Hip Hop In The Usa (East Coast)

What’s everybody out there in Hip-Hop land worldwide?!??! I’m Brooks Jones, a writer/ Bboy out of NY, NY- currently living Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I’m here to fill you guys in on all the goodies about the East Coast Hip-Hop scene. So sit back, cool out, and enjoy the ride on the East Coast Hip-hop 101 tour bus.

From schools, Colleges & Universities offering classes related to Hip-Hop history & culture, to dance schools & studios offering classes in Hip-Hop dance, art & music techniques, this culture has become the normal standard for many Americans way of life on the East Coast of the US. It is so widespread that people who do not even consider themselves hip-hoppers take on traits of the culture, such as: the middle-aged librarian saying “my bad” or the 60+ year old senior citizen substituting a “thank you” with “good looks”, but it goes on from there. The Hip Hop scene is SO influential on the East Coast that a bill the NY Legislature has written and passed stating that November officially is Hip-Hop History month as of 12/17/2002 ---true story!

In the past, Hip-Hop had stared out as an underground movement possibly around the late 1960’s/ early 1970’s. It was an underground movement partially because it was a culture that was only found in small sections of the urban communities, but also because there wasn’t much exposure of it yet. Advances in technology & communications had yet to be made so that allowed little possibility for the culture to spread rapidly in the early years of its rise. All of the original Hip-Hop generation (or closest to it that I know to it) speak of the time with such conviction and praise, & what I can remember from my youth in New York in the early 80’s was fresh! Everything was new & styles were coming out left & right. Punk was big, George Clinton & Parliament Funk were big, Freestyle music was popular, Rap was brand new, graffiti was still everywhere and the city had this energy about it that made New York feel alive. There wasn’t anything like sneaking into the living room on a school night to catch a live rap performance on the evening time comic-variety show “Arsenio Hall”.

Traditionally, you repped your borough with the other people from your borough & crews from other boroughs would come to battle. Then crews expanded to include a larger area than just your borough, but the overall concept was still territorial in nature. So in theory, the crew that reps the Northern part of the city that does have a few bboys from the southern part of the city goes to battle the crew that reps the south to claim rights to holding the title for the whole city (“All City”). That territorial dispute was also common in other groups of people like street gangs, and biker gangs where another component of the Bboying, Rocking or “Up-rocking”, is rooted from. The house parties, block parties and night clubs were the main-stay for DJs, MCs and Bboys, “that’s where it all happened, you went through and you rocked. If you were a DJ, you rocked the tables, MCs rocked the mic and the Bboys would get loose. It wasn’t all segregated like it is now with 1 event per 1 Element; it was an all-in-one package deal” (Skeme Richards. Sesion 31, Rock Steady Crew)

Through time Hip Hop spread throughout the East and many East coast cities began contributing to and influencing the culture. The Bboys from this time had laid the foundation and developed original Bboy styles, discovered & created power moves, but also helped set the tone on what was in style in a fashion sense as well. Gazelle Glasses, Bucket Kangols, name plate belts- all the retro stuff you see everyone wearing now was THEE style back then.

Movies probably played the biggest role in increasing visibility of Hip-Hop culture world-wide. Titles such as Flash Dance, Beat Street, Wild Style, Style Wars, Krush Groove and Breakin’ 1 & 2 sparked the curiosity of the US along with the peoples of other countries and that’s where Hip-Hop culture took off to reach all peoples around the world.

I remember hearing stories of a friend who frequently visited Italy and stating that aspiring Bboys/ BGirls would go to a video arcade and put money into a machine to watch a 3 minute music video that had a 15-20 second clip of some top-rock, footwork and power. They would watch all day- to then go and practice everything they had seen all night.
–Jake (the Snake) Hill. Breaks Kru, NYC.

Initially, the influences of the culture were what was popular, be it music, dance steps, what recording artists wore and trying to stay current and in style with everyone else around you. Bboying is said to be influenced by a number of dance styles/ other techniques;

- The Lindy Hop
- Tap Dancing
- Shuffling
- The many Social dances of the 1960’s & 1970’s
- Various Disciplines of Martial Arts
- Rocking, also referred to as “Uprocking” or “The Brooklyn Hard Rock”
- Gymnastics
- Acrobatics/ Tumbling

Through combining movements from these different sources, making combinations with them and figuring out new/ unique methods for executing these combos- the original Bboys created this incredible style which we all now see and use.

I watch James Brown footage because he’s so dope! All of his movements are crazy calculated and precise, plus he does all of the older social dance steps so you get to see the way they moved back then. You see him do the camel walk, the mashed potatoes and the James Brown- all of it is mad funky and that’s a big influence on the way that I dance. It’s got to be super funky!
-Bboy Ynot. Rock Steady Crew, NYC.

The Bboying scene went through its cycles from blowing up city-wide in New York to nation-wide and then around the globe. There was a massive surge in the number of people who danced, but around the mid 1980’s Bboying had become less popular and other things had taken the spotlight in Pop-culture that overshadowed the Bboy/ Bgirl element of Hip-Hop. It did not die off, but definitely quieted down and there were fewer and fewer bboys and bgirls on the East as the 1990’s came around. But as with any art form, there are passionate artists that will continue to do it out of love, regardless of trends.

Around the early 1990’s the Bboy movement, once again an underground movement, had re-gained some momentum and began seeing more exposure in the Hip-Hop community with music videos casting some bboys here and there. This also around the time when Rock Steady Crew started throwing their Anniversary events during the summer-time which definitely got people involved once again. Shortly there-after is when many jams and battles started getting organized and the Bboy scene started getting more and more of a following.

Now-a-days you can see people dancing in the street or on the sub-way platform for money more frequently and in Florida and other warmer places they dance near tourist areas and near the beach. There are also functions around the East Coast that specifically hire Bboys and Bgirls to come and dance for the crowd. Another big part of the dancer lifestyle on the East is Hip-Hop Dance Theater, where street dancers are assembled to perform original pieces in a theatrical setting. Some of the shows are showcases where street dancers get onstage and throw down. Others are highly structured works with lighting schemes, stage set, costumes, multimedia usage and dialogue which bring street dance into a different space aside from ciphers and battles.

You see Bboying everywhere too! On most tv commercials, magazine advertisements, music videos- almost everything. The Bboy “stance”, backspins, headspins & windmills have become visual icons for many, some with limited understanding of the culture, to associate with the whole Bboy movement. Musically there were songs released that EVERYONE now knows the words to and some rappers had become a household name through extensive exposure via the media. You see this as more common now, but back in the early days it was a bit difficult to picture a rapper would become a household name like an appliance or a car brand.

The Hip-Hop radio stations in NY advertise a Bboy function if it’s going to be a larger event such as the Universal Zulu Nation Anniversary in early November. There are several big yearly events that people always talk about sucha as Rock Steady and Zulu Nation Anniversaries, Evolution, Circles, Zero Gravity and Out-For-Fame when PaulSkeee brings the tour around. But with all of this going on, it is still difficult to get dance related work in comparison to the West Coast. The West Coast has LA/ Hollywood so there is much more of an entertainment industry presence out there, so not to say that finding dance-related work is easy- but it is easier in cities like LA because of the greater demand for entertainers out there.

The West Coast also differs from the East because most of the cities where many street dancers live on the West generally have warmer weather all year long. With a more consistent climate “the Bboys don’t go through the hardships of winter. Waking up and seeing that it’s a nice day out makes us get hyped up to go out and throw down outside, cuz (these North Eastern) winters ain’t no JOKE!” –Ynot. RSC, NYC. Other major differences are the roots of street dance as the West is rooted in Poppin’ and Lockin’, and the Bboys initially were more focused on power moves, tricks and blow-ups. Things always progress so you see almost everyone utilizing more foundational dancing styles, but when I was in my teen years going to jams in NYC during the mid 90’s- you could see the difference in dancing styles when there were West Coast Bboys in the house. And this was one of the key factors that had made the East unique; the dynamic of the East’s focus on flavor, original style and foundation. The movement has been spreading correctly, so the original flavor of Bboying is spreading right along with it, but there are dancers that do experiment with other types of movement and do not use a traditional/ foundational approach to their dancing. Other things that make the East Unique are history, Pioneers of Hip-Hop and Bboying, Rocking, Foundation and Soul. Dancers all over the States have these elements in their dancing as well, but I know that these factors are a point of focus for many of us Bboys/ Bgirls out here on the East Coast.

As far as the people who hold it down for the East, I could not go with out mentioning the following crews and individual dancers:

Crews:
- Rock Steady Crew
- Dynamic Rockers
- Skill Methods
- Beatwhacks
- Breaks Kru
- Ground FX
- Problems Crew
- Repstyles
- Street Masters

Bboys
- Abstract - SKMZ
- Bebo- Ground FX
- El Nino (Pookie)- Floorlords
- Jiggz- NYKingz
- Kmel- Boogie Brats
- Omen- Problems Crew/ Ground FX

- The Infamous Zebra Mob
- Zulu Kings

But the scene is not limited to these crews and individuals, there are MANY more than these listed. Atlanta, Boston, the Washington DC area, Miami, New York, Orlando, Philadelphia, and Tampa along with the other smaller cites on the East have other Bboys/ Bgirls that may not be as well known, but are all equally amazing - for real!

So this has been a brief ride on the East Coast Hip Hop 101 tour bus- thank you for reading and I hope you found it informative. Much Love, Peace and Happiness to all Hip-Hoppers world-wide, Stay Rockin’!!!

Brooks Jones. Philadelphia, PA.