...And We Love It! Break dance was part of the urban hip hop culture that grew up in the U.S.—particularly in the Bronx in New York City, parts of California, and Chicago during the 1970’s. Hip hop exploded onto the pop culture scene in America during the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, and it hasn’t left the mainstream since.
Sadly, some of the more community-oriented and creative elements of the culture were left by the way side as rap went on to become a major worldwide phenomenon. Gangsta rap in particular catered to a rough image that had no time for creative exercises in dance and visual art, and the mainstream media tended to oversimplify and misrepresent hip hop culture.
The fine arts of graffiti and urban dance (particularly break dance, also known as B-boying) were swept under the rug for a long time, or maybe they made a conscious retreat after being mishandled and misunderstood by mainstream media and Hollywood.
Still the original B-boy culture has persisted in dance studios and basements, on urban walls and in the back alleys of creative culture, and it has waited for a way to come back big. Well, breakin’ is back, and the internet is taking this revival worldwide, in online forums like bboy.org, in high quality photo essays like Cypher, the new book by ultra-hip photographer Charles Peterson, and on blogs like Jeff Chang’s cantstopwontstop.com.
For those of us who’ve been watching, this is old news—it’s been coming for a while. Mainstream media adoption of B-boy culture is happening again, and once again the Disney movies and network TV dance competitions seem to be missing something. But this time the culture won’t retreat underground, because on the web, the underground is in control of the medium.
The return of break dancing is yet another example of the way online communities are an antidote to the homogenizing effects of mass media. In other words, B-boyz can’t stop, won’t stop.
Help the CR8MAG community serve up some hip hop culture. Send us your breakin’ videos, photos, and stories. Join the conversation. Email to our submission email. |
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