It is commonly assumed that hip-hop was born when street gangs in the Bronx, New York, channeled their energy from violence and crime to music and artistic expression. I critically interrogate this dominant narrative through an examination of the influential book Yes Yes Y’all: The Experience Music Project Oral History of Hip-Hop’s First Decade (hereafter “YYY”). Drawing from the original interview transcripts used for YYY, I compare the gang-origin narrative espoused in the book with the primary accounts of early hip-hop practitioners featured within it. Special attention is given to the divergences between the two sources, demonstrating how the claim that hip-hop came from gangs is unsubstantiated by relevant interviewee accounts. I discuss how the prevalence of this false narrative in studies of hip-hop history overall is part of a broader historic pattern of associating working class African American culture with criminality.
The dominant narrative regarding breaking history is that the dance developed as an “exclusively male” expression of inner-city “machismo.” In this study, I challenge this narrative by bringing in the voices of breaking's often-neglected founding practitioners. By juxtaposing primary testimonies with mainstream representations, I aim to show how women have histoirically played a critical role in the dance, and how hegemonic discourse has obscured our understanding of hip-hop's beginnings. I also consider how uncovering the role of women in breaking's history reframes prevailing conceptualizations of its gender performance.
What inspired you to get into this dance? And then also what continuously inspired you to stay in the dance and keep fostering, keep teaching in the neighborhood? I should disclose that Break Easy, I call him fondly Papa Rich because he is the person who taught me from the very, very beginning. And so I learned almost everything that I know about breaking and hip hop primarily from Papa Rich. We've, you know, broken night, in terms of looking at photos, talking through different elements of the culture, including immigration to the area, talks about the, you know, the careers that parents had, why they moved there. Also we looked at photos. He taught me some DJing, which is really hard, digging for letters, so I owe a lot to Papa Rich.And Mighty Mike I used to see all the time at jams, and battles, at the club. At Spa-because I remember one of your crewwhile your crew growing up was Scramblin Feet, Inc.-the crew that I met you in was JBC. So I remember Kryptonic used to throw that that that weekly event at Spa which is-That's what got me, sort of, open as a dancer was to have that experience, but then used to throw a jam called "Chico's Gotta Have His Share" up at Planet 28. And so, and you guys continue to keep teaching, which is just remarkable.Break Easy: So first, to start off, my name is Break Easy. I grew up in the Northside of Brooklyn. The area is called Williamsburg. At that time, we used to call it just Los Sures, for our particular location, because in the Williamsburg section in Brooklyn, there was two or three parts in that location: you had the Southside and the Northside.At that moment in time, I was on Metropolitan Avenue-I'm a long-term resident there, for I think 35 years, before I moved out of there, you know? And this was growing up since 1966, you know? I'm 54 years old now. I've been active currently in the scene from '95, you know, offering both breakin' programs-rocking programs-breakin' is more catered to the youth
Breaking is the first and most widely practiced hip-hop dance in the world today, with an estimated one million participants taking part in this dynamic, multifaceted artform. Yet, despite its global reach and over 40 years of existence, historical treatments of the dance have largely neglected the African Americans who founded it. Dancer and scholar Serouj "Midus" Aprahamian offers, for the first time, a detailed look into the African American beginnings of breaking in the Bronx, New York, during the 1970s. Given the pivotal impact the dance had on hip-hop’s formation, this book also challenges numerous myths and misconceptions that have permeated studies of hip-hop culture’s emergence. Aprahamian draws on untapped archival material, primary interviews, and detailed descriptions of early breaking to bring this buried history to life, with a particular focus on the early aesthetic development of the dance, the institutional settings in which hip-hop was conceived, and the movement’s impact on sociocultural conditions in New York throughout the 1970s. By featuring the overlooked first-hand accounts of over 50 founding b-boys and b-girls, this book also shows how indebted breaking is to African American culture and interrogates the disturbing factors behind its historical erasure.
Very few people would have predicted that a former Soviet Republic, Armenia, would be the site of a burgeoning Hip Hop dance scene. Yet today, you can find a weekly class that teaches breaking, popping, or locking throughout the capital, Yerevan, as well as in outlying areas such as Abovyan and Charentsavan. Competitions take place regularly with guests who are visiting from throughout the former Soviet Union, Europe, and North America, and some dancers who make a living off teaching and performing Hip Hop dance styles. This chapter takes an in-depth look at the development of breaking within the country. Through qualitative interviews with practitioners and direct participant observation, it traces how—and more importantly, why—an artform from a region as far removed as the Bronx, New York, has been adopted by young people in Armenia. It argues that Hip Hop’s embodied practices have helped b-girls and b-boys challenge constrictions and forge new identities at a time of immense socioeconomic transformation, lending support to what dance scholar Halifu Osumare (2007) has identified as the “connective marginalities” developed through global Hip Hop culture.
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