The Freshest Kids Page #9

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Oh, this was big, he caught a lot of flack for saying it

And Bam was always from day one, Zulu Nation was always about

"Comeon! Everybody comeon in this!" And it's not about race or color, it's about skill and ideology.

Thus, came the idea of starting the Zulu Nation that would start out first in the Black and Latino community

But then become a worldwide community, with many different nationalities, religions and many truths

I'm glad that the rest of the world is enjoying being a part of this

I like Europe, in the way that they preserve the culture in it's entirety with all of the elements together

You know, the Battle of the Year for instance, I mean that was like, it blew my mind!

Going there and just, there was just writers and Bboys and MCs and everybody just

Mingling together, and it was like, so many people, it was really, it was crazy!

I met so many people, I met people from Japan that didn't even know English!

Respecting me because I danced, I didn't know people from London, England

I didn't know people from Switzerland, I didn't know, I met everybody from Germany

I, from even, Indiana!

When I travel, you know what I'm saying, cats is yo, they breaking in the streets, they got the linoleum!

You know, just like it was Wild Style!

You know, like it was 1982!

You know, the last time I was in Japan, they had a Break Dance competition, I mean this sh*t was the real deal!

Just incredible sh*t!

You know, just in England, in Folkestone at a big Hip Hop convention,

Well I was shocked when I saw, there was

2 or 3 crews from Hungary alone, there were crews from Croatia!

Went over to Germany, went over to Poland, went over to Japan

Yeah! You know what I'm saying

During our show they Break Dancing

People over there in Europe they say "Yo, I'm flying in September for the Rock Steady reunion"

There's a hundered times more a hundered times more!

If there were 3,000 kids Bboying in the early '80s, there are 300,000 kids doing it now

Breaking is an incredible dance

That's valid, has foundation, it has vocabulary, there are names for all the moves, you know

It's not someone throwing themself on the ground

Nowadays, the dance is branched out so much, you know?

You got the original Bboy style and footwork

You have the powermoves

So sometimes you got brothers with Bboy moves and you know real original techs

Going up against guys with powermoves, that hardly have any Bboy techs

How you going to judge that?

The neutral people that don't know anything, might go for the powermoves

Because it's really dynamic

5 years ago, when I came here everybody had backpacks with a helmet hanging from it, and they were breaking without sneakers

Or some of them were breaking with sneakers, but all they were doing were flare, windmills and '90s

Not many people had the foundation down, not many people did footwork

Not many people had freezes

It's like if you go to an audition, a Jazz dancer coming to a Bboy audition

You know, just cuz he can do those continuous back spins, which the comercial public knows as windmills

You know, just because he can do that doesn't mean that he's a Bboy!

He's just and idiot that learned to spin on his back!

He has no style, no flavor, no feel for it!

There is a beat, and there is a rhythm to this music

It isn't about how dynamic your move is, it's about like, the feeling you can express with the dance

Dance is about expression and a lot of people have seemed to have forgotten that!

All the spinning is dope!

I ain't knocking it, it's dope! But you need the style and the finesse!

And when they Bboyed back in the days, it was with a......

You know, it was it was, you could see it in they bones in they face!

You could see it in they body! You gotta get that charisma back in there!

Now, as a Bboy that's still trying to be competitive

I think Bboying represents, you trying to dig deep to find something that you haven't seen done

Which is VERY hard!

I mean, there's no difference from like Ken Swift or like Barishnikov

There's some things that I've seen a lot of these breakers do..

It's just like, that is just NUTS!

True dances, whether, you have from Tap or Ballet or Modern or Jazz, they look at it as an artform, alright?

I mean they see it and they're like "Wow" I mean "That's incredible!"

I don't know one class nationwide in America that's not teaching street dance!

And every formal dance studio, you read the list, and it has street dance in there

I'm creating this brand new dance academy, the Debbie Allen Dance Academy

And I actually had a young man here teaching Break Dancing, specifically that!

Because, it is unique unto itself! It is a technique like Ballet..

Like African, like Hip Hop

Our main influence was the Good Foot

James Brown doesn't even know the effect his music and style of dance had on people in the Bronx

He was probably inspired by people he saw, Tap Dancers,

Them Tappers back in the old old days, them fools is like Bboys in a sense, you know what I mean?

I mean them fools is dope! They didn't give a fuuuuck!

If you wanna be technical, Sammy Davis Jr. was a Bboy!

Our favorites, no question, other than James Brown was, they were brothers..

The Nicholas Brothers

Some of it came from Lindy Hopping

And if you look at Frosty, with the backflips, you could see all of the Kung Fu influence

Ken Swift told me that the "Mugsy", I asked him where did he get it from and he said "Bruce Lee"

Curly, from the Harlem Globetrotters, put his one hand on the floor and he used to run around bouncing the basketball

I was into gymnastics, I used all of my creativity and tried to focus it into the dance

Moves that were invented years before that, we never saw like the Capoeira moves

Somehow ended up in Breaking

Capoeira is the artform of "fight dance"

Break Dance is "fight dance" is what it really is..

We've never seen Capoeira, just like they never saw us dance

It definitely didn't come from another country

It was made up in the Bronx

Don't nobody really know! It's some, old, old, old human thing!

The feeling to want to get on the ground and spin and dance and really

Become one with the, with the earth, with the ground, as in before concrete!

You was breaking and spinning on earth!

I'd like to see some more of the top MCs out there in the world

Coming together with the top Graff writers, the top Bboys and the top DJs

Like it used to be!

Use Graffiti writers to do their album covers, not just the Graff artists that don't know jack about Graff

Use real Bboys that their dancing, don't put them in the background! Put them in the front!

I think the Bboys need to take it in their own hands, need to take it in their own hands and

And need to "bum rush" Hip Hop!

You know what I'm saying?!

You need to be like "You ain't Rapping if you don't have Bboys!"

Don't talk about Hip Hop, and then you got Booty dancers behind you!

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