Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner (blog), 2001, https:// www.daveyd.com/crazylegsinterview.html 99 Ken Swift, interview by Arts Edge, YouTube, 1:48, posted by “Kennedy Center Education Digital Learning,” August 5, 2015, https://youtu.be/fRhjfusHIm0 100 Alien Ness, interview by Strife TV, YouTube, 6:37, posted by “Strife.tv,” March 7, 2013, https://youtu.be/bKIbSZ5_LMw 101 BeatMaster, “Amen Brother,” in The BeatMaster Series, Facebook post, May 10, 2015, https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10205813678597637&set=a.1213498374079. 102 PHASE 2, “History of Dance in NY” (presentation, Hip-Hop: A Cultural Expression, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Cleveland, OH, September 11, 1999). 103 Nelson George, “Hip-Hop’s Founding Fathers Speak the Truth,” in That’s the Joint! The Hip Hop Studies Reader, ed. Murray Forman and Mark Anthony Neal (New York: Routledge, 2004), 47. 104 PHASE 2, in discussion with the author, November 8, 2015. 105 BeatMaster, “Fire It Up,” in The BeatMaster Series, Facebook post, May 3, 2015, https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10205777860902217&set=a.1213498374 079&type=3&theater 106 George, “Hip-Hop’s Founding Fathers,” 47. 107 GrandMixer DXT, in discussion with the author, December 28, 2017. 108 Powerful Pex, interview by Michael Holman, 2014, Graffiti Rock Interviews, *MGZMD 423, er. 26, Michael Holman Collection, Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts; David from The Mexican Rocking Crew, interview by Kid Terrific. 109 Hager, Hip Hop; Holman, Breaking. 110 Flores, “Rappin’, Writin’, & Breakin,’” 27. 111 Hoch, “Toward a Hip-Hop Aesthetic,” 351. 112 Tony Mitchell, “Introduction: Another Root—Hip-Hop Outside the USA,” in Global Noise: Rap and Hip-Hop Outside the USA, ed. Tony Mitchell (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2001). 113 Fogarty, “Dance to the Drummer’s Beat,” 76–8. 114 Halifu Osumare, The Africanist Aesthetic in Global Hip-Hop: Power Moves (New York: Palgrave, 2007).

NOTES

209

Epilogue 1

Sally Banes, “Breaking Is Hard to Do: To the Beat, Y’all,” Village Voice, April 22–28, 1981, 31.

2

Sally Banes, “Breakdancing: A Reporter’s Story,” in Folklife Annual, 1986, ed. Alan Jabbour and James Hardin (Library of Congress, Washington, DC: American Folklife Center, 1987); Martha Cooper, Hip Hop Files: Photographs 1979–1984 (Germany: From Here to Fame, 2004); Michael Holman, Breaking and the New York City Breakers (New York: Freundlich Books, 1984).

3

Sally Banes, “Breaking,” in Fresh: Hip Hop Don’t Stop, ed. Nelson George, Sally Banes, Susan Flinker and Patty Romanowski (New York: Random House/Sarah Lazin Books, 1985), 79.

4

Mary Fogarty, “‘Whatever Happened to Breakdancing?’ Transnational B-Boy/B-Girl Networks, Underground Video Magazines and Imagined Affinities” (master’s thesis, Brock University, 2006); The Freshest Kids: A History of the B-Boy, directed by Israel (2002; United States: Image Entertainment); Planet B-Boy, directed by Benson Lee (2008; United States: Elephant Eye Films); Raquel Z. Rivera, New York Ricans from the Hip Hop Zone (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 76.

5

Thomas Hergenröther, “Introduction: BOTY Is … Worldwide!” in BOTY History Booklet, ed. Bernd Schöneberg (2015).

6

The Freshest Kids; Frank Owen, “Breaking’s New Ground,” The Village Voice, May 26, 1998, 43, 21; Planet B-Boy.

7

Paul Davidson, “B-Boy Paraphernalia,” Rap Pages 5, no. 8 (1996): 18; Fogarty, “Whatever Happened to Breakdancing?”

8

UBC International, “UBC International Presents the Ultimate B-Boy Championship at the MGM Grand Garden Arena,” Cision PR Newswire, May 27, 2010, https://www. prnewswire.com/news-releases/ubc-international-presents-the-ultimate-b-boychampionship-at-the-mgm-grand-garden-arena-august-6–7-95049184.html

9

GrandMixer DXT, in discussion with the author, December 28, 2017.

10 Ibid. 11 Tom Schad, “Breaking, Also Known as Breakdancing, Becomes an Olympic Sport and Some Hope the Move Won’t Dilute Its Soul,” USA Today, December 7, 2020, https:// www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/2020/12/07/breakdancing-breakingbecomes-olympic-sport-2024-olympics/3849970001/; Kerry Justich, “Breakdancing, or ‘Breaking,’ Is Headed to the 2024 Summer Games,” Yahoo! Sports, December 11, 2020, https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/breakdancing-pioneers-worry-olympicserasing-history-221020965.html; Tanzina Vega, “Breakdancing Will Be an Olympic Sport,” WNYC Studios, December 9, 2020, https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/ takeaway/segments/breakdancing-olympic-sport-hip-hop-break-legends-discuss

210

NOTES

12 Juan Flores, “Rappin’, Writin’, & Breakin’,” Trotter Review 7, no. 2 (1993): 27; Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (New York: Verso, 1993), 103; Raquel Z. Rivera, New York Ricans from the Hip Hop Zone (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 43. 13 Antonio T. Tiongson, Filipinos Represent: DJs, Racial Authenticity, and the Hip-Hop Nation (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013), 26. 14 Mary Fogarty, “Breaking Bad: The New Bgirls,” Dance Current 18, no. 2 (March/April 2015): 34–5; Tonje F. Langnes and Kari Fasting, “Gender Constructions in Breaking,” Sport in Society 2, no. 11 (2017): 1596–611. 15 Serouj Aprahamian, “Hip-Hop, Gangs, and the Criminalization of African American Culture: A Critical Appraisal of Yes Yes Y’all,” Journal of Black Studies 50, no. 3 (2019): 298–315. 16 Joseph G. Schloss, Foundation: B-Boys, B-Girls, and Hip-Hop Culture in New York (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). 17 PHASE 2 quoted in Jerome Harris, “In the Late ‘70s in the Bronx, PHASE 2’s Party Flyers Created a Visual Language for Hip-Hop,” AIGA Eye on Design, July 16, 2019, https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/in-the-late-70s-in-the-bronx-phase-2s-party-flyerscreated-a-visual-language-for-hip-hop/ 18 Katrina Hazzard-Gordon, Jookin’: The Rise of Social Dance Formation in AfricanAmerican Culture (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990), x–xii. 19 Ibid., 174. 20 Hager, Hip Hop, 103. 21 Greg Dimitriadis, “Hip Hop: From Live Performance to Mediated Narrative,” Popular Music 15, no. 2 (May 1996): 180; Schloss, Foundation, 8; Mary Fogarty, “The Body and Dance,” in The Routledge Reader on the Sociology of Music, ed. John Shepherd and Kyle Devine (New York: Routledge, 2015), 245–6. 22 Maulud Sadiq, “The Rise and Fall of Hip-Hop Dance,” Medium, October 17, 2015, https://mauludsadiq.medium.com/where-d-the-dancers-go-or-cholly-atkins-ain-tchoreograph-yo-steps-why-you-dance-like-that-d9ab609f59f6 23 Rize, directed by David LaChapelle (2005; United States: Lions Gate Films). 24 Reed Jackson, “Sound of the Underground: How New York’s Litefeet Producers are Making Sure It’s Showtime in the City,” Vice, August 27, 2015. 25 Zora Neale Hurston, “Characteristics of Negro Expression,” in Negro: An Anthology, ed. Nancy Cunard (1934; repr., New York: Frederick Ungar, 1970), 29.

INDEX

adolescence breaking innovation 20, 67, 75–6, 82, 105, 134, 149–50 hip-hop influence 56, 95–6 identity formation 36, 56, 67, 75–6, 89–91, 134, 149–50 wall writing 36 See also teenagers aerosol art 2, 8, 14, 27, 31, 42, 52, 68, 123, 139, 146. See also style writing Afrika Bambaataa 16, 31, 80, 112, 118, 131–2 Banes, Sally 6–8, 52, 105, 161, 173 n. 23 “Battle Rocking” 65 battling aesthetic development 65, 133 b-girls 110–12, 115 camaraderie 153 entertaining versus 65–6 formal competitions 162–4, 169 origins of 110–12 See also burning, uprocking “B-Boys” etymology 93 generational demarcation 93–6 hip-hop identifier 95–6 Beatmaster Doc Ice 95, 147, 156 Beaver (b-boy) 134–5, 143 b-girls battling 110–11, 114–17 burning 43, 109–12 erasure 106, 165 etymology 93–4 femininity 112–14, 120, 125 influence on breaking 106, 109–11, 114–21, 124, 151 MCing 117, 121–3 reception 18, 109–11, 114–21

BOM 5 142–3 Breakbeats breaking’s influence on 2, 95 etymology of 70–1 evolution of 70–1, 130, 153–154 funk origins 63 influence on breaking 63, 153–156, 155–6, 168 songs associated with 38, 59, 61–2, 70, 136–7 breaking acrobatics 42, 82–3, 91, 114, 124, 134–5, 141, 148, 150, 154–7 alternative names for 39, 48, 51–2 audience participation in 88 “biting” (copying) in 40, 64, 92 commercialization of 52, 99, 150, 156, 161–3 competition in 7, 18, 42, 46, 55, 65–7, 78, 91, 105–6, 109–14, 117, 124, 133, 152–3, 163 creativity in 39–40, 54–5, 65, 67, 83–7, 100, 106, 108, 110, 120–2, 132–3, 146–7, 148, 150, 154, 158, 162, 168 dance moves associated with 38–42, 54–5, 65, 67–9, 83–7, 113, 117–18, 121, 124, 132–5, 141, 144, 148, 150, 154–6, 165–6 etymology 51–3 interethnic interaction in 10–12, 68–9, 128–30, 135–53, 156–9 modern competition scene 13–14, 162–5, 193 n. 39 musicality in 62–5, 67–9, 73, 82, 91, 133, 154–6 Breakout 67, 138–9, 168 Bronx, the. See West Bronx, South Bronx, white flight

212

INDEX

Brown, James 31–6, 39, 40, 45, 54–5, 61–3, 70, 77–8, 85, 92, 95, 107, 109, 137, 180 n. 53 Brown, John (DJ) 38, 40, 59 burning 42–3, 46, 48, 52, 65–6, 94, 109–10, 112, 114, 117, 124, 149 Cholly Rock 5, 27, 67, 85, 87–9, 94, 96, 99, 112, 116, 142, 147–9, 184 n. 109 Chuck Center 78–9 Chuck City Crew 131 Campbell, Cindy 19, 48–9, 56–9, 66, 72, 75, 113, 119 civil rights 19, 24–5, 32–3, 90 Clark Kent (b-boy) 78, 86–7, 93–4, 115, 117, 130, 149, 190 n. 82 Clark, R. Milton 89 COCO 144 37, 68 Coke La Rock 40, 43, 60, 71, 92, 154, 175 n. 56 Collins, Bootsy 33, 62 Craig, Maxine Leeds 107, 109 Crazy Legs 2, 11, 52, 145 Cross Bronx Expressway 19, 24, 27–8, 177–8 n. 21, 178 n. 23, 202 n. 4 DeFrantz, Thomas 53, 55, 90, 121 deindustrialization 19, 24, 28 Deusy 109, 115 disco erasure 3, 99, 196 n. 104 incorporation of hip-hop 69, 135 opposition to hip-hop 20–1, 61–3, 72, 77, 81–2, 89, 96–101, 114, 120, 126, 141, 145, 168 Disco Wiz 27, 80, 136, 139, 143 Dixon-Gottschild, Brenda 171 n. 9 DJing 2, 50–1, 56, 61, 69, 123, 152 Dozens, the 46, 65 D-Squad 131 El Dorado Mike 93, 142–3 erasure 1, 5–6, 14, 64, 99, 166. See also invisibilization Ewoodzie, Jr., Joseph C. 9, 98

femininity 106–7, 112–13, 120, 125. See also gender, b-girls Fogarty, Mary 116, 125, 159 footwork 84, 133–4, 141, 144, 148, 154, 165 Freshest Kids, The (film) 2, 52, 68, 148 freeze (breaking move) 133, 148, 154 Frosty Freeze 152–3 funk alternative values 32–4, 55, 103, 136–7 centrality to hip-hop 35, 38, 44, 47, 56, 59, 61–4, 70, 72–3, 80, 86, 100, 119, 132 influence on breaking 20, 37, 39, 42, 47, 61–4, 67, 70, 72–3, 80, 107, 155 James Brown influence on 32–4 jook origins 34, 170 multicultural ethos 136–7 gangs 7–8, 16, 19, 27, 45–6, 53, 72, 81, 110, 144, 165, 173 n. 29, 181 n. 60, 202 n. 4 gender 3, 21, 56, 62, 90, 100, 103, 105–9, 115–16, 119–22, 124–5, 130. See also femininity, masculinity George, Nelson 9, 96, 98, 180 n. 53 Grandmaster Caz 54, 70, 80, 136, 139, 153 Grandmaster Flash 70, 80, 96, 116, 130–2, 134–5, 152–3, 156, 168 GrandMixer DXT 5, 8, 52, 57, 64, 72, 81, 89, 93, 98, 101, 108–9, 112, 117, 132–4, 137, 157, 163–4, 168 Hager, Steven 6–8, 28, 35, 62, 76, 87, 112, 140, 148, 150, 177 n. 21, 181 n. 63 Hazzard-Gordon, Katrina 5, 36, 81–2, 101, 105, 167–8, 172 n. 16 Hevelow 36, 60, 71, 130, 190 n. 82 “hip-hop” etymology 96–7, 101–2 Holman, Michael 8, 75, 140 Hughes, Langston 23, 32, 47, 102–3 Hurston, Zora Neale 4–5, 19, 22–3, 32–3, 40, 53, 55, 102–3, 124, 170, 172 n. 16 Hustle, The 53, 101, 120

INDEX

invisibilization 2, 13, 15, 106, 124, 158, 162–6, 171 n. 9. See also erasure Jamaica 20, 35, 50, 58, 127, 142, 168, 181 n. 60, 181 n. 63 James Bond (b-boy) 80, 84, 92–4 jazz 3–4, 23, 39, 41, 57, 84–6, 91, 170 Johnson, Imani Kai 10, 120, 125, 146 Jojo 2, 143–4, 148, 81 jooks affective force of 76, 81 alternative values in 77, 82, 101, 103, 106, 120, 125, 158, 167 autonomy of 4, 49, 57–8, 60–1, 63, 66, 73, 80, 101, 103, 123, 125, 130–1, 141, 158, 167 Bronx 24, 36, 47 definition of 5, 19, 23–4, 167, 172 n. 16 hip-hop’s beginnings in 20–1, 51, 57, 67, 73, 79, 90, 106, 129–30, 142, 168 influence on music 34, 122–3 modern influence 169–70 women in 106, 109, 120, 122–5 Katz, Mark 63, 181 n. 63, 186 n. 33 Ken Swift 2, 144, 155 Kohl, Herbert 91 Kool Herc b-boy etymology 20, 93–5, 131 b-girls 114–8 breakbeat etymology 51–3 dancing 11, 19, 35–8, 39, 41–2, 43, 50–1, 56, 59, 103, 168 DJing 19–20, 31, 49–51, 56–73, 75–83, 85–7, 89–90, 95, 101, 103, 109, 130–4, 141–2, 144, 153, 155, 168, 181 n. 63, 193 n. 39 hip-hop etymology 97 James Brown 34–5, 61–2 multicultural ethos 136, 138, 156–7, 144 Plaza Tunnel 38–40, 41–2, 45, 48, 56, 59, 72 Rapping 71, 154 record selections 59, 61, 70, 101, 190 n. 82

213

shouting out nicknames 71, 92, 175 n. 56 style writing 36–7 upbringing in the Bronx 35–6, 127–9, 139, 142, 184 n. 109 Legendary Twins Chuck Center 78 b-girls 114, 117 breaking 11, 13–14, 75–6, 83–7, 132, 147, 149, 175 n. 54 entertaining audiences 89 influences 77–8, 82, 85 Kool Herc 75–6, 78–80, 82–3, 130, 193 n. 39 musicality 63–4 nicknames 91–4, 175 n. 56 upbringing 77–8, 130 Lil Boy Keith 134, 152 Luck-a-Trons 116, 118 masculinity 44, 105–7, 110, 112, 114, 122–5, 165 MCing. See rap Merry-Go-Round 69–71, 75, 83, 131, 153 Multiculturalism 4, 9, 129, 136–7, 157–8 naming African American tradition of 53 civil rights influence on 30 hip-hop practice of 91–6, 175 n. 56 jazz era 91 style writing and 36, 43, 91 New York City Breakers 156 Nicholas Brothers 85, 107 Olympics 21, 64, 164–5 Osumare, Halifu 146, 159 park jams 60, 129–31, 136, 142–3, 147–8, 152–3, 167 Pebblee Poo 116–18, 168 PHASE 2 aerosol art 37 b-girls 107–8, 111

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INDEX

breaking’s etymology 52, 54 dancing 8, 40, 54–5, 65–9, 87, 95, 107–8, 143, 156, 168 disco 99 erasure in hip-hop history 166 hip-hop 102 Kool Herc parties 81 Latino involvement 137–8, 143, 156 racism 27, 30 pin drop 40–2, 54–5, 84, 165 Plaza Tunnel 38–40, 44–9, 56, 59, 72, 108 power moves 117, 124, 148 Pow Wow 87, 92, 118 Quick Mix Theory 132, 155 racism 7, 11, 19, 24–5, 28–9, 45–7, 57, 72, 128, 139, 202 n. 4 rap criminalization 165, 175 n. 55 dance influence on 1, 71, 73, 117–18, 121–23, 159, 168 disco opposition to 96, 99 ethnic interaction 9–12, 136, 142, 174 n. 48, 174 n. 49 origins 2, 4, 35, 61, 71, 135, 152 scholarly focus on 8, 168, 173 n. 32 reggae. See Jamaica Rock City Crew 142, 152 Rock Steady Crew 2, 5–10, 52, 105, 142–6, 148, 152, 155, 161–2 Rockwell Association 8, 128 Sasa 58, 64, 80, 82, 85, 87, 89, 93, 109, 175 n. 54 Schloss, Joseph 10–11, 68–9, 186 n. 33 1520 Sedgwick Avenue 57–8, 60–1, 68, 79, 184 n. 109 Shaka Zulus 88, 142 Sha Rock 80–1, 87, 93, 117–18, 122–3, 168 Sister Boo 115–16 Smoke-a-Trons 116, 118

Smokey (DJ) 32, 72, 116, 118, 130, 134 South Bronx 8, 25–6, 29, 31, 57–8, 131, 149, 184 n. 109 squat drop 65, 68–9, 70, 83, 85, 121 Stearns, Marshall and Jean 41, 84 Stone, Sly 31, 33, 137 style writing 36, 68, 91. See also aerosol art sweep, the 84–7, 117–18, 121, 124, 132, 141, 154 swipe, the 154 teenagers breaking innovation 9, 24, 42, 48, 51, 73, 82, 84, 110 hip-hop constituency 20, 38, 44, 46, 48–9, 56, 66, 72, 75, 79, 81, 95, 130–1 identity formation 20, 76, 89–90, 106, 130 TikTok 1–2, 5, 9, 22 top rocking 155–6. See also two-step Trac 2 2, 128, 141, 144–6, 148, 153–4, 175 n. 54 Trixie 64–5, 80, 88, 94–5 Twi-Lite Zone 60–1, 66 two-step 54–5, 68–9, 83, 85, 113, 121, 155–6, 165 Tyrone the Mixologist 43, 110 uprocking 68–9, 117, 157. See also “Battle Rocking,” burning Vernon, Jim 40, 82, 88, 184 n. 106, 186 n. 33 West Bronx 29, 38, 57, 60, 78, 109, 130, 135 white flight 19, 24–30, 45 Zulu Kings 5, 11, 27, 85, 87, 92, 112, 116, 118, 131, 133–5, 142, 144, 147–9, 152, 184 n. 109 Zulu Queens 118 Zulu Spin 87

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