Hip Hop: Breakdance & Graffiti

In the early 1970’s a new dance arose in the South Bronx, which would eventually spread worldwide. This dance combines African, Latino, and Martial art movements and styles. After James Browns’ hit “Get on the Good Foot” from 1969, the new dance took off by the name of Good Foot. Later it was known as B-boying, to breaking, and as it is known today, break dancing. James Brown is known as the God Father of break dance and was one of its main influences with his high energy. Afrika, who was the legendary grand master DJ of the time, was also very influential and was most responsible for break dancing’s successful growth. Afrika saw the potential in break-dancing and encouraged dancers to work hard. He created one of the first break dance crews “Zulu Kings” and took break-dance to a whole new level.

Up until 1977 breaking took on an “old-style breaking”. This consisted of only floor work, or Floor rock, which involved very quick, complicated leg moves. Then in the 1980’s break-dancing transformed into what we see today. Dance routines not only included floor rock, but acrobatic moves such as head spins, backspins, hand glides, and windmills were added. Now a days break-dancing crews are formed together to develop and perform their own dance routines. On the streets these crews would often battle against each other, instead of physically fighting. Although it replaced the fights, it would often causes more fights when teams lost and wouldn’t accept it. Although, today Break battles have to a large extent replaced fighting in the Bronx.

Another main element of hip-hop arose in the 1960’s and 70’s: graffiti. With the political and social unrest of the times, people wanted to get their messages across. At the time, the best way of doing so was targeting an audience that included everyone in the five boroughs of NYC. When people in the Bronx began “tagging” their names, the ideas began to flourish. Tagging began as a nickname and the street number, for example one famous early graffiti artist called himself TAKI 183. The goal was to “get up,” or to have one’s tag reach as many places in NYC as possible, and the more a tag was recognized, the more famous the artist would become. This was achieved by inscribing the tags on subway cars or “bombing” train cars. These designs spanned multiple train cars and experimented with new, innovative styles like “wild style” and bubble letters.

The birthplace of graffiti is sometimes said to be 129th Writer’s Street Bench where kids would sit and watch the train roll by to assess all of their artwork. If they saw something particularly unique or fresh they would chase the train down to discover who’s art it was. Now Hostos Community College is located above this bench and offers controversial classes on graffiti. This is an example of how some people view graffiti as art and others view it as “urban decay.” By the mid-1980’s the MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) was winning the war on graffiti with an increased budget and increased determination. The Clean Train Movement was started in 1989 and made it more difficult for graffiti artists to display their work. Luckily, people like Hugo Martinez founded UGA (United Graffiti Artists) in 1972 and helped talented graffiti artists display their work in galleries.

Links:

-http://www.ultrakick.net/id10.html
-http://www.globaldarkness.com/articles/history%20of%20breaking.htm
-http://www.wikipedia.org
-Hip Hop: A Short History (Book)



Video (s) :
-http://jetcomx.com/2008/07/21/the-origins-of-graffiti-breakdance-and-hip-hop-martha-coopers-early-80s-photo-journalism-video/
-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBT7rBIFKL4