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The New York City Breakers are an original B-boy group in early 1980s that was established in the Bronx borough of New York City formed by Michael Holman. The group originally consisted of members from Wildstyle and "Floor Master Crew" [1]
The New York City Breakers are a Breaking crew, formed by Michael Holman, originally known as the Floor Masters. [2] Inspired by the Lincoln Center battle off San Juan Hills between the Rock Steady Crew and The Dynamic Rockers. The original members were: "Action" (Chino Lopez), "Kid Nice" (Noel Manguel), "Glide Master" (Matthew Caban), "Lil Lep" (Ray Ramos), "Mr. Wave" (Tony Droughan), "Icey Ice" (Cory Montalvo), "Powerful Pexter" (Tony Lopez) and Flip Rock (Bobby Potts). [2] [3] Their first real exposure came in 1982, with an offer to battle Rock Steady Crew; in NYC at a club called Negril. [4] [5]
Their first performance was on the nationally televised talk show The Merv Griffin Show in 1983. [6] [7] Soon after, the NYCBs began appearing in live performances with Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five in Boston. They were featured in the 1984 film Beat Street where they battled the Rock Steady Crew [8] and appeared on the first hip-hop television show Graffiti Rock, created by Holman. [9] They also made appearances on various other television programs such on Ripley's Believe It or Not!, NBC's TV Special The Stars Salute the U.S. Olympic Teams, [10] CBS Evening News and P.M. Magazine [11] and the film Sixteen Candles. [6]
The New York City Breakers also became the first B-boys to release an instructional video and album (Break-Master) which went gold and broke down steps on how to hold a competition. They performed in Washington D.C for sitting President Ronald Reagan, during 1983 at the Kennedy Center Honors. [12] [13]
The Swiss hip hop culture began in the early 1980s.
Fred Brathwaite, more popularly known as Fab 5 Freddy, is an American visual artist, filmmaker, and hip hop pioneer. He is considered one of the architects of the street art movement. Freddy emerged in New York's downtown underground creative scene in the late 1970s as a graffiti artist. He was the bridge between the burgeoning uptown rap scene and the downtown No Wave art scene. He was immortalized in 1981 when Debbie Harry rapped on the Blondie song "Rapture" that "Fab 5 Freddy told me everybody's fly." In the late 1980s, Freddy became the first host of the groundbreaking hip-hop music video show Yo! MTV Raps.
The Universal Zulu Nation is an international hip hop awareness group formed by and formerly led by hip hop artist Afrika Bambaataa.
Beat Street is a 1984 American dance drama film featuring New York City hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Set in the South Bronx, the film follows the lives of a pair of brothers and their group of friends, all of whom are devoted to various elements of early hip hop culture, including breakdancing, DJing and graffiti.
Richard Colón, better known by his stage name Crazy Legs, is an American b-boy who was featured in the earliest stories on hip hop dancing to appear in mainstream press, and as president of the Rock Steady Crew brought the form to London and Paris in 1983. Today he is also involved in community outreach, dance instruction, and dance theater productions. He has appearanced in fiction films and documentaries. Crazy Legs is current president of the Rock Steady Crew.
The Roxy was a popular nightclub located at 515 West 18th Street in New York City. Located in the Chelsea section of Manhattan, it began as a roller skating rink and roller disco in 1978, founded by Steve Bauman, Richard Newhouse and Steve Greenberg. It was acquired in 1985 by Gene DiNino. The Roxy shut down permanently in March 2007.
Wild Style is a 1983 American hip hop film directed and produced by Charlie Ahearn. Regarded as the first hip hop motion picture, it includes appearances by seminal figures such as Fab Five Freddy, Lee Quiñones, Lady Pink, The Rock Steady Crew, The Cold Crush Brothers, Queen Lisa Lee of Zulu Nation, Grandmaster Flash and ZEPHYR.
Hip hop dance is a range of street dance styles primarily performed to hip hop music or that have evolved as part of hip hop culture. It is influenced by a wide range of styles that were created in the 1970s and made popular by dance crews in the United States. The television show Soul Train and the 1980s films Breakin', Beat Street, and Wild Style showcased these crews and dance styles in their early stages; therefore, giving hip-hop dance mainstream exposure.
Steffan "Mr. Wiggles" Clemente is a street dancer, noted for his popping skills. He is a member of the Rock Steady Crew, The Electric Boogaloos, Tribal Click, Zulu Nation, and TC5, also known as The Cool Five or The Crazy Five. Wiggles has been active as a dancer, actor, choreographer, dance instructor, music producer and graffiti artist.
Breaking, also called b-boying, b-girling or breakdancing, is a style of street dance originating in the Bronx by African American and Puerto Rican communities in New York City, United States. While diverse in the amount of variation available in the dance, breakdancing mainly consists of four kinds of movement: toprock, downrock, power moves and freezes. Breakdancing is typically set to songs containing drum breaks, especially in funk, soul music and hip-hop music, although modern trends allow for much wider varieties of music along certain ranges of tempo and beat patterns.
Graffiti Rock was a hip-hop based television program, originally aired on June 28, 1984. Intended as an ongoing series, the show only received one pilot episode and aired on WPIX channel 11 in New York City and 88 markets around the country, to good Nielsen ratings.
H.I.P. H.O.P. was France's first television show and first regular nationwide weekly show in the world to be dedicated to the hip hop culture. It was broadcast each Sunday afternoon on the French national channel TF1 in 1984, from January 14, for 43 weeks, which had a certain impact on the beginnings of the French hip hop scene. The host was Sidney, who was already presenting a hip-hop radio program since 1981, along with the Paris City Breakers. They had guests such as Herbie Hancock on February 19, Sugarhill Gang, Kurtis Blow, Afrika Bambaataa, The Rock Steady Crew, Art of Noise and Madonna, plus graffiti artists such as Futura 2000.
Kenneth James Gabbert, better known by his stage name Ken Swift, is a second generation b-boy, or breakdancer. He was a longtime member and key figure in the Rock Steady Crew, and its former Vice President. He is now President of the Breaklife and VII Gems Hip Hop movement in New York City. Ken Swift began b-boying in 1978, at the age of twelve, when he was inspired by dancers on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Widely known in the breakdancing world as "the Epitome of a B-Boy," he is widely considered by b-boys to be the individual who has had the greatest influence on breakdancing. Ken Swift is credited with the creation of many dance moves and terminology. His original footwork and "freeze style" became a foundational part of breaking, which were considered new concepts at the time.
Michael Thomas Holman is a New York-based artist, writer, filmmaker and musician. He is also an early 1980s downtown scene subculturalist and creator of the Hip Hop music program Graffiti Rock. Holman is a founding member, along with Jean-Michel Basquiat, of the experimental band Gray.
Michael Lawrence Marrow, known as PHASE 2 and Lonny Wood, was an American aerosol paint artist based in New York City. Mostly active in the 1970s, Phase 2 is generally credited with originating the "bubble letter" style of aerosol writing, also known as "softies".
Clive Campbell, better known by his stage name DJ Kool Herc, is a Jamaican American DJ who is credited with being one of the founders of hip hop music in the Bronx, New York City, in 1973. Nicknamed the Father of Hip-Hop, Campbell began playing hard funk records of the sort typified by James Brown.
Carter "Fever One" McGlasson is a breakdancer and DJ originally from Seattle, Washington who relocated to New York City in 1997, and eventually joined the world-famous Rock Steady Crew. He is most well known for his 'gunzblazin' style which he developed while studying with his mentors Icey Ice and Lil' Lep of the New York City Breakers.
Lance Taylor, also known as Afrika Bambaataa, is an American DJ, rapper, and producer from the South Bronx, New York. He is notable for releasing a series of genre-defining electro tracks in the 1980s that influenced the development of hip hop culture. Afrika Bambaataa is one of the originators of breakbeat DJing.
Rock Steady Crew is an American breaking and hip hop group which has become a franchise for multiple groups in other locations. The group's 1983 international hit song "(Hey You) The Rock Steady Crew" peaked at No. 6 on the UK Singles Chart, and reached the top 10 in many European countries. Members of Rock Steady Crew featured in the films Flashdance and Beat Street, which ignited international interest in the b-boy subculture.
The history of hip-hop dances encompasses the people and events since the late 1960s that have contributed to the development of early hip-hop dance styles, such as uprock, breaking, locking, roboting, boogaloo, and popping. African Americans created uprock and breaking in New York City. African Americans in California created locking, roboting, boogaloo, and popping—collectively referred to as the funk styles. All of these dance styles are different stylistically. They share common ground in their street origins and in their improvisational nature of hip hop.