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Britain's first real sample of B-Boys and Breaking came around 1982. It was handed out by the last person anybody would have expected, Malcolm Maclaren, who fathered Punk and gave birth to the Sex Pistols. It arrived as the full fourŠ DJing, MCing, B-Boying, and Graf-Writing. A former art student and today a shrewd money-maker, Maclaren had released The Buffalo Girls. The disc's video featured Breaking by none other than The Rocksteady Crew, comprising Crazy Legs and Frosty Freeze, a New York duo who worked out in Central Park throwing new shapes and often battling the likes of the Incredible Breakers and Magnificent Force.
A bit later, The Rocksteady Crew appeared in 'Flashdance', the smash-hit movie of '83. They also visited Britain and so impressed a bunch of kids in Manchester that those kids decided to become part of the Hip-Hop Culture and call themselves Kaliphz, All this, coupled with the label Street Sounds bringing out electro-compilations, nourished the underground and B-Boys began to pop their heads above the sewer-covers to test the climate. All seemed good. Crews like The Furious Five had made a hit with 'The Message' and Break Machine was reaching out to the public at large via 'Top of the Pops'. Jeff Daniels, dressed as his alter-ego Colonel Pop, exposed Breaking through the same show and his 'Popping' astonished the home audience. At clubs, his movements became the ones to copy if a man wanted to impress his partner. It wasn¹t easy, but in south London, there were enough devotees to fill a club whose members were only Hip-Hop dancers. The club called itself The Breakers Yard. 'Rap' and 'Breaking' became familiar terms, if not always used correctly - even by so-called Hip-Hop experts at record companies (note: So nothing changes?).
Young school kids - Black and White - throughout the country were taking Breaking to their hearts. Any chance to escape classes and perfect moves was taken. Truancy was the order of the day. For those who couldn¹t escape, school playgrounds were used to practice. On the way home or downtown, it was usual to see at least five other crews in action. Sometimes you¹d end up battling one of them in a shopping center, only to be chucked out for causing a disturbance if you were caught by security staff. Later you¹d chill with your new-found friends, chat topics of mutual interest and transcend the bull-shit barriers.
It all seemed so positive here in those days of the mid-80's. If you were young, everybody appeared to be involved in the Culture, either as a Breaker, a Writer, Rapper, Beatboxer or DJ. Perhaps you were a mixture of all. Hip-Hop brought out the best in us. We saw no reason why we could fail at anything if we had the commitment. We would be able to move our interest forward, improve them, overtake what the mainstream offered. We'd delve deep into Hip-Hop's history and give respect to its creators. British crews were receiving long overdue exposure on television. There was Broken Glass on 'Get Fresh' and The B-Boys on 'Saturday Superstore'. 'Blue Peter' featured The London All-Stars and, in 'Rock Around the Clock', Rock City were caught in the spotlight, breaking on chairs at the word-of-mouth jam held in the Town & Country Club.
Breaking was dictating the clothes people wore, with name-brands thriving on the craze. It began appearing on TV, not just in music shows, but in soaps as well. There it was in the 'Eastenders' and in 'Grange Hill', not to overlook the commercials for Carling Black Label. Movie-makers were in on the act, churning out their stuff, from 'Wild Style' through 'Beat Street' to 'Breakdance'. There were Electro Rock jams at London's Hippodrome, Free-style '85 in Covent Garden and UK Fresh '86 in the Wembley Arena. And yet... Even the Royals were getting into the act, although they may have misunderstood the term 'Breaking' as subsequent divorces suggest. The Buck House Band had commanded The Rocksteady Crew to entertain them at their annual hop, The Royal Variety Show held in the company of their friends, the enormously rich and famous.
Newspapers and magazines suddenly made Hip-Hop respectable and so did the advertising between the features. Everybody that thought themselves sociological commentators scratched and scribbed their thoughts, leading to many futile intellectual debates where experts circled themselves until they disappeared up their bum-holes. The whole thing had become blunted. There was no sharp cutting edge left to the form. There was no quicker way to kill an exciting street movement than to have the Establishment join. Using hindsight it's easy to see now that the whole thing became too big, too quickly, and, as a consequence, too loose. It became a source for making easy money and no golden goose can survive if it's force-fed to lay too many eggs, too fast. In less than five years the bubble had burst. Its mass appeal was lost. Once more it went underground, kept alive only by a hardcore minority. Before anything could happen again, Hip-Hop and the British B-Boys would have to get real.
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Amit
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