Hip-Hop: From New York City to Columbia

A SOU T H C A R O L I N A H ONO R S CO LLEG E T HE S I S

BY R AC H E L J O H N SO N

HIP-HOP FROM NEW YORK CITY TO COLUMBIA

T H E S IS D IREC TO R Van Kornegay

SECO N D R E A D E R Sherard Duvall

THI S WO RK WA S S UP P ORTE D I N PA RT BY T H E SO U T H C A RO L I N A H O N O R S CO LL EG E SE N I O R T H E SI S PR OJ EC T G RAN T

TABLE OF CONTENTS

04 06 08 14 16 18 INTRODUCTION

ORIGINS OF HIP-HOP

INFLUENTIAL SONGS

DJ ING

M C ING

GRAFFITI

20 22 24 28 48 BREAKDANCING

HIP-HOP DANCE

HIP-HOP IN COLUMBIA

INTERVIEWS

CONCLUSION

SOURCES ON PG. 50

INTRODUCTION H IP- H O P: FR O M N E W YO R K C I TY TO CO LU M B I A

When you turn on the radio in your car, open up YouTube, play the Top 50 on Spotify, or go shopping at your local mall, you run into hip-hop everywhere. It’s in the music we listen to, the dancing we watch, and the styles of clothing we wear. Even if you haven’t actively made an effort to particpate in hip-hop culture, it’s nearly impossible to have avoided it completely over the last three to four decades.

Hip-hop first entered my life in the form of dance.

Unsurprisingly, I grew up hearing hip-hop music on the radio and on TV, but I’ve always been fascinated by hip-hop dance.

Training as a dancer since I was in diapers, I’ve spent the better part of my life in a dance studio in between walls of mirrors and ballet bars. I studied everything from tap, musical theater, and jazz to contemporary, modern, and ballet. Hiphop, however, is something I never had the chance to learn until I came to college. Three weeks into my freshman year, I joined Swype Dance Organization at the University of South Carolina, a no-experience-necessary hip-hop dance group that met twice a week to learn choreography. What I found in Swype was a family of dancers — some total beginners and some life-long bboys — who all shared this intense love for hip-hop. Due to my long dance background, I was always able to pick up the choreography fairly quickly, but it took me a couple of years to really understand hip-hop culture in practice. This group was comprised of young men and women from nearly every demographic, but when we were dancing, all of those differences fell away. It amazed me that I was

4 INTRODUCTION

learning choreography next to people from Hong Kong, Oman, and Sweden, as well as from all over the United States, but none of that distance was ever felt. Hip-hop dance became this language that transcended all levels of personal differences, and it’s something that I’ve had a true love for ever since.

Once I officially joined Swype, it became an enormous focus for me. It gave me an outlet to dance in the most positive, encouraging, and supportive environment that I’d ever experienced, and I never wanted to give that up. I joined the executive board my sophomore year, became the Vice President of Dance my junior year, and have spent my senior year presiding over the organization as the first female President of Dance in the organization’s seven-year history.

While leading Swype, I found myself growing even more invested in Columbia’s dance culture, which led to me join Fuse Artist Alliance as a dance company member last summer. This gave me the opportunity to learn from long-time frontrunners in Columbia’s hip-hop scene and gain a deeper understanding of that community here.

As a senior who is rapidly approaching my graduation, reflection upon my college experience has become something of a daily ritual. I have developed this unbreakable habit of regularly looking back at the past four years and taking note of what the most important moments have been. I’ve had more internships and jobs in my field than I can even fit on my resume at this point, but Swype easily remains as one of the most defining parts of my years at USC. This organization has

given me a family at this university that I never would have had otherwise. It’s the place where I met my closest friends, discovered what kind of leader I am, improved dramatically as a dancer, and learned an indescribable amount about how positive of an environment hip-hop can produce.

Due to the love for this culture that I have developed over my undergraduate years, the honors thesis seemed to be the perfect opportunity for me to explore hip-hop even further.

I knew immediately that this could be a chance for me to combine my personal love of dance with my professional love for graphic design. It would let me create something tangible as a culmination of my college experience.

It took me a long time to streamline what I wanted to focus on for my thesis, partially due to hip-hop’s growth into a global phenomenon. Not only can you find hip-hop culture in every corner of the world, with rappers and artists coming out of small neighborhoods everywhere, but you can also find a passionate and growing hip-hop community here in Columbia, South Carolina. This local community and the formation of its hip-hop culture piqued a particular interest in me. I’ve seen firsthand the growth in its prevalence at the University of South Carolina over these four years, and I wanted to learn more about it externally.

In order to execute my project, I selected to publish with a book as the primary medium. I wanted to create a comprehensive piece that could be picked up by any reader and would describe the story of hip-hop to them. While people

have different understandings of what hip-hop means based on their personal experiences, I organized this book as I did in order for it to serve as a general and all-encompassing overview that would tie together the different elements of hip-hop in everyday practice.

This book specifically outlines the origins of hip-hop, with references to its West African roots and development in 1970s New York, and it then discusses how hip-hop’s effects can be seen in Columbia’s present-day dance culture. These effects, while small in some regards, are things I have witnessed firsthand during my years living in Columbia. Many of these, however, have long preceded my time here and will continue to evolve after my graduation. Hip-hop has experienced a boom where it has now touched so many different corners of this country and the rest of the world, and its presence in our backyards here in Columbia should not be overlooked.

This book strives to illuminate my findings over the course of my thesis project, through primary research, secondary research, and interviews with local hip-hop dancers. I divided this information into appropriate chapters and then utilized my love for graphic design and photography to help visually display the narrative I write about.

It’s been a life-long dream of mine to publish my own book. I didn’t think it would happen as an undergrad, but here we are. This project is very special to me, and I hope you will find the same level of enjoyment reading it that I found making it.

INTRODUCTION 5

ORIGINS OF HIP-HOP W H ERE I T A L L CA M E F R O M

In order to correctly understand hip-hop as a genre, it is critical to look at its roots and how they affected the style’s growth over the last decades and centuries.

Ethnomusicologists, those who study music of different cultures, trace the origins of hip-hop back to West African storytellers, or griots, in the time of slavery. The dance, drum, and song of the storytellers manifested the journey of slaves who survived the voyage. African music has always been distinct with its call, response, and improvisation styles. This evolved into what is commonly referred to as spoken-word music, or speech-song, which can be seen as an early version of modern day rap. These techniques, rooted in long African history, transformed into what we now call hip-hop. While the roots of hip-hop music far predate its true emergence in the United States, these ties to African and black culture remain particularly strong today.

It wasn’t until the 1970s that New York City birthed the true advent of hip-hop culture. At a time when New York was experiencing dramatic changes in its social and economic climate, as well as heightened racial and class tensions, the kids in the ghettos of the Bronx and Harlem needed a tool to help establish their own identity. Their schools were losing art and music funding, the media was misrepresenting their livelihoods, and the economic future looked grim in these neighborhoods. There was a loss of self for these youth, and hip-hop provided a means to help publicly define their situation and their personhood.

6 ORIGINS

Hip-hop as both a genre and a culture began to emerge through the musical block parties that became increasingly popular throughout New York in the 70s. DJ Kool Herc, aka Jamaican-born Clive Campbell, was one of the first influential disc jockeys that helped give rise to the musical force of hip-hop. In reaction to the nightclub culture throughout the Bronx at the time, DJ Kool Herc began playing music with two turntables in order to emphasize the parts of popular songs that people liked best. These song breaks were often percussive in nature allowed the DJ to use early sampling technology, combined with disc scratching and beatmatching, to create a syncopated rhythm that supported Jamaican “toasting” – chanting – to be used over the beats. Rapping, in part, developed from this chanting as a way to speak lyrics over the music played by the DJ. Another notable influencer at the beginning of hip-hop is Afrika Bambaataa. He started hosting his own block parties in 1976, in part inspired by the doings of DJ Kool Herc. Also of Jamaican heritage, Bambaataa is one of the originators of breakbeat DJing. As he began to gain a following, he saw hip-hop as much more than a simple music platform. Growing up under the influence and control of gangs and eventually becoming a leader within a division of the Black Spades, Bambaataa saw hip-hop as something that could create and cultivate a culture of peace throughout the ghetto. He believed that hip-hop was based on the values of peace, unity, love, and fun, and consequently created an organization to actively

spread those values and expand hip-hop. Created in November of 1977, the Zulu Nation was the first-ever established hiphop organization, and it worked to curb gang violence by promoting breakdancing and DJing as non-violent activities that would allow for friendly competition between young people of different groups, backgrounds, and races. Different crews would meet up to “battle” – via dance, rhymes, raps, or tracks – and it offered these inhabitants of ghettos a new outlet and productive cause for social gathering.

During the years that followed, there was an explosion of popularity in hip-hop culture as more and more artists began to step onto the scene. The Bronx in particular became a magnet for music, attracting Jamaicans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and Black Americans from surrounding neighborhoods to join the growing hip-hop community. Some of the most popular and influential early artists include the previously mentioned DJ Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaataa, as well as Grandmaster Flash, Grand Wizzard Theodore, Marley Marl, Whodini, The Sugarhill Gang, Spoonie Gee, and others.

With its primary origins in the 70s, the 80s saw hip-hop begin to grow and diversify. New school hip-hop began to emerge as the second wave of hip-hop, followed by the subgenre of gangsta rap. This type of rap focused primarily on poor conditions and violent lifestyles in the inner-cities, and the lyrics are full of political and social commentary. Some of the notable artists from this period include Ice Cube, N.W.A., and LL Cool J. Throughout the 90s, more expansion was seen as

Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre lead the popularity of G-Funk on the West Coast, and the Wu-Tang Clan and Onyx were frontrunners in the alternative hip-hop movement happening on the East Coast. Also during this decade, hip-hop began to gain traction in new spots around the country and world, eventually makings its way into the mainstream by the 2000s.

Since its humble beginning, hip-hop has consistently represented the sounds of freedom from oppression, the protest of injustices, and expressions of peace and unity. From its conception in New York in the 1970s, it has had an extensive social impact and has been a stage to discuss individual and group commentary on issues facing different communities, both politically and socially. Influential artists have created music about life in the ghetto, injustices faced by black Americans, the difficulties of poverty, the effects of crime on family, and violence in gangs, just to name a few.

Hip-hop created a space for young adults in America to have an informal but influential conversation about the different forms of oppression they felt in their everyday lives.

It offered a brand new sense of being for minority groups living in the ghetto and enabled these people to safely rebel against a culture they felt unwelcomed in or afflicted by. This new music genre gave previously silenced people a voice that would allow them to spread awareness of their situation to people near and far. Hip-hop became a music that allowed peoples of all kinds to express their individual identities and where those fell in the grand social scene.

ORIGINS 7

1 979

RAPPER’S DELIGHT TH E SU G A R H I L L G A N G

When “Rapper’s Delight” came out in 1979, it revolutionized the hip-hop music industry. As the first commercially successful rap song, it sold over two million copies and was the first rap song to ever be ranked in the Top 40. While it is almost impossible to identify a first-ever hip-hop song, it is indisputable that this “Rapper’s Delight” was the first popularly successful song of the genre and paved the way for the success of future hip-hop artists and songs.

The Sugarhill Gang was made up of three band members: Wonder Mike, Big Bang Hand, and Master Gee, all of whom were from Englewood, New Jersey. The band members were joined together by Sylvia Robinson, the founder of Sugar Hill Records, appropriately named after the Sugar Hill neighborhood in Harlem. Sylvia had discovered hip-hop and wanted to produce a record that would be the first to commercialize this new music genre. This has led to some criticism of The Sugarhill Gang, due to its outward appearance of lacking authenticity. None of the members of the band were from Harlem, which created questions of this band’s place in capitalizing upon a music community which was, at the time, still very small and local to Harlem and the Bronx.

Regardless of its authenticity, Rapper’s Delight introduced hip-hop to the world. For most Americans, Rapper’s Delight is the first rap song anyone had ever heard. Up until 1979, hip-hop music had only ever existed as a live genre that would occur at block parties and social gatherings. While songs were being written and practiced locally, no artists were

8 INFLUENTIAL SONGS

professionally recording or releasing hip-hop tracks.

Rapper’s Delight truly coined the term “rap” for popular consumption. As the first popular rap song, it fittingly functions as a lyrical introduction to rap as a genre. In an almost prophetic way, this song details the entire narrative through its ten lengthy verses.

Starting with Wonder Mike, the three band members take turn introducing themselves and rapping throughout the song.

“Now, what you hear is not a test I’m rappin’ to the beat / And me, the groove, and my friends are gonna try to move your feet.” The first line acts as a literal explanation to all the people who have never heard rap before, introducing this new music concept to them. The second line identifies that part of rap’s purpose has always existed to encourage people to dance.

The lines that follow add more to the introductory style of the song. “See, I am Wonder Mike, and I’d like to say hello / To the black, to the white, the red and the brown / The purple and yellow...” Wonder Mike introduces himself, and then proceeds to explain that rap is a genre for everyone to enjoy. The lyrics that come after are a lot of rap lingo words like “Bang bang, the boogie to the boogie” and “Say up jump the boogie to the bang bang boogie,” therefore also showcasing that lyrics like these have a place in hip-hop. The rest of the song continues in this fashion, with each member adding more to the story line of this brand new genre for the rest of the country to hear for the first time.

I SA ID A HI P H O P / HI P PI E TO TH E H I PPI E / The hip, hip a hop, and you don’t stop, a rock it out / Bubba to the bang bang boogie, boobie to the boogie / To the rhythm of the boogie the beat /

NOW, W HAT YOU H EA R IS NOT A T EST I ’M R A PPIN’ TO TH E B EA T / And me, the groove, and my friends are gonna try to move your feet / See, I am Wonder Mike, and I’d like to say hello / To the black, to the white, the red and the brown / The purple and yellow, but first, I gotta go...

IT ’S LI K E A J U N G LE SOME T IM ES / It makes me wonder how I keep from goin’ under /

BR OKE N G LA SS E VE RYW H ER E / People pissin’ on the stairs, you know they just don’t care / I can’t take the smell, can’t take the noise / Got no money to move out, I guess I got no choice / Rats in the front room, roaches in the back / Junkies in the alley with a baseball bat / I tried to get away but I couldn’t get far / ‘Cause a man with a tow truck repossessed my car /

DO N’ T P U S H M E ‘CA USE I ’M C LOSE TO T HE ED G E / I’m trying not to lose my head / It’s like a jungle sometimes / It makes me wonder how I keep from goin’ under...

10 INFLUENTIAL SONGS

1982

THE MESSAGE GR A N DM A STE R F LA S H A N D T HE F U R I O US F I VE

“The Message” was released by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five in 1982, just a few years after the original popularization of hip-hop music. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were an American hip-hop group formed in the 1970s in the South Bronx neighborhood. The group was composed of one DJ, Grandmaster Flash, and five rappers: Melle Mel, The Kidd Creole, Keith Cowboy, Mr. Ness/Scorpio, and Rahiem. The group’s use of breakbeat DJing and socially mindful lyrics helped gain them popularity and made them key players in the early development of hip-hop music. The group grew into a place of prominence after signing with Sugar Hill Records and releasing their debut track in 1980.

“The Message” is historically important for a series of reasons. This was the first time that hip-hop music was publicly associated with having a positive social conscious.

This song broadened the identity of rap and identified the level of social significance it was capable of making at the time and would be capable of making in the future. “The Message” was the first rap song directly associated with politics, and it also was the first rap song to be added to the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress, which is a collection of “sound recordings that are culturally, historically, or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States.”

Quite different in theme from “Rapper’s Delight,” “The Message” details the difficulties faced by poor, Black Americans. It gives a true look into black life, which is

something that many Americans at the time had never heard about from someone living within those communities.

Rap gave a voice to criticism of the information that was traditionally brought into black communities by news media.

Black rap, especially during the 70s and 80s, was the only medium that provided a genuine look into life as a young black American. Television and radio news stories often failed to provide information that was accurate in their reflection of the community and also seemed to frequently present news that was not relevant to the people living in the black communities.

Rap acted as a social commentary on life as a black American, and the popularization of rap music allowed for this message to be projected from New York onto radio stations and into record shops across the country.

Melle Mel is the only member of the Furious Five on the record, during which he details what life he has seen in the black neighborhoods. He insightfully talks about poverty, describing rats and roaches everywhere, too much loud noise, a poor public education system, junkies and homeless people, unemployment, and how hard it is to keep from going under.

While the other group members thought the song was too depressing to record, it has no doubt changed the course of rap’s history. It’s no wonder that Rolling Stone named “The Message” the greatest rap song of all time. It turned political rap into an art form and revolutionized the genre overnight.

INFLUENTIAL SONGS 11

1982

PLANET ROCK A F R IKA BAM BAATAA & T HE SO U L SO NI C FO R C E

Afrika Bambaataa is well known throughout hip-hop culture and hip-hop history for being one of the most influential early artists in the genre. He is originally from the South Bronx, NY, and became involved in the hip-hop movement early in its growth. He is one of the founders of breakbeat DJing and introduced several important styles of beats to the genre.

One of his biggest contributions to the hip-hop world was the creation of the Universal Zulu Nation, which was formed in opposition to the Black Spades gang that he was once a leader of. The Zulu Nation eventually expanded its reach, pulling members from other gangs, and it continued to promote peace, love, unity, fun, and hip-hop. This music and culturefocused group helped to spread a positive hip-hop message and community throughout the US and the world, which gave Bambaataa a huge platform for his music to spread.

“Planet Rock,” created with The Soulsonic Force, helped to put Bambaataa on the map. Ranking at number 48 on the Hot 100 charts in September 1982, it was the third rap song to ever land a spot on that list. Combining synthetic beats, breakbeats, and a vocoder, this song helped to develop the combination electro-funk sound that became so prevalent in future hip-hop music. The key players in the creation of this song were Afrika Bambaataa, as well as Soulsonic Force’s producer, Arthur Baker, and keyboard player, John Robie. Collectively, this team was able to record this track, taking their music sound in a new direction. The group took inspiration from Kraftwerk, combining a few samples from Kraftwerk tracks in “Planet

12 INFLUENTIAL SONGS

Rock” to create their electro-funk sound.

The lyrics of “Planet Rock” in essence describe a night of fun out on the town. He raps a lot about dancing: “Twist and turn, then you let your body slide / You got the body rock and pop, bounce and pounce.” He describes a scene in which men, women, boys, and girls all come together to experience this sensation of freedom through music and dance.

“Planet Rock” has had a lasting legacy. VH1 ranked it number 21 on its 100 Greatest Songs of Hip-Hop list in 2008.

Rolling Stone’s 2012 “The 50 Greatest Hip-Hop Songs of All Time” ranked Planet Rock at third place. It has also been a constant song of influence and reference in hip-hop, as it has been mentioned in number of more recent lyrics, has been sampled by other artists, and has played a big role in the 2016 documentary film 808.

This song created new foundations for hip-hop dance music and became a standard for all DJs to play at the clubs and in the streets. It’s no mystery that a song with such a focus on its rhythm and beats with vivid lyrics about nightlife would do so well for dancing. “You’re in a place where the nights are hot” directly refers to night clubs full of dancing, DJs, and music, and all the lines that follow continue to tell the listener to “get funky” and “rock rock to the Planet Rock, don’t stop.”

Bambaataa ends with a chant of “We gotta rock it, don’t stop it” as the music fades out, which makes listeners feel like they have to keep dancing, even after the song finally comes to an end.

IT’ S TI ME TO CH A SE YOUR DR E AMS / UP OUT YOU R S EA TS, MA KE YOUR BO DY SWA Y / Socialize, get down, let your soul lead the way / Shake it now, go ladies, it’s a livin’ dream / Love, life, live / Come play the game, our world is free / Do what you want but scream /

WE KN OW A PLA CE WH ER E T HE N IG HTS A RE H OT / It is a house of funk, females and males / Both headed all for the disco / The D.J. plays your favorite blasts / Takes you back to the past, music’s magic, poof / Bump, bump, bump, get bump with some flash, people...

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#1

DJING P I L LA R S O F H I P- HO P

DJing is the first pillar of hip-hop and is one of the core elements that led to the creation of the genre. As block parties began to increase in popularity throughout New York in the 1970s, DJs, also known as disc jockeys, were the people who played music at parties using records on turntables. The DJs played the most popular records, which were most often soul, disco, and funk. The music played by the DJs carried a huge influence on the atmosphere of the party.

The isolated and percussive breaks in songs that came about between verses were when people at the parties would most often dance. Due to popular demand, DJs started to experiment with different ways to extend and isolate the break in songs, which became known as “breakbeat” DJing.

Made famous by DJ Kool Herc, the breakbeat technique required two turntables connected by a mixer. Two identical records would be placed on the players, and the DJ would switch between the two in order to extend the song’s break indefinitely. This became one of the most foundational developments in the origins of hip-hop culture because all other aspects of hip-hop grew in these music breaks.

Hip-hop DJs rapidly gained much popularity throughout the 70s because every block party became its own unique music experience. DJs would often improvise each of their tracks, which in turn made every block party different from the next.

You had to be there, or you missed out. People would come from all around the neighborhood to watch any one DJ perform a set. These old school DJs were crowd-pleasers, crafting

different sequences during their sets in reaction to audience response in real-time. For the first time in music history, DJs were no longer in the background at parties - they had become a focal point.

There have been dozens of developments in DJ techniques throughout the decades. The famous “scratch” was discovered accidentally by a middle school-aged GrandWizzard Theodore, a student of Grandmaster Flash, when his mother came into his room to tell him to turn his music down. When he put his hand down onto the record to try to silence it, the scratch was born.

Moving records quickly back and forth under the stylus has now become a staple in hip-hop tracks. Scratching was brought to main stage music by Herbie Hancock’s 1983 single “Rockit.”

In collaboration with GrandMixer D.ST, this track overlaid scratching on a more traditional jazz track, consequently showcasing the DJ as one of the key elements in the song.

Turntablism continued to advance throughout the 80s and 90s, with constant competitive creativity between new and old DJs driving the growth.

After decades of analog-only DJing practices, the digital vinyl system (DVS) came into play in 2001. A DVS connected a laptop to the traditional set-up of two turntables and a mixer, and signified an entrance into the digital age. This technology update allowed for DJs to scratch and manipulate sound like they had before, except now they were pulling from digital music files.

PILLARS OF HIP-HOP 15

#2

MCING P IL LA R S OF H IP- H OP

MCing is the second pillar of hip-hop. The original role of the MC, also known as the master of ceremonies, at block parties was to introduce the DJ to the stage, to keep the audience engaged in the event, and to encourage them to stay energetic and dance. As MCs began trying to outdo one another at parties, they eventually began to deliver rhythmic and rhyming lines over the beat during the breaks in the music, which developed into the practice of rapping.

DJ Kool Herc was responsible for, among other things, the true birth of the hip-hop MC. “The father of hip-hop,” as he is commonly referred to, commonly would encourage dancing at block parties by reciting short lyrics and phrases over the breaks in the music. Other DJs took note of Herc’s successful strategy and became implementing it into their own performances. DJ Hollywood is believed to have been the first artist to turn these short lyrics into longer “rap” verses.

As the MC role continued to grow in prominence at party performances, MCs everywhere began to follow DJ Hollywood and increase the lengths of his verses. During these sets, MCs would tell stories about their everyday lives, and this discussion eventually evolved into the socially conscious lyrics that rappers from this time are known for.

Rap existed as an alternative source of competition, entertainment, and expression for the youth in the poor neighborhoods in New York at the time. Rap battles became popular during the 1980s and became a time for different MCs or rappers to compete against one another over having the

16 PILLARS OF HIP-HOP

best improvised lyricism. Many of these verses would include boasting, bragging, or insults in order to create a sense of dominance and superiority over the competition. The crowd has a huge role in the outcome of rap battles because their reactions to each rapper typically determine the victor.

Rap battles often occur in the underground hip-hop scene at clubs or at events, but they can also be spontaneous and happen anywhere. Battles will frequently be made into very public events because they can serve as very successful publicity stunts for the winning rapper. Some of this idea of dissing your opponents has been seen in numerous different rap track lyrics over the decades, where one rapper will call out another in one’s own songs.

The idea of battling has also transferred over into other areas of hip-hop, including DJ battles, breakdancing battles, and beatboxing battles. While the traditional rap battle is arguably the most popular in practice, the other forms of battling have all spawned their own unique subcultures. In all of these competitive mediums, the audience reaction is the primary judge of the winner.

While rap is a key ingredient in hip-hop music today, its true origins long predate the emergence of hip-hop. In the West African Griot tradition, praise-singers and storytellers would orally share tradition and histories but would also critique, praise, or gossip via the rhetorical techniques they practiced. This history maintains the strong tie between African-American history and the verbal rap phenomenon.

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18 SLUG

#3

GRAFFITI P I L LA R S O F H I P- HO P

The third pillar of hip-hop culture is graffiti. In part made famous by support from Afrika Bambaataa’s Zulu Nation, hip-hop graffiti evolved simultaneously with the growth of its music. Thematically congruent with the undertones of rap lyrics, graffiti became another form of expression of the experiences of those living in the New York ghettos. Graffiti began to pop up in the New York subway stations, acting as elaborate visual celebrations of those who listened to rap music. It quickly became an extension of the hip-hop experience, acting in opposition to the almost systematic oppression happening in New York at the time. Communities were being destroyed by development projects, displacing local residents and leaving them in equally disadvantaged living situations. Graffiti gave the youth in these areas an outlet for self-expression and for creating a unique sense of identity. It was a method of making their existence permanent, putting their own mark on the neighborhoods in which they lived, and continuing a peaceful form of resistance to the repression that they were suffering from.

Graffiti has long been a misunderstood art form, constantly receiving heavy criticism from those outside of the hip-hop scene or those who do not understand its significance. It is easy to classify graffiti as a form of vandalism or juvenile criminal activity, but this only serves as a complete disregard of the culture surrounding its creation. Like hip-hop as a whole, it formed primarily as a response to political and economic oppression. Despite its controversial legality, it has

become a global phenomenon, a constant reminder of the subcultures that exist within different cities. It also can be seen today as a visual face for hip-hop, gracing the covers of albums, tee shirts, posters, sides of buildings, sneakers, and even making its way into some art galleries.

While graffiti existed as a cultural medium prior to the takeoff of hip-hop as a popular genre, its resonance within communities grew out of similar contexts. Some of the earliest graffiti in New York could be seen in the 1950s and 60s, but it began to flourish and take hold in the 70s and 80s. Some of the earliest graffiti that could be seen were “tags� of particular crews, groups, or gangs that people were members of or associated with. These simple spray-painted or markered signatures quickly began to grow in complexity, evolving into colorful works of calligraphy and elaborate artwork.

Many hip-hop graffiti artists also participated in other areas of hip-hop culture as a DJ, MC, or breakdancer, but for many others, graffiti was their sole involvement in the hiphop culture. The visual contribution of graffiti artists to the movement of hip-hop helped in its spread around the country and even the world.

New York graffiti artists were representative of the city and neighborhoods from which they came. They were extremely diverse, of all ages and backgrounds, and had varied life experiences. The constant tying them all together, however, is the urban environment that they had been subjected to for their entire lives.

PILLARS OF HIP-HOP 19

#4

BREAKDANCING P IL LA R S OF H IP- H OP

The last pillar of hip-hop is breakdancing. Breaking, otherwise known as b-boying/b-girling, is the dance style made popular in the 1970s at block parties throughout New York City. Quite literally, breakdancing emerged as people listening to the DJs and MCs at block parties began to dance during the extended breaks of songs. The beats created by DJ Kool Herc and others DJs alike provided crowd members a rhythmic base to use as they improvised dance moves. Coming out of an era full of the Hustle, Disco, and James Brown’s “Good Foot” dance, it was easy to see some of those types of footwork incorporated in old-school breaking. This translated into one of the four elements of breaking known as toprock.

Mainly consisting of syncopated footwork from a standing position, toprock usually acts as the introduction to any breakdancing set and allows the dancer to present their style to the audience. Toprock relies on coordination and rhythm and usually acts as a warm-up for the more intense moves to follow. Some common toprock moves include the two-step and the kick-step.

Next comes downrock, which is performed lower to the ground with assistance from the hands and feet. Downrock is also heavily footwork-based, with the infamous six-step as its foundation move. Downrock requires a great deal of technique and creativity and is a very important section of b-boying.

Perhaps the most notable element of breakdancing for the average viewer is power. These moves are the exciting, acrobatic moves throughout the performance and can be

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anything like spinning, flipping, handstands, windmills, and more. Sometimes relating more closely to gymnastics that traditional dancing, power moves are often used in dance battles as a symbol of superior skill because they are generally a crowd pleaser. Power moves rely on great levels of speed, momentum, strength, stamina, and control, all of which are skills that take years to fully develop. The practice of power moves alone is sometimes referred to as tricking.

The last main aspect of a breakdancing set is the freeze. At its most basic, a freeze is when a b-boy holds himself off the ground exclusively with one body part. These moves require immense balance and strength, as they physically freeze in a position in-between or at the end of a series of power moves. There are many different types of freezes, including headstands and poses that rely on both hands, one arm, or just an elbow. These are a different type of “wow” response for the audience than power moves, as they act as a sudden visual pause from the high-speed prior movement.

Not all of these elements existed at the first emergence of breakdancing, but as dance battles gained popularity, and as other new funk styles from the West Coast began to fuse with breaking, hip-hop dance was born. While dancing has existed for millennia, breakdancing and hip-hop music opened the floodgates for an entire new genre of dance to enter the scene. Since its inception, hip-hop dance has become a global phenomenon, and much of that can be traced back to roots in breakdancing.

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HIP-HOP DANCE AN OVE R V IE W

In the decades since the true birth of hip-hop culture, the industry surrounding hip-hop dance has grown tremendously.

The industry is an umbrella that houses many sub-styles of hip-hop dancing including breaking, locking, popping, krumping, “new style” studio hip-hop, jazz-funk, and many more. Many of these sub-styles, usually performed to popular hip-hop music, first came into mainstream media in the early 1980s. The best breakdancing crews of the 1970s were given time in the spotlight via performances in movies or on TV shows as a response to the growing popularity of hiphop music. Breakin’ and Beat Street in the 80s showcased hip-hop dance in an earlier form, whereas movies like Step Up, America’s Best Dance Crew, Planet B-Boy, and Rize in the 90s and early 2000s helped to solidify its place in the commercialized entertainment industry.

Hip-hop dance today is far larger than just breakdancing, encompassing nearly countless sub-genres, some localized and some international. Hip-hop has become a global dance phenomenon, with studios all over the world teaching their own cultural expression through different choreography styles.

Some of the most prominent styles I’ve seen here in Columbia include breakdancing, popping, locking, and krump.

POPPING rose out of Fresno, California at the same time that breakdancing was growing in New York. Because of its growth during the 70s, popping is often done to funk or disco music, but it can also be performed to hip-hop or dubstep.

While it may often be used in conjunction with locking or other

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styles, it has its own specific technique and particular set of classic movements associated with it.

Popping, at its most basic level, is a contraction of the muscles. These contractions, complimented by relaxing of those same muscles, creates a visual “pop” or accent.

Almost any part of the body can be popped by contracting and releasing different muscles depending on what position the dancer is in and what body part is being focused on. For example, if the arm is extended straight outwards, the popping focuses on contracting the biceps and triceps, whereas if the arm is bent, the focus shifts to popping the forearm muscles.

This technique can be performed throughout an entire routine where the choreography focuses specifically on popping, or it can be combined with other techniques to create more of a fusion of styles.

Popping is also somewhat of an umbrella term because it includes many sub-styles within it, most popularly animation, roboting, waving, and isolations. Animation is done to create a stop-motion effect, thus mimicking an animated character and appear to be moving frame-by-frame instead of fluidly.

Roboting is old school in nature, dating back to the 20s when miming became a popular performance style, and has the dance emulating the movement of a robot or mannequin.

Waving is when there appears to be a wave moving throughout the dancer’s body, with tiny pops emphasizing the shift in movement. Isolations are popular in popping and hip-hop dance in general, and they are when a dancer isolates and

moves only one part of the body in a unique way. This is usually done with the head, neck, chest, or shoulders, and the dancer usually moves this particular body part in an exaggerated way that looks unnatural.

LOCKING also originated in California, specifically out of Los Angeles around 1970. While locking may look similar to popping to an observer, both having grown out of funk music, the two styles are quite different. Locking consists of locks of locking movements, in which the dancer freezes in a particular position and then quickly moves into another distinct position. All of the movements are typically quite large and exaggerated, and mainly consist of big arm movements and smaller head and leg movements.

Locking is very performance-driven and is usually characterized by the lockers wearing bright, colorful clothing.

Locking differs from popping because instead of contracting muscles, it instead focuses on hitting particular poses. Locking is usually fun and interactive with the audience, visually mirroring the upbeat tone of the music. Some popular moves seen in locking include pointing, claps, handshakes, jazz splits, and various types of walking and stepping. Purposeful pauses during and between these movements help to emphasize the different hits throughout a performance.

While locking originated as a style of funk dance, many elements of its technique can be seen today in the performances of many different hip-hop dancers, and it is often blended with other styles.

KRUMP is a fairly new style of dance, originating in the early 2000s in California and cofounded by Ceasare “Tight Eyez” Willis and Jo’Artis “Big Mijo” Ratti. K.R.U.M.P. is an acronym standing for Kingdom Radically Uplifted Mighty Praise. Established originally as a faith-based form of dance, krump consists of big, high-energy movements. This style became an outlet for youth to release aggression and anger in a non-violent way and distance themselves from characteristics of gang activity.

Many different types of people practice krump now, not just the religious and not just the previously gang-related.

The art form’s fast and exaggerated movements have an expressive appeal for many different dancers. Krump is often done at dance battles and is almost entirely freestyle.

The main movements are jabs, arm swings, stomps, and chest pops, but a huge focus for krump exists outside of the freestyle. Mentorship is a key element in krump. Each mentor (“big homie”) has their own persona, name, and key dance characteristics, which they pass down to their mentee (“little homie”). The two dancers work together to train the mentee, and this really defines the family dynamic to krump.

While these styles are only a few of the many in the spectrum of hip-hop, they all share similar origins and are therefore connected by their similarities. Many dancers regularly practice many of these and other styles all over the country and world, where hip-hop bends to reflect the culture of those local communities.

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HIP-HOP IN COLUMBIA DAN C E PRE S E N C E A N D C U LT U R E

Since hip-hop’s inception in New York, it has spread across the country and the world, creating countless individual subcultures that are unique to the cities that house them. One can look to Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Chicago as being some of the largest newer hubs in the United States, but hip-hop can be found everywhere. Columbia, SC, is no exception to this.

Depending on who you ask, the perception of hip-hop culture in Columbia is extremely different. The one consistency all around, however, is that it is small. Because of its position away from larger artistic hubs, in combination with the traditionally conservative values and attitudes of many of Columbia’s residents, there is not a large amount of community backing for the growth of a hip-hop culture.

Mike Pellz, aka B-Boy Frantic and Frantic Chef, has been living, dancing, and promoting hip-hop in Columbia for almost two decades. Originally from outside of New York City, he grew up in the 1980s surrounded by the boom of breakdancing, which quickly became a focus of his life. He joined the Zulu Nation in 1998 and remains an active member today, traveling around the country to visit different chapters of the organization and participate in their events. Mike also started breakdancing with the Dynamic Rockers, a b-boy crew headquartered in Queens, NY, in 2013, and he has since become the Vice President of the group.

“Hip-hop culture is my religion at this point,” says Pellz, when asked about his thoughts on the movement. “You can like the music all you want, but you gotta care about the culture to

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be a part of the culture.” Because of his passion for hip-hop, he’s spent the better part of the last two decades focused on increasing the presence of hip-hop in Columbia and the Southeast. Mike is the host and creator of the Southeast B-Boy Championships held annually in Asheville, NC, and he also actively strives to mentor local up-and-coming breakdancers.

Mike easily states that hip-hop dance is “everywhere but here.” Regardless of the waves of growth hip-hop has had in this southern capital city, not much seems to stick for longterm development. He attributes part of this to the contrast he’s witnessed between the hip-hop presence among college students and in the surrounding communities.

“There’s not a lot of support outside of the university.

Not by lack of trying, but people just fear what they don’t understand,” Pellz comments that outside of USC, it’s difficult to find organized groups of Columbia residents actively participating in hip-hop culture and striving to increase its influence. “Because of hip-hop’s origins elsewhere, it comes to Columbia holding a different perspective than much of the community here has.”

A strong force fighting for hip-hop in Columbia, however, is Fuse Artist Alliance. The group, which is a collective of dancers, musicians, visual artists, actors, and writers based in Columbia, SC, strives to enhance the local artistic community and bring an increased awareness to hip-hop and contemporary cultures.

Founded in 2016, Fuse has had a substantial impact on hip-hop dance in Columbia.

As the first sustaining company of its kind in Columbia, it has helped to greatly unify the local dance community. Fuse holds weekly classes of rotating styles — anywhere from hip-hop to krump, heels to contemporary — which encourage dancers of all ages and experience levels to attend and train.

Fuse also holds an annual showcase that celebrates the array of talent in its company and performs intermittently at various shows and events around Columbia.

Fuse Artist Alliance has undoubtedly brought hip-hop into the spotlight in Columbia. Through collaborations with the Columbia Museum of Art and the Nickelodeon Theatre, Fuse has been able to mix its urban style with more classical artwork typically found on the Columbia scene. Fuse has also put itself on the map for the national krump community. Holding its second Rumble City event last June, Fuse brought together over 100 krumpers from all over the country, including one of founders, Tight Eyez. The annual weekend event includes a full day of workshop classes, followed by a day of battling, and a showcase. This event has helped Columbia gain some national recognition as a city with potential growth for hip-hop dance.

At the university level, Swype Dance Organization is both the largest hip-hop group and dance group at USC. Originally founded as a breakdancing crew in the spring of 2011, Swype has since evolved into a no-experience-necessary hip-hop dance group that focuses on choreography and the teaching of fundamentals. Swype’s original membership amounted to less than ten people, but now has upwards of 50 members with a

huge network of alumni both in-state and out-of-state.

Holding practices twice a week for its members, Swype is constantly preparing for on-campus performances and its semesterly showcases. Dozens of different organizations at USC have requested for Swype to perform at their events, which has put hip-hop front-and-center for thousands of students.

World Famous Hip-Hop Family Day, which brings upwards of 12,000 people to Columbia’s Main Street, has been promoting hip-hop culture in the southern capital since 2013. This year’s event highlighted women in hip-hop with the headliner MC Lyte. She and the other female performers were selected to perform in order to showcase how hip-hop has become an empowering outlet for women. Each year, the event features live performances by DJs, rappers, b-boy crews, and visual artists, and it offers various local food and craft vendors.

Hip-Hop Family Day, run by Love, Peace & Hip-Hop, is a family-friendly event that brings together local residents from all ages to celebrate hip-hop and learn about the culture in a community environment. Perhaps one of the greatest features is its free entry, which enables any person in Columbia to join in on the celebration of the festival at no cost.

While the specific organizations I’ve listed are popular in the hip-hop and dance community in Columbia, the presence of hip-hop also exists at some other local institutions like Columbia College, Allen University, and Benedict College. These have a variety of dance fraternities and step teams that are working to advance hip-hop on a smaller scale.

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MICHAEL SANCHEZ DA N C ERS IN CO LU MB I A : I N T E R VI E W #1

Q : I NTR O DUCE YO URS E LF. A: My name is Michael Sanchez. I am a dental hygiene student – I have one more year until I graduate. I have been dancing for seven years or so.

Q : H OW LO NG HAV E YOU LIV E D IN COLU M BIA? A: I’ve lived in Columbia since I was about 14. I was born in the Philippines. I moved to America when I was 7, and then I moved around to a few different places. After all that though, I ended up in Columbia.

Q : H OW DI D YO U GE T IN TO DAN C E ?

A: It first started out when a few of my friends started dancing in high school, and naturally I wanted to be as cool as them, so I started practicing really hard. There weren’t a lot of opportunities for dance classes around where we lived, so we mostly learned from YouTube and from each other. After that, we started building a small community of dancers in our high school and began making a name for ourselves. That’s when we started to take it seriously and started having practices every day after school or on the weekends. And yeah, I love it.

Q : H OW WO UL D YO U D E SC RIB E YOU R DA N CE STY L E ?

A: I started off with breakdancing at first, actually. I really got into that my first three years, but then realized that you need to practice at least every day to be able to keep the same moves you’d mastered. So from there, once we started building our group, some of us started to branch out and doing

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popping, locking, and choreography. We all kind of taught each other and got into it more together. From there, I started focusing more on choreography, and throughout college, that was my main focus. Right now, I am currently 23, and I mostly love freestyle, popping, and l do some choreography. Popping and choreography are where my heart is at right now.

Q : W H Y D O YO U DA NC E ?

A : Sometimes I’m not exactly sure, but I can find the answer mostly when I’m actually dancing. Especially right after I finish freestyling with a group of people, and you just have that certain euphoria of being with others and expressing what you love and how you feel in that moment to that particular song.

It’s just something about that feeling you get, whether it’s a bad freestyle or even if you did the choreography wrong, it still feels good to express yourself.

Q : W H AT I S F R E E STYL I N G LI K E ? W H Y DO YOU LI KE TO P R AC T I C E T H AT ?

A : We used to battle, but not seriously. A couple of us battled in a real competition once, but we just absolutely got destroyed. Mostly I just freestyle as a way to gauge where I’m at as far as training and practice go because there are certain levels that I want to get to in my dance ability. I don’t really think about a lot when I freestyle. Sometimes I think about hitting a certain part in the song, or a particular lyric, but most of the time I kind of just go with it. It’s hard to explain, but I guess once you get to a certain point you kind of just feel it.

Q: HOW WO UL D YOU D E SC R IBE T H E DA NC E COMM U NI TY I N CO LUM BI A? A: When I started in high school, hip-hop was definitely a small, small community, at least where we were at about 20 minutes outside of downtown Columbia. Once we went to college and started at USC, that’s when we realized that there is a bigger community out there that needs to just be unified, in a way. I’m starting to see that more now too, with other crews, especially Fuse, which is a big company that’s starting to be very influential here. I’m looking forward to the future of that. Otherwise, we still find dancers that come in every year through USC, and we still have Swype, which is the biggest crew that I’ve been a part of. The community is growing a lot bigger in Columbia and South Carolina.

Q: O UTSIDE OF H IP-H OP, D O YOU T H IN K T H AT T H E DA N C E CO MM UNI TY HE R E IS BAL L ET/CON T E MP ORA RY H E AVY ?

A: I definitely think that the ballet and contemporary scene in Columbia is a lot bigger than hip-hop, mainly because of the dance school at USC. They get a lot of people coming in every year, and they bring in a lot of outside companies and schools to perform. That’s definitely a larger scale, but they’re also more professional. The hip-hop scene is a little more underground, you could say. There’s always technology though that helps us share and spread the word of upcoming hip-hop events. It enables us to showcase our craft and allows for other people to be inspired by what we’re doing.

Q: W H AT DO YO U T H I NK A R E SO M E O F T H E BA R R I E R S T H AT A R E KE E P I NG HI P- H O P F R OM B E I N G A U NI F I E D C U LT U R E H E R E ?

A : I think we just have to start with having more dance studios. Technology, again, is a huge tool that we have to spread the word and inspire other people. That’s the biggest thing, too, the need to inspire other people to want to join and to want to learn. Having that good, welcoming environment is really important for other people. Sometimes people that are starting out are shy about even dancing in front of a mirror by themselves. That’s why it’s important to have dancers that are experienced to help bring those people out of their shells and make them feel comfortable to express themselves. So I think that’s a good way for us to expand – to think more about the community while we’re performing and asking people if they would be interested in learning how to dance. Bringing friends to different dance events would be a big help for the growth and local acceptance.

Q: DO YO U T H I NK T H E R E ’S A C LA S H B E TW E E N SO U T H E R N C U LT U R E A ND H I P- H O P C U LT U R E ?

A : There’s definitely a notable difference between those two here. I haven’t seen anything that’s shown me that those two cultures are starting to blend, but I do see the more southern side start to accept the hip-hop side a little more, mainly because it’s getting bigger as a community. I think it mostly starts with the hip-hop music first, as a reason why a lot of people don’t accept it. I feel like the dance itself is pretty widely accepted, but it’s just the music that goes along with it.

I guess in the near future I predict that we’ll be able to find a sort of blending between those, but we’ll just have to see.

INTERVIEWS: MICHAEL SANCHEZ 31

BRAILEY JOHNSON DA N C ERS IN CO LUM B I A : I N T E R VI E W #2

Q : I NTR O DUCE YO URS E LF. A: My name is Brailey. I’m black. I’m a woman. I’m from South Carolina. I like dance, movement, and art. I’m a photographer and a choreographer. I’m 23.

Q : H OW LO NG HAV E YOU LIV E D IN COLU M BIA? A: My whole life.

Q : W H AT H A S YO UR E X P E RIE N C E B E E N LIK E LIV IN G H E R E ?

A: I’ve liked it here. I think South Carolina is a beautiful place to live. We have our own issues with race that have been here since people got here, specifically colonizers. But it doesn’t take away from the fact that South Carolina is a great place. There are a lot of things we can still work on in terms of equality with people of different races, ethnicities, and sexualities, and people who don’t necessarily fall within the gender binary.

Q : H OW WO UL D YO U D E SC RIB E YOU R STY L E OF DAN C E ?

A: I think I’m still figuring it out. I really like contemporary, that’s my whole thing. But I feel like my contemporary is saturated with hip-hop, it’s not a pure contemporary at all.

And my hip-hop is kind of like that too, which is a good thing and a bad thing. I’d say that my personal style is contemporary with a lot of hip-hop in it.

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Q : W H AT I S YO U R DA NC E BAC KGR O U ND? A : I’ve been dancing since high school. I started when I was a sophomore, so I’m not really technically trained, I just kind of pick stuff up from being on a dance team and from having an amazing teacher. I really loved it and it’s followed me as a passion since then.

Q : W H Y D O YO U DA NC E ?

A : I dance because it’s authentic to me. I think something that I’m really insecure about as a dancer but something that I should be proud of is the fact that I haven’t been dancing as long as some of my peers. I’ve always felt weird because I’m not technically trained, but that’s a good thing because that means I can see things that other dancers can’t see, and I can try things that other dancers can’t try because my body isn’t really conditioned to be any kind of way. I can’t lie when I dance. I can’t make anything up. I feel like I’m myself, and I feel like I’m a part of something bigger than myself.

Q : T E L L M E A B O U T T H E DA NC E CO M M U NI TY I N CO LU M B I A .

A : Columbia doesn’t have a huge dance community, but there are a lot of different avenues that you can follow. If you want to do studio dance, there are a lot of studio dance companies, but those are usually geared towards kids. So once you hit 18, you’re kind of out here on your own and have to make your own opportunities. A lot of the things I’ve done post-high school are just things that I’ve helped start up or things I’ve been a part of that were just starting. So outside of studio dance for people under the age of 18, there isn’t a lot of dance in Columbia.

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34 SLUG

Q: W HAT H AS T H E H IP-H OP COM M U N ITY LOOKE D LI K E H ERE I N CO LU M BIA OV E R RECE N T Y E AR S ?

A : Fuse [Artist Alliance] is doing a lot for the krump community specifically. They brought a whole competition here last summer – I don’t know how many people came, but the venue was completely packed with just people who liked krump or did krump or were just interested in the movement.

I’ve seen that grow a lot here just in the past year. But in terms of other forms of hip-hop, there have been bouts of things.

Like forever ago when jerking was a thing, there was a whole jerking wave here. There were jerking teams, it was a huge thing here for a little bit. That’s kind of just how hip-hop goes in Columbia, there will be a certain style of dance that will be super huge for however long, and then once that expires, there is a lull until something will bring it back up.

Q: I S T HER E A N Y SORT OF CONS I ST E N T H IP- H OP C U LT U R E PR ESEN T H ERE ?

A : Absolutely not.

Q: W HAT DO YOU T H IN K AR E SOME OF T H E BA RR I E R S TO H AV ING T HAT COM M U N ITY FLOU RIS H H E RE ?

A : I have a couple ideas. One being that Columbia isn’t a huge artistic hub to begin with. There aren’t a lot of people trying to make things like hip-hop dance happen here in Columbia. We probably know all the people that are trying to make hip-hop a thing. But also, when people are inspired to do hip-hop, especially in smaller states or in states that don’t have a huge city in them, they leave. So if I’m a really great hip-hop dancer and I want to do that for a living, I’m not going to stay in Columbia. I’m going to go to Atlanta or New York. So when we get people who are really into it, more often than not, they go somewhere else. So they kind of take that knowledge and that interest with them, and they don’t always come back. Those could be some of the reasons.

Q: DO YO U SE E A NY GR OWT H O P P O RT U N I T I E S FO R H I P- H O P H E R E I N T H E N E A R F U T U R E ?

A : I know for me, I’d love to bring dance period back to Columbia. I’d love to see that community grow here and to be a part of it. I think if, as a dance community, we make a conscious effort to go out and learn certain things but also bring those things back home, then we will have a chance to grow as a community. And also, with the internet, you don’t necessarily have to live in Atlanta or LA or New York to be a big hip-hop dancer – you can do it from your phone. So with those things in mind, maybe we have a chance at getting bigger at some point, but I’m also not going to hold my breath.

Q: I F SO M EO NE J U ST M OVE D TO CO LU M B I A A ND WA NT E D TO J O I N T H E H I P- H O P CO M M U N I TY, W H AT WO U LD YO U SU G G E ST T H E Y D O? A : There are a couple of things that I would do. I would probably look on Instagram since it’s such a huge tool, and I would see if I could find any really awesome hip-hop dancers in my area. So specifically in Columbia, they use #scdance a lot. I would follow certain tags to see if I could find people that were talented in that style of dance, and then I would contact them to see if they are teaching or if they’re a part of a crew, and then I would try to work my way in from there. There are also some studios that do have hip-hop classes, and those are great places to train and start. But really it’s just going to be a lot of meeting people and networking and actively searching for people who can help you grow.

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DARRYL AREVALO DA N C ERS IN CO LU MB I A : I N T E R VI E W #3

Q : I NTR O DUCE YO URS E LF. A: My name’s Darryl. I’ve been dancing since about my freshman year of high school, so I’d say it’s been around eight or nine years now. I’m currently 22, and I started when I was 14. I started off b-boying, mostly inspired by Tae Kwon Doe and a few friends in the Filipino club I was a part of during high school. Occasionally we would do some dances to perform, sometimes K-pop, where we would watch videos and learn those choreographies to perform. So that’s really how my dance story started. I got more into choreography during my later years of high school. That transitioned pretty well into my college life, because there was a hip-hop dance organization on campus called Swype. For four years, I became heavily involved with that group, made several different choreographies and met a whole bunch of great people along the way – many dancers from many different backgrounds.

I graduated from USC just last May with a degree in exercise science, and I’m actually about to start physical therapy school at MUSC, the Medical University of South Carolina, to get my doctorate in physical therapy.

Q : DESC R I BE YO UR C U RR E N T DA N CE IN VOLV E M E N T IN COLUM BI A , SC. A: For four years, I was incredibly dedicated to Swype, eventually becoming the President. I did my best to try to expose Swype to the community so that more people would recognize Swype and would see hip-hop dance. After graduation I became more heavily involved in Fuse.

36 INTERVIEWS: DARRYL AREVALO

Q: H OW LO N G H AV E YO U L I V E D I N CO LU M B I A? A : I have lived in Columbia all my life, born and raised here.

I also actually just found out that I was born in the hospital that I’m currently working at, so it’s funny how things here can come full circle.

Q: H OW WO U L D YO U DE F I NE YO U R DA NC E STYL E ?

A : I would say hip-hop overall, but I really like to use the term “urban” more since I’ve been heavily involved by a lot of urban choreographers in California. Also just because whenever I think about hip-hop, I know that true and authentic hip-hop is mainly b-boying. B-boying was the original dance of hiphop, but over time hip-hop has become more of an umbrella term for all sorts of dance styles. So that can include hip-hop choreography, krump has been under that umbrella, b-boying, popping, all of that. Even though I don’t only practice b-boying anymore, I still call my style hip-hop because it’s easier for people to understand that don’t know the specifics of different dance styles.

Q: W HY D O YO U DA NC E ?

A : Dancing will always have a special place in my heart.

Starting off, I actually was not naturally gifted at dancing at all. I have no rhythm, I was stiff as a rock, barely coordinated at all. But over the years, I trained really hard and developed a love for it. All that hard work combined with when you get good at something, you really start to love it. For me, it’s just a great way to physically express myself and release my inner creativity. There’s no better feeling than finishing a piece that you worked hours or even days on and actually get to utilize that piece in a performance or a video. It’s the purest form of art, in my opinion.

Q: H OW WO U L D YOU DE SC RIB E T H E DAN C E COM M U NI TY H ERE I N CO LU M BIA? A : I don’t want to say it’s nonexistent, but when you compare it to other bigger cities, there is not much of a dance scene here. You have to make your own scene if you want to dance here, pretty much. For example, a few friends and I, we had trouble meeting other dancers. So we would have to create our own dance environment by inviting other people. That’s the same way Swype got started. The original president, Phu, created a dance club because he saw that there wasn’t a hiphop dance scene in Columbia or on campus, and he wanted to make that. I think that the individual dancers here are doing their best to create a scene, but realistically there isn’t much of a scene to grab onto it and make it big. We do our best, though.

Q: WO ULD YO U S AY T H AT T H ER E H AS B E E N A N I N C R E A SE IN T HE H IP- H OP DA N CE P RE S E NC E H E RE R EC E NT LY ?

A : To be honest, it stagnates. There are a lot of other people here like me, where we got most of our dance training informally. We learned how to dance on YouTube. It’s the same with a bunch of dancers in Columbia. Either they’re coming from bigger cities where they have danced before, or they learned here from a combination of the few local dancers and watching videos online.

Q: W HAT A RE SOM E BA RR IE RS YOU T H INK M IG H T B E KEEP ING HI P- HOP FR OM G R OWIN G H E R E ?

A : I think it just has to do with the culture we’re in. It’s not a big city. A lot of the big hip-hop dance companies are in major cities like Atlanta, or New York, or on the west coast.

South Carolina is really rural. We don’t really have a big urban environment. Also, we’re in the South. When it comes to USC, demographically it is majority Caucasians who weren’t raised around the hip-hop culture. You can’t really expect for the local hip-hop culture here to mirror that of LA or Atlanta where the cultures are more diverse and welcoming to hip-hop.

Q: DO YO U T H I N K T H E R E I S A N O P P O RT U NI TY FO R GR OWT H H E R E ?

A : Oh yeah, definitely. Companies like Fuse are doing a great job of trying to promote the arts in general, not just dance, to the entire public. Organizations like Swype at USC are trying to promote hip-hop dance to people who have never danced before in their lives. There’s always going to be dancers coming and going in and out of Columbia, but as long as there are experienced dancers training and inspiring the newcomers, I think they’ll be able to keep this all going. There needs to be motivation for people to keep dancing here, or else it will die down. In order for there to be a bigger dance scene in Columbia, we need more dancers to stay and train younger people. I feel like that’s the best way to go about it.

Q: A NY C LOS I N G T H O U G H T S ?

A : If you love dancing, keep doing it. There’s always ways to keep training yourself. Find friends, find other people that are interested in training with you. There is also the internet. God bless the internet — it’s helped me out so much. Currently I’m doing an online dance training program made by dancers in California. They have online classes from some of the best choreographers where they even teach basics and everything else. Even though I’ve been dancing for eight years, I’m always working to learn more. Ever since graduation, I’ve always wanted to keep dancing, so I’ve prioritized always finding ways to keep training and it’s definitely helped me to improve as a dancer overall.

INTERVIEWS: DARRYL AREVALO 39

MAURICE BLAKELY DAN C E R S I N CO LU M B I A : I NT E R V I E W # 4

Q : C A N YO U I NTR O DU C E YOU RS E L F? A: My name’s Maurice Blakely. I’ve been a krump dancer since 2007. I am the COO of Fuse Artist Alliance, and I am also a parttime scientist and teacher.

Q : H OW LO NG HAV E YOU LIV E D IN COLU M BIA? A: I’ve been living in Columbia, SC, since 1991, so basically since almost birth.

Q : T ELL M E A BO UT YOU R BAC KG ROU N D IN KRU M P. A: I got into krump around the same time that the Rize movie came out. I had already known about krump and had been trying to learn it, even though at the time it was only big on the west coast and no one on the east coast had really even heard about it. As far as getting into krump and my background in it – I basically started off dancing at a couple random dance battles at school. When I graduated high school I ended up battling with a guy that I found out was my cousin, his name was Brandon Bush, and one of his friends. It was pretty cool. Then I met Thomas, and it became the three of us who were trying to become stronger in krump. We would buy the DVDs that came out from the west coast with Tight Eyez, LT, and Hitman, which were the big three, and then with other people like Solo, Lil’ C, and Prissy. All of them were big heads of krump, and some of them were the actual originators. After we would buy the DVDs, we would sit down and try to learn as much as we could from the basics they would go over.

40 INTERVIEWS: MAURICE BLAKELY

Q : W H Y D O YO U DA NC E ?

A : Why do I dance? I really enjoy dance overall just as something to do. But for the krump style itself, the reason why is because it stands for Kingdom Radically Uplifted Mighty Praise, which was the underlining of it when it first came out.

It actually was my form of praise dancing because I wasn’t into miming dance or sacrilegious or religious dancing period. I just felt like if I spiritually wanted to get in tune with myself, and if I could spiritually dance, then I should be able to dance any way I want. So I found krump to be that dance style where I could just express myself freely and spiritually.

Q : D E SC R I B E T H E H I P- H O P DA N C E CO M M U NI TY I N CO LU M B I A F R O M YO U R P E R S P EC T I VE .

A : The hip-hop community here, I feel, is segregated. There are sides, for some odd reason. I don’t know if it’s tension, or if there are just sides that feel like one is better than the other, or they are just so hidden to the point where there is simply a lack of communication and openness about how to get together and be more unified in their art of hip-hop. If I had a real defined understanding of why they’re so diverse, I’d say that it is probably due to the simple fact that Columbia is a place I see as very ballet-heavy, with some contemporary presence after that. Hip-hop dance or any style from the more open, free-form art dance is not strong here. Ballet has been the dominating force here for years, and people are starting to want something different. The problem is that people feel like they need to go out of state because the trend is that if you want something different, you have to leave South Carolina.

We do have it here, but it’s so hidden and blocked away and tucked in corners. It just really needs to be opened up. They all need to start talking to each other and stop guarding themselves from one another.

SLUG 41

42 SLUG

Q : W H AT DO YOU S E E A S T H E C H AL LE N G E S IN SOU T H C A RO L I NA TH AT MA KE T H E S E D IFF IC U LT IE S PR E S E N T ?

A : I feel like there’s definitely issues of power shifting and finances here that contribute to it, especially with ballet being that big head here that brings in the most money. In a sense, there’s now this rise of a more free-form culture, a groovier and heavier culture, with hip-hop being the driving force behind that. This growth is going to cause things to shift, and therefore will push certain people out of power, because a lot of them don’t have any background in hip-hop. With that being said, when you’re being pushed out by something you have no knowledge of, that means you also lose your power. So those above us will acknowledge the rise of hip-hop, but they won’t put it into the forefront.

Q : WO UL D YO U S AY T H AT YOU S E E T H E P OS S IBIL I TY FO R TH E GR OWTH OF T H E HI P- H OP COM M U NITY HE R E SO O N? A : Yes, I do believe so. It’s already happening right now. Not to put it in such a racial term or analogy, but now when you’re riding down Gervais Street, you hear more hip-hop music than you hear country music, and that’s predominantly more of a Caucasian-filled area. That hip-hop culture is dominating and it’s growing. As far as the dance scene of hip-hop culture, I do see it growing. Places like the Columbia Music Festival Association, which has been one of the main places for contemporary and ballet, is now starting to see a rise in its ethnicity as far as hip-hop dance, jazz, heels, and other genres like that. So for Fuse Artist Alliance, which is the company that I work with, our main goals were to help increase the hip-hop culture here, as well as the awareness of more hip-hop-infused dances and other things that are derived from hip-hop.

Q: W H AT DO YO U T H I NK YO U M I G HT S E E H A P P E N I NG H ER E W I T H H I P- H O P OV E R T H E N E XT F I VE O R T E N YE A R S? A : In the next five or ten years, I predict that you will see places like the Museum of Art and places like Main Street, exhibiting a lot more open ethnicity, not just to hip-hop but to other things as well. There will be a shift that is very subliminal, but it’s going to be noticeable, and people are going to subliminally talk about it. They probably won’t outright just say it because it’s still so fresh and new here. I like to refer to this state as a “good old boys’ state” – it has its roots, it’s stuck. It’s like an old dog that can’t learn new tricks at times. Now it’s like you’re trying to take that old dog and ask it to freshen up and get revitalized. But hip-hop is starting to show here. You’re going to see people walking down the streets in probably less clothing and more bright colors that are more vibrant and energetic. You’re going to see two sides of a clashing scene, people with high energy and people with chill, relaxed vibes, all sharing in the same area and sharing experiences with and between their cultures.

INTERVIEWS: MAURICE BLAKELY 43

MARCUS NGUYEN DA N C ERS IN CO LU M B I A : I NT E R V IE W #5

Q : I NTR O DUCE YO URS E LF. A: I’m Marcus Nguyen, and I’m from Greenville, SC. I moved to Columbia four years ago. I’ve been dancing, technically, since middle school. I started with c-walking, then I got into b-boying around high school, but I didn’t take it too seriously until my freshman year of college at Greenville Tech. I guess you could say I’ve been dancing for somewhere in the range of ten or so years.

Q : H OW DI D YO U GE T IN TO DAN C E ?

A: What influenced me to dance was actually the first season of America’s Best Dance Crew. Kaba Modern and the JabbaWockeez were my first influences, mainly because I saw the animation and popping style, but also the choreography from Kaba Modern and the b-boying from the JabbaWockeez.

So all of that really got me interested in it. And then with the help of YouTube and some friends, I was able to actually get into dance a lot.

Q : H OW WO UL D YO U D E FIN E YOU R STY LE N OW ?

A: I would say that since I’ve been introduced to the element of krump, now it’s become a mixture of animation, popping, and krumping. A lot of body control with a krump-fusion element inside of it. What I really like to practice is body control and body awareness, and also a lot of basics and fundamentals because I believe that if you know the basic foundations of popping and animation, you’ll be able to get a lot cleaner movements.

44 INTERVIEWS: MARCUS NGUYEN

Q: W H AT DO YO U LI K E A B O U T F R E E STYL I N G ?

A : The reason I like to freestyle, is because when you’re on the dance floor and it’s just you, you’re able to express a different persona of who you are. Your dance style is able to influence the way you act. If you want to be rough and tough out there, you can, but if you want to be more intricate or robotic, you can act like that. What I want to say is that when you’re out freestyling, have multiple personalities to help give you that energy and vibe you need. I haven’t battled in awhile, but it’s kind of similar to freestyling. When you’re battling, just imagine that no one trains to be second place. It’s a very hungry world when it comes to dance battles. If you’re out there, you have to try to be the best, try to be the bigger fish.

Q: W H Y D O YO U DA N C E ?

A : I like dancing because it honestly helps me relieve a lot of stress and lets me express myself. Also, it’s just a lot of fun.

When I first started dancing, I wasn’t sure if I would develop a passion for it. But now that as I’ve surrounded myself with such influential and talented people, the passion for dance has really grown inside me.

Q: W H AT H A S YO U R H I P- H O P I N VO LV E M E N T B E E N LI KE SI N CE YO U ’V E B E E N I N CO LU M B I A? A : My hip-hip involvement has mainly been with Fuse and Swype. I’d say that the community itself is kind of small in Columbia, because Columbia in general is so lax in the art department overall.

Q: W HAT DR E W YOU TO JOIN SWY P E ON C AM PU S ?

W HAT H A S TH AT E X P E RIE N C E BE E N LIK E ?

A : I joined Swype because I wanted to learn. I feel like as a dancer, you never stop learning new styles. Styles always change and are always developing. I feel like Swype was a good opportunity and open door for me to learn different types of peoples’ choreographies. It also really introduced me to how traditional dance classes work in case I were to ever join another dance company. Ever since joining Swype it really has grown me as a dancer. My style has definitely changed and improved a lot. I grew a lot as a dancer, but even more as a person. Since being a Dance Leader in Swype, I was able to take on a leadership role in hip-hop and understand the responsibility that came with that and the image I had to uphold for the other members. I think Swype has helped to introduce a lot of hip-hop awareness on campus. Swype is one of the few dance organizations that allow people who can’t dance to be introduced to dancing. We have a lot of members that joined with no experience and end up leaving as great dancers. I feel like Swype has helped introduce students on campus to hip-hop and dancing in general.

Q: H OW WO U L D YOU DE SC RIB E T H E HI P- H OP CO M M U N I TY H ERE V ER SUS IN LA RG E R STAT E S OR CI T IE S ?

A : I’d say that South Carolina’s hip-hop community is really small. We really lack in it, because compared to the big states, it’s really hard to find a dance community nearby, even in this metropolitan area. The closest big scene that you could find would be Atlanta, or maybe in North Carolina. In South Carolina, I’d say that it’s too close-minded when it comes to hip-hop. There are a lot of people out there that are trying to open it up to the general public, but I’d say that it’s going to be a long and difficult road for us to actually get some influence from it.

Q: W H AT A R E SO M E OF T H E O B STAC L E S KE E P I N G H I P- H OP F R O M GR OW I NG H E R E ?

A : I would say that it’s mainly the lack of resources. But also a lot of people here, probably the large majority, aren’t open to hip-hop. They like the music, but they don’t want to spread the culture of it. They like the music and dance, but they never do anything to help spread it around or give it a good public image.

Q: H AVE YO U SE E N A NY I M P R OVE M E NT S I N T H E P R E SE N C E O F H I P- H O P HE R E I N R EC E N T YE A R S? A : Oh definitely, yes. Compared to when I first started dancing to now, I’ve seen a steady growth within it. When I first started, everybody just kind of pushed it around. I didn’t see that many dancers out there. But now as the internet has grown and as more people have become exposed to it, you see a lot more dancers in South Carolina. But like I said, I still think it could be a lot better.

Q: DO YO U T H I NK T H E R E A R E GR OWT H O P P O RT U N I T I E S ?

W I L L I T CO NT I NU E GR OW I N G ?

A : I definitely see some opportunities here in Columbia.

Considering that we are in the center of South Carolina, as well as being the capital city, I feel like Columbia could definitely use its resources and influence to help spread the culture of it.

Fuse is really helping pushing it forward because they’ve really been spreading the word of hip-hop and especially krump. But so I would say yes, Columbia definitely has potential. It does need some basic groundwork for hip-hop, you could say, but if Columbia is opened up to hip-hop, it could introduce new dance studios and help spread it around South Carolina.

INTERVIEWS: MARCUS NGUYEN 47

CONCLUSION H I P- H OP : F ROM N E W YOR K C ITY TO CO LUM B I A

This book started as an academic project and turned into a passion project. Over the course of its production, it has enabled and encouraged me to dive further into hip-hop culture than I ever had, and I hope to continue pursuing this subject independently even after the printing of this book. I’ve been dancing in Columbia for years, but this semester forced me to take a step back and examine both the dance and hiphop communities here from an external perspective.

The bulk of my personal learning during this project came from the historical information regarding the foundations of hip-hop. Starting this project, I knew very little about hip-hop’s origins, aside from some old-school dances moves and the importance of breakdancing. Throughout my research, however, I finally gained an understanding of how hip-hop culture has grown into what it is today and why it exists at all in the first place. It began as a platform for local communities to express their experiences through music, dance, and art, and it persists in the same fashion today. My thesis has taught me so much on a personal level, forcing me to view the communities and people around me through a lens I had never used before. I’ve found hip-hop in places and people throughout Columbia that I hadn’t known prior to this project.

Hip-hop exists in Columbia, SC. There are some conflicts surrounding it though, with the tension between hip-hop culture and southern culture remaining strong in certain contexts. The contrast between southern values and the local perception of hip-hop is no secret here. The Zulu Nation’s

48 CONCLUSION

core principles of peace, love, unity, and having fun remain strong as the foundation of hip-hop music and culture, but a lot of popular rap today diverges from this basis and discusses subjects that far differ from true hip-hop.

This difference highlights the lack of education on what constitutes actual hip-hop, ultimately damaging its relationship with the conservative south. As rap music has begun to top radio charts, the general public view has shifted to appointing popular rap artists as the leaders of the hip-hop movement, instead of looking to follow the opinions of the founders who are still alive today. This notion has aided in tainting the perception of hip-hop for those who are less informed, like many southerners who do not have an interest in discovering what true hip-hop culture stands for.

Regardless, the hip-hop community that I’ve found in Columbia is one that is welcoming, excited, and bursting at the seams. You can find aspiring rappers putting together EPs in their dorm rooms, DJs spinning at different downtown events, and b-boys trying to shift the city’s dance focus away from its traditional ballet-centric culture. The hip-hop dance scene in Columbia is undeniably small, to a degree where I personally know the majority of the local dancers trying to build up that community. This, however, doesn’t seem to be a deterrent to any of the dancers striving to fuel dance in Columbia. The passion here is strong, and I predict, like many of the people I interviewed, that South Carolina will slowly but surely see hip-hop move into spotlight of its own.

‘‘

A LOT OF T I ME S, WH E N P EOP L E S AY H I P - H OP, TH EY D ON ’T KN OW WH A T TH EY ’ R E T A LK I N G A B OUT. TH EY JUST T H I N K O F T H E R AP P ER S . W H E N YOU TAL K AB O UT H I P- H OP, YOU’R E TA LK I N G A B O UT TH E W HO LE CULT UR E A N D M OVE M EN T. YO U HA V E TO TAK E T H E W H OL E C ULTUR E F OR W H A T I T I S. — Afrika Bambaataa

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50 SOURCES