Critical Reflection Exercise 

Students are expected to have completed the assigned readings each week and be prepared to comment critically. Rather than providing mere summaries of course readings, students will be asked to analyze and synthesize information from the assigned readings while reflecting on their own lived experiences using personal examples, situations they observe in organizations and within their communities, and current events. Students will submit a three page, double-spaced critical reflection of the assigned readings. 

Assigned Readings: *For the Second Reading, just Chapter 1 & 2

Journal of Black Studies
42(5) 768 –790

© The Author(s) 2011

Reprints and permission: http://www.
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

DOI: 10.1177/0021934710376164
http://jbs.sagepub.com

376164 JBS42510.1177/00219347103
76164PetchauerJournal of Black Studies
© The Author(s) 2011

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1Lincoln University, PA

Corresponding Author:
Emery Petchauer, Lincoln University, 1570 Baltimore Pk, P.O. Box 179, MSC 24,
Lincoln University, PA 19352
Email: epetchauer@gmail.com

Knowing What’s Up
and Learning What
You’re Not Supposed
to: Hip-Hop Collegians,
Higher Education, and
the Limits of Critical
Consciousness

Emery Petchauer1

Abstract

This qualitative portraiture study explores the different ways that college
students deeply involved in hip-hop at two universities (i.e., hip-hop col-
legians) made their personal experiences in hip-hop relevant to their educa-
tional pursuits. The results of this study illustrate how students applied their
experiences with the critical discourses of hip-hop music and the questioning
discourse of hip-hop more generally to their perspectives of university edu-
cation and their specific academic pursuits. This article also details the lim-
its of these critical perspectives by illustrating how a subsample of hip-hop
turntablists did not mobilize the critical and political perspectives that other
participants embraced. Overall, this article focuses on the different ways that
young adults from various ethnic backgrounds make a cultural artifact cre-
ated primarily by Black communities relevant to their educational lives.

Keywords

hip-hop, college students, critical consciousness

http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1177%2F0021934710376164&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2010-11-29

Petchauer 769

Academic scholarship over the past 10 years has demonstrated that hip-hop
is a cultural resource related to the identities, values, and aspirations of
youth and young adults around the world (Petchauer, 2009). Hip-hop in
these conceptualizations pertains to not just rap music but also other expres-
sive practices. These include forms of dance, such as breakin’ (i.e., B-boying),
music creation (e.g., deejaying and turntablism), and visual art (e.g., graffiti
and aerosol art) (Forman & Neil, 2004; Rose, 1994) as well as language
(Smitherman, 1997). For some young adults, hip-hop also exists as a genera-
tional identity that signifies common values, ideologies, and perspectives
(Kitwana, 2002).

Within the expanding body of hip-hop scholarship, a subset of research has
addressed the implications of hip-hop on educational processes and settings.
For example, research has demonstrated how students mobilize hip-hop songs
to construct notions of identity and history (Dimitriadis, 2001; Hill, 2009) and
how hip-hop can be used to promote academic engagement in secondary
(Morrell & Duncan-Andrade, 2002) and higher education (Harrison, Moore,
& Evans, 2006). In higher education specifically, few studies have examined
the roles of hip-hop on college campus and in the lives of young adults
(Petchauer, 2009).

This dearth of work in higher education is a shortcoming because of the
unique ways that both institutions and students have incorporated hip-hop
into the academic and social fabric of institutions. These ways include
hip-hop courses, curricula, and symposia (e.g., Harrison et al., 2006), campus
organizations (e.g., Hip-Hop Congress [HHC], 2009), and the many ways
that students create and participate in hip-hop on their own, which like
other cultural dimensions of their lives significantly shape their collegiate
experiences (Guiffrida, 2003; Harper & Quaye, 2007; Museus, 2008;
Petchauer, 2010).

This article helps fill this dearth in education and hip-hop scholarship
by illustrating different ways that students deeply involved in hip-hop at two
institutions (i.e., hip-hop collegians) made their personal experiences in hip-hop
relevant to their educational pursuits. Specifically, this article illustrates how
students applied their experiences with the critical discourses of hip-hop music
and the questioning discourse of hip-hop more generally to their perspectives
of university education and their specific academic pursuits. This article also
details the limits of these critical perspectives by illustrating how a subsam-
ple of hip-hop turntablists did not mobilize the critical and political perspec-
tives that other participants embraced. Overall, this article focuses on how
young adults from various ethnic backgrounds make a cultural artifact cre-
ated primarily by Black communities relevant to their educational lives.

770 Journal of Black Studies 42(5)

Relevant Literature: Hip-Hop and
Higher Education

Hip-hop maintains a complex relationship with mainstream parts of society.
In its early and formative years during the mid 1970s and early 1980s, hip-hop
represented an alternate form of social recognition and status for Black and
Latino youth and at times (like previous Black musical forms) was as a vehicle
for collective uplift and social critique of policies and politics that often disad-
vantaged minority groups (Chang, 2005; Rose, 1994). This critique has also
applied to formal education. Au (2005) demonstrated this most clearly by
finding that in rap lyrics, formal education is almost exclusively portrayed as
a failing system that is unable to meet the cultural and educational needs of
students, particularly those who are African American.

While it is important for researchers to explore the content of popular lyrics,
it is inaccurate to assume that listeners interpret and apply lyrics the same
ways that researchers do, let alone that listeners with different racialized (or
economic) experiences construct the same meanings from or attribute the
same worth to hip-hop (Sullivan, 2003). Consequently, Iwamoto, Creswell,
and Caldwell (2007) explored what rap lyrics mean to 8 college students of
different ethnicities. For this sample, the music “elicit[ed] powerful emotions
and significant meanings across ethnic and racial groups” (p. 346) through its
diverse themes and content, such as overcoming hardships, living in violent
environments, experiencing racism, being exposed to drugs, and being in and
out of love. Rap music also had psychological and emotional affects on the
students due to the diversity of content to match listeners’ moods.

How students make meaning of lyrics is important, but this alone is a lim-
ited conception of how hip-hop is relevant to college students’ educational
experiences and lives. Currently, there exists a variety of ways that college age
adults identify with, create, and actively participate in hip-hop, all of which
are of greater importance compared to passively listening to rap music or
wearing name-brand clothes associated with hip-hop artists. These other ways
include the cultural expressions that constitute the four elements of hip-hop:
emceeing or rapping; forms of dance, such as breakin’ (i.e., B-boying); music
production through deejaying and turntablism; and aerosol and graffiti art
(Forman & Neil, 2004). More broadly, active ways of participating in hip-hop
can also include spoken-word poetry, hip-hop-based activism and local
organization (Bynoe, 2004), hip-hop-based education (e.g., Hill, 2009),
and membership in local and national hip-hop organizations, such as the HHC,
Universal Zulu Nation (UZN), and Hip-Hop Summit Action Network
(HHSAN). It is important to recognize these different hip-hop activities because

Petchauer 771

they expand the analytical framework beyond the traditional four elements
and help better frame how hip-hop exists on campus. In other words, today,
a young adult can be deeply involved in a hip-hop community on or around
campus due to membership in a hip-hop organization or use of hip-hop as an
educational tool. He or she need not be an emcee or a DJ to affiliate with, shape,
and be shaped by hip-hop.

In addition to this broader analytical lens, it is equally important to recog-
nize the aesthetics, sensibilities, and ways of doing that are within such hip-
hop activities. That is, there is an important distinction between hip-hop as
content and hip-hop as aesthetic form (Petchauer, 2009). This distinction
(although not made in such clear terms) has been signaled when describing
the African and African American linguistic features of rap (Smitherman,
1997) or that how rappers speak (rather than what they say) is often con-
nected to African and African American linguistic characteristics. Operating
upon this notion of form, recent iterations of scholarship have illustrated
the more precise aesthetic forms and principles of hip-hop musical sam-
pling (Schloss, 2004), language creation and adaptation (Alim, 2006;
Pennycook, 2007), and dance (Schloss, 2009). Applied to education, this dis-
tinction results in what Hill (2009) has called pedagogies of hip-hop: “the
various ways that hip-hop culture authorizes particular values, truth claims,
and subject positions while implicitly or explicitly contesting others” (p.
120).

This expanded analytical lens as well as the distinction between hip-hop
content and form connects to this study through the conceptualization of
hip-hop collegians: college students whose educational interests, motiva-
tions, practices, and mind-sets have been influenced by their active participa-
tion in hip-hop. From this conceptualization, Petchauer (2010) explored
some of these more detailed ways that hip-hop exits in the lives of hip-hop
collegians and the implications on educational experiences. The study
illustrated that hip-hop activities and spaces on campus were meaningful
parts of students’ educational lives, similar to cultural or ethnic student orga-
nizations. The study also demonstrated how students conceptualized hip-hop
as an approach to education by transferring concepts and practices such as
sampling (Schloss, 2004) from hip-hop into education. Overall, the study
illustrated that college students who are deeply invested in hip-hop make
meaningful connections between it and their educational lives. One aspect not
addressed in this study was the (dis)connection between the critical ideolo-
gies of hip-hop and students’ conceptualizations of their education. This pres-
ent article addresses this aspect.

772 Journal of Black Studies 42(5)

Theoretical Framework

This study employed the conceptual framework of worldview (Kearney, 1984)
to explore how students made their experiences in hip-hop relevant to educa-
tion. The framework was chosen to accommodate the broad conceptualiza-
tion of hip-hop collegians and the diverse ways that they might make hip-hop
relevant to education. Kearney described worldview as

[a people’s] way of looking at reality. It consists of basic assumptions
and images that provide a more or less coherent, though not neces-
sarily accurate way of thinking about the world. A worldview com-
prises images of Self and of all that is recognized as not-Self [i.e.,
Other], plus ideas about relationships between them, as well as other
ideas. (p. 41)

This definition is elucidated by five dimensions according to which people
construct their lived reality: (a) self and other, (b) relationship between the self
and other, (c) classification of other domains, (d) causation, and (e) space and
time. The first three categories of this framework signify the central structure
of worldview. Self refers to how individuals and groups construct themselves
and their identities. Other represents categories and domains that are con-
structed as separate from self, and relationship signifies that there are different
ways that people relate with categories and domains. A heuristic such as this is
helpful specifically to this study because it guides the researcher to explore
how participants constructed, engaged, and related with the exterior domain of
education (e.g., particular classes, course material) at their respective institu-
tions and in different areas of study.

In addition to worldview (Kearney, 1984), I also draw from critical
pedagogy (Giroux, 1988; McLaren, 2007; see also Freire, 1973) to frame
more specifically how participants constructed higher education at their
respective institutions and to understand the relationship component of
worldview. Accordingly, critical pedagogy asks “how and why knowledge
gets constructed the way it does, and how and why some constructions of
reality are legitimated and celebrated by the dominant culture while others
clearly are not” (McLaren, 2007, p. 197). From this perspective, critical con-
sciousness refers to the ability to recognize that knowledge and metanarratives
that communicate how “people are” and why “things happen” are not neu-
tral. Rather, they privilege some groups and disadvantage others. Within a
hip-hop lexicon and according to some participants of this study, this is
called knowing what’s up.

Petchauer 773

My utilization of critical pedagogy here is not to frame hip-hop itself
or its commercial products (e.g., rap songs) as forms of critical pedagogy,
although such Eurocentric approaches have guided many explorations
of hip-hop (e.g., Stovall, 2006), as have Afrocentric ones (e.g., Wells-
Wilbon, Jackson, & Schiele, 2010). Rather, I use these aspects of critical
pedagogy because they cohesively outline the general ways that students
constructed and deconstructed university education vis-à-vis their experi-
ences in hip-hop.

Design and Method of Study
This study was guided by the following questions: What meanings do hip-hop
collegians derive from and ascribe to their educational pursuits? In what ways
does their participation in hip-hop implicate their educational experiences,
activities, and approaches? In order to explore and answer these questions,
I used a qualitative portraiture approach (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997)
that focuses on agency, complexity, and dimensionality of actors in their respec-
tive cultural contexts. As I will describe below, I also incorporated into this
approach in-depth, phenomenological interviews (Seidman, 1998) as well as
participant observation in the educational and hip-hop cultural spaces that
participants created and occupied. Opposed to traditional qualitative inter-
viewing alone or ethnography, this highly textured, portraiture approach
positioned me to focus upon the agency of actors in relationship to hip-hop
and their specific institutional settings.

Settings and Participants
The results in this article are from Colonial University and Pacific State
University, which are pseudonyms for two large, public institutions in the
southeastern and southwestern United States, respectively. During the 2005-
2006 academic year, 20,800 students were enrolled at Colonial representing
the following ethnic characteristics: 70% Caucasian, 20% African American,
6% Asian, 3% Hispanic, and 1% Other. During the time of this study, I
described the level of hip-hop activity in the surrounding scene as moderate,
consisting of weekly hip-hop nights at local venues, events run by independent
(i.e., noncorporate) promoters, a local chapter of the UZN (an international
organization for hip-hop culture), and a biweekly open-microphone event
called Word Perfect put on by Headz Up, one of the most popular organizations
on campus.

774 Journal of Black Studies 42(5)

During data collection, 38,000 students were enrolled at Pacific State rep-
resenting the following ethnic characteristics: 45% Caucasian, 4% African
American, 15% Asian, 23% Hispanic, and 13% Other. During this study,
I described the level of hip-hop activity in the surrounding scene as high due
once again to a UZN chapter, many local groups and collectives, at least five
independently owned hip-hop music stores, and multiple spaces every week
for independent hip-hop events. Also important was a locally based Internet
radio station at which many participants performed or socialized and a chapter
of the HHC on campus, a national organization that attempts to organize and
demonstrate hip-hop (HHC, 2009).

Operational construct sampling (Patton, 2001) aimed at studying individ-
uals or groups who fit the description of hip-hop collegians guided my pur-
poseful sampling strategies. At both institutions, the initial hip-hop collegians
I knew were through my participation in the local hip-hop and music com-
munities over a period of 2 years prior to the study. Some of these individuals
served as participants, and others served as gatekeepers that allowed me
to use reputational and chain-based sampling (Patton, 2001) to recruit addi-
tional participants. Table 1 gives some essential characteristics of the 8 hip-hop

Table 1. Description of Participants

Name Gender Ethnicity Institution Major
Hip-Hop
Activities

Nathan Male Caucasian Colonial Asian studies;
Japanese
minor

Emcee; HHSAN

Dan Tres Male Hispanic Colonial History
education

Emcee, B-boy,
UZN, event
organizer

Barry Male African
American

Colonial History UZN, event
organizer, poet

Kalfani Male Filipino Pacific State Public health

DJ, HHC

Raichous Female Filipina Pacific State Biology;

psychology
minor

DJ, HHC

Roland Male Filipino Pacific State Engineering DJ, HHC
Domingo Male Filipino Pacific State Engineering DJ, HHC

Lino Male Filipino Pacific State Engineering DJ, HHC

Note: HHSAN = Hip-Hop Summit Action Network; UZN = Universal Zulu Nation; HHC =
Hip-Hop Congress.

Petchauer 775

collegians whose voices appear in this article in different capacities. This sam-
ple was selected from a population of at least 50 other students I identi-
fied as involved in hip-hop at the universities through my interactions with
students. The 8 hip-hop collegians were selected due to their deep involve-
ment in hip-hop, which entailed commitment to at least one of the four ele-
ments of hip-hop (and conceptualization of such activities as part of hip-hop);
consistent membership in a hip-hop-based organization, such as the UZN; or
use of hip-hop as an educational or organizational tool. In most cases, students
engaged in a combination of these activities. While these criteria are some-
what fluid, they created a useful heuristic to explore the central questions of
this study.

Data Collection and Analysis
The primary means of data collection were in-depth, phenomenological inter-
views (Seidman, 1998), according to which each participant was interviewed
three times for approximately 90 min. According to this structure, Interview
1 focused on the participants reconstructing the themes of hip-hop and educa-
tion in their lives. Interview 2 focused on daily activities of their present lives,
and Interview 3 focused on the meanings that participants attributed to the
rituals, refrains, metaphors, and daily activities as described in the previous
interviews. Interviews took place within 1 week of each other, as recom-
mended by Seidman (1998).

Data analysis began by listening to and reading interviews and transcripts
and writing reflective and marginal remarks (Miles & Huberman, 1994) to
guide the subsequent interviews with each participant. Upon the completion
of interviews, constant comparative coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1998), key-
words in context, and classical content analysis were used to identify com-
mon refrains, rituals, and metaphors with the aid of qualitative data analysis
software. One of the in vivo codes produced by this process was conscious(ness)
as a refrain among participants in each setting. The strength of this code was
supported by the fact that it contained the second-highest number of refer-
ences among participants and generated from the second-highest number of
sources across settings in my corpus of data. Through a process of memoing,
I interpreted the coded data to arrive at the ways in which participants con-
structed education at their respective institutions and the related connections
to their experiences in hip-hop.

776 Journal of Black Studies 42(5)

Promoting Credibility and Authenticity

The credibility of this study was supported by triangulating interview data
with over 100 hours of informal or conversational interviews (Patton, 2001)
with participants and other members of the Colonial and Pacific State hip-hop
communities. Participant observation in hip-hop and educational spaces (e.g.,
attending class with some participants, socializing with them on and off cam-
pus, attending hip-hop events) also triangulated data collection. Collecting
cultural artifacts from campus, such as event flyers, campus newspapers, and
university publications, allowed me to understand different aspects of the
institutional culture in each setting.

In addition to this credibility, Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis (1997) argue
that a hallmark of portraiture is authenticity, wherein the final narrative makes
sense to the researcher, audience, and participants. The final product should
resonate with those who experience the phenomenon. To achieve this stan-
dard, before the closure of this study, participants read their extended portraits
and (a) offered either feedback that directed revisions or (b) affirmed their
portraits as an authentic representation of the hip-hop and educational aspects
of their lives.

Findings
Believing Hip-Hop Music

For Nathan, an Asian studies major and Japanese language minor, involve-
ment with hip-hop entailed leading the campus chapter of the HHSAN, free-
style rapping with friends, and listening to and contemplating different kinds
of hip-hop music alone and with friends, a consumption practice extending
back to high school. For Nathan, in tandem with significant personal experi-
ences, hip-hop played a part in adapting a skeptical perspective of the U.S.
government and the Iraq War, which in turn influenced to his decision to
break a family legacy of attending military institutions and attend Colonial
instead. He discussed a nexus of events that included graduating from high
school, his father leaving the family to serve in the Iraq War as part of the
Reserves, and the role of hip-hop music therein. He clearly summarized
the reciprocal relationship between his life events and the new meanings he
derived from hip-hop: “I guess hip-hop got more real, you know, because
I was in a more real spot.”

Nathan acknowledged that even as a high school student, he recognized
some of the more critical themes in the music of progressive hip-hop artists

Petchauer 777

(e.g., Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Common) that alluded to structural inequalities
in society due to government (in)action. However, as a high school student,
Nathan said that he still planned on following the model set by his father
and uncle by attending a military institution after graduation. He explained
that during his last year of high school, he “put hip-hop aside,” either ignoring
or overlooking the critical perspectives of the music in favor of continuing
with the family tradition. But when Nathan’s father left the family to serve in
the Iraq War, it created a different context that enabled him to derive more
sophisticated meanings from the music and apply these meanings to that
stage of his life.

But then when Iraq happened and my dad was shipped off again in
March of 2003 and I graduated [from high school] . . . I thought about
things from a [different] perspective and I just realized—I guess hip-hop
was a medium because I was listening to what these people were say-
ing, you know, because at first I didn’t really view the government
as—well, I just didn’t really look at reality. And I think my dad going
away to the war helped me when I was listening to hip hop to really
realize another side of hip-hop, [that it was] not just entertainment
comin’ outta nowhere.

Nathan’s comment that hip-hop was not “comin’ outta nowhere” refers to his
realization that the critical perspectives evident in much of the music—often
antigovernment, often related to race and class, and often voiced by young
African American males—were reflective of real social experiences.

Nathan described growing up in a lower-middle-class or middle-class
home and having African American friends, but as a Caucasian from this
economic class background, the “loss” of his father due to the government
was the personal experience that enabled him to identify with the critiques in
the music and mobilize them as his own rather than just hear them as decon-
textualized entertainment.

For me, [hip-hop] lets me see a different side of things. The news isn’t
really going to talk about the viewpoint of someone from the street
actually in that situation. And it made me feel like yeah, these guys
are talking about the fucked-up government because it’s fucked up!
You know, opposed to when I was younger, I didn’t get affected by
that, or at least I didn’t know about it. Like they were talking about
something I didn’t know about. So I think that maybe the fact that my
dad went away [and] I was becoming more interested about what was

778 Journal of Black Studies 42(5)

going on around me allowed me to maybe understand and relate more
to hip-hop.

It is important to highlight here that the critical meanings Nathan overlooked
early in high school but believed around graduation were due in equal parts
to hip-hop and to the personal “loss” of his father to the government. It was
personal events such as these that enabled him to construct and adopt the
critical themes of some hip-hop artists. This relationship between hip-hop
and personal experience is important to highlight because it underscores that
identification with themes in music does not happen in a contextual vacuum.
That is, a young adult such as Nathan does not discover some a priori mean-
ing in the music but has a set of experiences that enable him to construct the
themes in the music as critical, valid, and ultimately, his own.

Applications to Different Disciplines
The clearest way that Nathan applied this critical perspective to his education
was deciding not to attend a military institution. However, other students with
this perspective made more specific connections to their academic majors.
Dan Tres, in the major of history education, believed that the overall goal of
educating younger generations about history was to give them the tools to
question and evaluate the world rather than passively accept the dominant and
prevailing ways that previous events have been portrayed. Within the topic of
American history, he wanted his future students to question events such as the
signing of the Constitution.

[The signers] locked themselves in. They didn’t let nobody in. They
didn’t let the regular poor guy in. They didn’t let the Native American
in. Now, who were they talking about when they said “We, the people”?
That’s what I want them to understand, you know, and go from there.

Dan Tres believed that educators need to give students the tools that
will enable them to “critically analyze everything” and “think for them-
selves.” In his conceptualization of education, teaching students to question
in this manner was not confined to the subject of history or social studies.
Instead, the intent was for this critical disposition to apply to other areas,
both academic and nonacademic, so that students do not think in compart-
mentalized ways.

Petchauer 779

Dan Tres also located the genesis of this perspective in hip-hop but not
according to a specific rap song or text. He identified that this disposition
became part of hip-hop since its formation in the early 1970s among a nexus of
critical ideas toward education and other governmental institutions. Sometimes
he called it an “anti-establishment” mentality developed in response to the
monetary cutbacks made to public education, after-school programs, and recre-
ational programs in the 1970s in New York that affected the generation of youth
and young adults who composed the hip-hop pioneers. “That [attitude] leaked
over to the people who took [hip-hop] from there, particularly people like the
Nation of Gods and Earths [and] people like the Universal Zulu Nation. ‘Oh
you know, be careful what [teachers] teach you,’” older people in the com-
munity would tell him and other youth while growing up in the Bronx.
“‘They’re gonna teach you lies.’” Dan Tres assessed that this critical attitude
toward education and other domains still exists today and is one trait that dis-
tinguishes hip-hop collegians from other groups of students.

For Kalfani, a public health major, involvement in hip-hop at Pacific State
entailed a board position on the campus chapter of the HHC, practicing and
performing as a DJ and turntablist, and consistently listening to both com-
mercial and independent (i.e., underground) hip-hop music. For Kalfani,
having a critical perspective meant desiring to learn information about how
minority groups are educated about health risks, how health care is made
accessible, and how health is related to racial and economic oppression in the
United States. Learning about the Tuskegee Experiment, in which African
American men were intentionally denied penicillin treatment for syphilis,
was particularly startling to him: “I was like, ‘Wow! That happened? Fuck!’
That shit is fucked up, you know.” When articulating these most interesting
and exciting aspects of his education, Kalfani summarized, “It’s shocking to
learn that kind of stuff in school. Honestly, I come to school to learn stuff
I am not supposed to be learning, like facts like that. That’s what makes
school fun to me.”

Because of this perspective of institutional education—that by its design or
nature, one is “not supposed to be learning” such material at the university—
Kalfani advocated for a particular approach to education.

Myself and a couple other people that go to [Pacific State] have an
open mind to everything. Knowing what’s up, taking in life as an edu-
cation, [and] being able to go into class and take your knowledge and
whatever . . . the teacher is teaching you, but don’t take it into [full]
effect. Just basically mesh that in with yours. Take what you learned
before and take whatever someone else is telling you, and just make

780 Journal of Black Studies 42(5)

some sense out of that yourself. In class they’re never gonna teach you
about like certain things that go on in the world . . . someone else needs
to tell you that.

This approach that Kalfani described is based upon the hip-hop aesthetic prac-
tice of sampling and its related epistemology. Sampling refers to the practice
whereby a hip-hop music producer uses a digital instrument (i.e., a sampler)
to capture musical elements, most often from vinyl records, and use them to
assemble a new, complete instrumental track (Schloss, 2004). This practice,
however, has an epistemological element concerning how one constructs a
reliable perspective by sampling from different sources of information. For
Kalfani, since there are perspectives and bodies of knowledge that one will
not learn in school, one must sample sources of information outside of school.
This is not an isolated, idiosyncratic process but is a feature of how some
local hip-hop communities construct knowledge (Schloss, 2009), which other
hip-hop collegians have conceptualized and practiced as part of a hip-hop
approach to education (Petchauer, 2010). In Kalfani’s case, he alluded to the
fact that sampling from the knowledge and experiences of his friends back
home in Sacramento (a kind of “street smarts”) was necessary to counter the
limitations of higher education.

The Questioning Discourse of Hip-Hop
An important detail to the role of hip-hop texts above is that experiences were
only loosely attached to specific rap songs and artists. In other words, par-
ticipants referenced hip-hop artists, such as Talib Kweli, Ras Kass, Gang
Starr, and Mos Def, who are often considered socially conscious or political,
but it was not simply an experience with the content of a single, specific song
or perspective that was responsible for students developing such views.
Rather, it was also the more general questioning discourse of hip-hop as
illustrated through competing ideologies and cultural logic.

Raichous, one of the DJs at Pacific State, explained this questioning
discourse of hip-hop by drawing from a common distinction in hip-hop:
independent (i.e., underground) music compared to commercial (i.e., main-
stream) music. Specifically, she cited the ongoing, competing definitions
of authenticity and accusations of inauthenticity between the two musical
categories.

A lot of [underground] hip-hop questions the mainstream scene. Like
a lot of [underground] emcees will call out mainstream emcees and

Petchauer 781

say, “You say this and that, but you never came from the ’hood” . . . so
from [underground emcees] questioning like people who claim things,
it made me kind of question things too.

In this instance, critical questioning is modeled when underground rappers
call into question the representations of reality depicted by mainstream rap-
pers, whether they concern one’s place of origin or exaggerated claims of
wealth and status.

Barry also illustrated the questioning discourse of hip-hop by drawing upon
the Talib Kweli (2002) song “Get By.” He referred to the chorus or “hook” in
which the background singers suggest the paradox of consuming harmful sub-
stances as a means to “get by.”

This morning, I woke up / Feeling brand new and I jumped up
Feeling my highs, and my lows / In my soul, and my goals
Just to stop smoking, and stop drinking / And I’ve been thinking, I’ve

got my reasons
Just to get by, just to get by / Just to get by, just to get by.

“There’s a struggle right there,” Barry identified in reference to the chorus.

It’s kind of like, I want to stop, I know I need to stop, but this is how
I get by. That’s a contradiction. I know it’s wrong, but I do it anyway?
You gotta sit back and analyze that. How can I know something is wrong,
even want to stop, but I can’t or I won’t? It’s like, that’s hip-hop to me.

It is important to highlight that in this instance, Barry’s reflections on the music
were not about an explicit message or ideological perspective given by the
song. Instead, they were about the form of questioning modeled in the song—
which he equated with hip-hop—that can be applied to other topics. As a his-
tory major, Barry applied this questioning to issues such as voting, national
and local leadership, and other forms of political participation.

Should we participate in politics? Should I vote or die? [laughter]
Should I vote? ’Cause it’s like, it’s pushed on you. But then there’s a
certain point where it’s like, I don’t relate to [either candidate]. So who
am I gonna vote for? The lesser of two evils? But when you say the
lesser of two evils, isn’t that saying they’re both evil and I’m voting for
evil either way? Now I might not necessarily even feel that way, but
that’s the question that I ask. And then if I hadn’t asked that question,

782 Journal of Black Studies 42(5)

I wouldn’t have come to understand the importance of [the local level].
Okay, what’s the importance of voting on the local level with people
that you can actually go to their office, or you can write them a letter,
or call them on the phone, or go to city council meetings? So if I hadn’t
asked those questions about national elections, see I would have never
learned anything about the local elections.

As Barry described it, a hip-hop song models a process of questioning that
can be applied to certain topics and issues. Applying this form of questioning
then leads one to a deeper, more meaningful conclusion.

The Limits of Critical Consciousness
Although hip-hop as a resource to construct higher education from a critical
perspective was a consistent theme across settings, there was a distinct group
of 3 Filipino American students at Pacific State who acknowledged these
aspects of hip-hop yet did not mobilize them like other students. That is, they
advocated for an educational approach open to multiple perspectives like
other students, but this perspective was subordinate to their desire to partici-
pate in hip-hop as an expressive activity void of any specific social or political
message. This perspective was due to their participation in hip-hop strictly as
turntablists and a related belief about the “pure” history of hip-hop that
focused on music rather than message. The collective voice of these students
serves as a requisite dissonant voice (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997; see
also Miles & Huberman, 1994) that contrasts and deviates from the themes
of other participants.

Turntablism within hip-hop is when a DJ conceptualizes a turntable as a
musical instrument and uses it along with a mixer instrument to manipulate
records according to a variety of patterns and techniques (i.e., scratching or
cutting) to produce new sounds and music. Although it is considered part of
hip-hop, it resembles some elements of jazz, wherein musicians show mas-
tery through how far they can “push the limit” of that instrument (see Pray,
2001). In turntablism, there is generally no person rapping over the music and
thus no explicit opportunity to express any social or political ideas. The par-
ticipants who did not see hip-hop in this critical manner were strictly turnta-
blists who often met together to practice or host turntablist events. Although
they participated in broader hip-hop events too and were part of the HHC and
the same social circle as other participants at Pacific State, they preferred
turntablism and (unlike Kalfani) generally did not play rap records for audi-
ences at hip-hop events.

Petchauer 783

The turntablists recognized the political potential of hip-hop yet preferred
to see it as an apolitical form of expression and creativity. Lino explained,

A lot of people like to try to shed light on certain issues in the com-
munity through hip-hop. Like they’ll write a rap on [the Iraq War] or
something. And for me, that’s cool, you know, I’ll support that. But it’s
like for me, everything boils down to [the fact that] when I do hip-hop,
it’s about the culture and the love for the music.

Roland added on to this perspective, clarifying, “Where we come into play,
we’re not even about the commercial side or the activism side. For us, we just
wanna stick to the original roots of it, which is just about the music, period.”

In their thinking, ideas like “the culture” and “love for the music” refer
solely to the music produced by instruments and not the political or critical
content of what a person may rap over the music. They also conceptualized
hip-hop as a socially and politically neutral tool or engine that could be used
for different purposes (e.g., commercial marketing, education, activism).
Subscribing to what I call an apolitical narrative of originality in hip-hop and
conceptualizing it as a tool allowed them to participate in hip-hop yet not
integrate it with any personal political views or their education in ways other
participants did. In other words, hip-hop was not a resource for them to con-
struct Pacific State as hegemonic because they thought about and practiced
hip-hop differently compared to other participants.

Another element related to this perspective of hip-hop among the turntab-
lists was that their academic majors allowed for fewer connections to hip-hop
and critical perspectives. Unlike Kalfani, Dan Tres, and others who where pur-
suing social science majors, the turntablists were engineering and graphic
design majors. This means that the core content of their studies pertained less
to power and people in society and, consequently, less to the critical themes in
some hip-hop songs. Raichous, a biology major on a premed course of study,
explained this disconnect. In a class like organic chemistry, she said, “You’re
not trying to think differently” because there is an exact mathematical and
procedural way to solve problems as well as much rote memorization required
to do well in the course. Even though she articulated a critical perspective
similar to Kalfani, Dan Tres, and Barry, she saw few connections between it
and her major studies.

Finally, this perspective should be seen in context with racial identification
and the representations of race in hip-hop writ large. Many of the most promi-
nent sociopolitical hip-hop artists are African American (again, Mos Def, Talib
Kweli), whereas the Asian and Filipino American contributions to hip-hop have

784 Journal of Black Studies 42(5)

been most clearly in the realm of turntablism (e.g., DJ Q-Bert; see Pray, 2001).
Consequently, the models available to the turntablists (who, once again, were
Filipino American) according to race in hip-hop are typically ones that have not
demonstrated hip-hop as an overtly political medium. People often identify
with areas where they see themselves reflected; thus it is possible that these
students gravitated toward turntablism and an apolitical perspective due to the
racial and apolitical models available to them in hip-hop (see de Leon, 2004).

Discussion
Student Organizations and (Dis)engagement

One area to which this study contributes is research on student organizations
and (sub)cultures on campus. The ways that students in this study participated
in hip-hop were due in part to their personal interests, but activities were also
situated within hip-hop-based organizations on campus and student membership
in these organizations, whether these were the UZN at Colonial or HHC at
Pacific State. Although research has shown that students view hip-hop spaces
and organizations on campus as important to their engagement on campus
(Petchauer, 2010), like other student organizations and subcultures (e.g.,
Guiffrida, 2003; Magolda & Ebben, 2007), this article raises questions about
how students can use such organizations and activities to formulate their
perspectives of university education. In other words, from the standpoint of
faculty members, is it desirable for students to view university education as
containing limited representations of knowledge and reality?

Kalfani illustrated most clearly an instance in which this perspective of
university education could be beneficial to learning when he described that
information in classes from a counternarrative perspective makes him most
interested. Thus if a course is organized in such a way or contains information
from critical perspectives, the attitudes described in this study could be benefi-
cial to learning. However, the converse may also be true. What if such attitudes
cause students to disengage with academic content? The sample of students
in this study were all enrolled in classes (i.e., there were no students who had
decided to discontinue university education), so this study is limited in provid-
ing significant findings regarding whether such attitudes can help create seri-
ous academic disengagement.

It is important to point out that these attitudes of distrust are not limited
strictly to hip-hop collegians, such as the ones in this study. This finding is
supported by research that has identified a general attitude of distrust among
more recent generations of college students compared to earlier ones (i.e.,

Petchauer 785

1960s). Students have little confidence in U.S. social institutions, big busi-
nesses, media conglomerates, and Congress; they believe that professionals,
such as doctors and politicians, are motivated more by money than benevo-
lence (Levine & Cureton, 1998). This study extends this body of work by
illustrating that hip-hop is one contemporary resource from which students of
various ethnic backgrounds can derive these perspectives.

Using Hip-Hop as a Resource
In terms of research on how students can enjoy and make meaning of hip-hop
and hip-hop songs, this article extends the work in three specific ways. First,
the study illustrates how personal experiences factor into students’ either
adopting or dismissing the critical perspectives identified by Au (2005). This
was illustrated most clearly through Nathan, whose personal experiences
helped to validate some of the critical themes in music that were otherwise
seen as decontextualized entertainment. Nathan and others help illustrate that
hip-hop is a significant source of critical consciousness, but it is not the sole
source. This is an important recognition because it helps avoid romanticized
or overidealized conceptions of hip-hop’s role in the lives of young adults.
Second, this research illustrates that it is more than specific lyrics of hip-hop
songs that can facilitate a critical perspective. The aesthetic forms of hip-hop,
such as sampling and battling, that are in hip-hop practices have the potential
to carry with them an ideology or epistemology. The general questioning
discourse of hip-hop as articulated by Barry and the epistemological way to
approach classes articulated by Kalfani are examples of this. Finally, this
research illustrates some of the limits of critical consciousness, wherein not
all students who affiliate with and diligently pursue hip-hop identify with the
sociopolitical themes in much of the music. This may seem like an obvious
point, but it has been overlooked through monolithic descriptions of the hip-
hop generation (e.g., Kitwana, 2002) and very general descriptions of stu-
dents’ experiences with rap songs (e.g., Iwamoto et al., 2007).

The lack of sociopolitical identification among the turntablists can be due
to different factors. First is one’s means of participation in hip-hop. For the
turntablists, participating and creating hip-hop through turntablism (opposed
to emceeing or another practice) seemed more likely to buttress an apolitical
perspective. Second and related is one’s conception of what hip-hop is. If one
conceives of hip-hop as a subset of Black culture and an extension of previous
sociopolitical Black arts and traditions, then one is more likely to identify with
the sociopolitical messages in more progressive hip-hop songs and see them
as inherent qualities of hip-hop. However, if one conceives of hip-hop simply

786 Journal of Black Studies 42(5)

as a recreational activity, a musical practice, or a tool open to various uses,
then one is less likely to identify with sociopolitical content.

These diverse ways that participants took part in hip-hop and made sense
of their involvement are important, considering the widespread adoptions and
adaptations of hip-hop around the world today. Even from this small sample
of hip-hop collegians, it is clear that there are a variety of intentional and sig-
nificant ways people can affiliate with and participate in hip-hop. Yet, different
ways of conceptualizing hip-hop follow from these different ways of partici-
pating in hip-hop. This brings to mind Bynoe’s (2002) critique of so-called
global hip-hop:

Anyone can be taught the technical aspects of deejaying, breakdancing,
writing graffiti, and rhyming, or can mimic artists’ dress or swagger . . .
but the central part of Hip Hop culture is the storytelling and the infor-
mation that it imparts about a specific group of people. [Hence,] unless
one has at least a working knowledge of Black Americans and their
collective history, one cannot understand Hip Hop culture. (p. 77)

This research illustrates how mastery of a hip-hop practice such as turntablism
does not necessarily entail the adoption of a critical social sensibility derived
from “a working knowledge of Black Americans and their collective history.”
Conversely, the research also shows that one does not have to master a hip-hop
practice to identify with these social sensibilities. Nathan was a marginal emcee,
yet key personal experiences made the social critiques voiced by young
African Americans relevant to his own experience.

Implications and Conclusions
One area this study implicates is effective pedagogy. Specifically, for students
such as the ones in this study, pedagogy could improve by taking cues from
the questioning discourse and related epistemology modeled in hip-hop. This
has little to do with utilizing hip-hop songs or lyrics in class as in hip-hop-
based education (e.g., Hill, 2009), although there is educational value in doing
so. Rather, this could take the form of organizing course content according to
conflicting ideologies or perspectives on topics, applying general questions to
specific local issues, and viewing course texts as positioned and incomplete
representations of knowledge themselves, necessitating critique. At a more
general level, it may increase interest for students such as the ones in this
study to understand that in a way, paradigm wars and competing theoretical
perspectives are defining characteristics of specific disciplines and academe

Petchauer 787

more broadly. Since such views are not limited to hip-hop collegians alone
(Levine & Cureton, 1998), these pedagogical strategies might also benefit
other students who derive similar critical perspectives from other personal or
cocurricular interests.

This study also implicates how campus personnel view cocurricular inter-
ests and organizations. It suggests that personnel should consider how stu-
dents mobilize the ideologies or discourses produced by domains such as
hip-hop to shape perspectives of education. Indeed, these activities have the
potential to connect students to campus and its social fabric, but what do
they teach students about formal institutions of learning, professors who
facilitate learning, and textbooks that represent knowledge? Questions such
as these push researchers to think about how cocurricular pursuits can impli-
cate academic learning instead of thinking about these as two separate areas
of camps life.

One set of questions that emerges from this study deals with how students
who hold such perspectives go about navigating their respective institutions.
In other words, how do students go about pursuing their education based
upon the belief that what they are reading or being told is at best inaccurate
or at worst part of an oppressive system? When Kalfani advised that one
must “make some sense out of that yourself” since there are some counter-
narrative perspectives that will not be taught in classes, what hermeneutical
and epistemological maneuvers are taking place when he or other students
follow his advice? How does this skepticism manifest in the daily student
activities of encountering information through assigned readings and class-
room lectures? As mentioned in the previous section, this study could illus-
trate only what animated and interested participants based upon their critical
mind-sets. Questions about the more detailed implications of these perspec-
tives as well as how they can be gained through experiences with other cul-
tural artifacts, such as reggae and blues, guide future research along this line
of inquiry.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship and/or
publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this
article.

788 Journal of Black Studies 42(5)

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Bio

Emery Petchauer is an assistant professor of education at Lincoln University in
Pennsylvania. His current research includes the intersections of hip-hop, educational
practices, student development, and culturally responsive pedagogies; teacher prepa-
ration, particularly at historically Black institutions; and the policies and preparation
surrounding teacher certification exams.

F O U N D AT I O N

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FOUNDAT ION
B-Boys, B-Girls, and
Hip-Hop Culture in New York

J O S E P H G. S C H L O S S

1

2009

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Copyright © 2009 by Oxford University Press, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Schloss, Joseph Glenn.
Foundation : b-boys, b-girls, and hip-hop culture in New York / Joseph G. Schloss.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-533405-0; 978-0-19-533406-7 (pbk.)
1. Hip-hop dance–New York (State)–New York. 2. Hip-hop–New York (State)–New York. I. Title.
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Contents

Acknowledgments

vii

1. Introduction

3

2. “The Original Essence of the Dance”:
History, Community, and Classic B-Boy Records

17

3. “Getting Your Foundation”: Pedagogy 40

4. “We Have to Be Exaggerated”: Aesthetics 68

5. “In the Cypher”: B-Boy Spaces 94

6. “I Hate B-Boys—That’s Why I Break”: Battling 107

7. From Rocking to B-Boying: History and Mystery 125

8. Conclusions 155

Notes 159

Bibliography 167

Index 173

This page intentionally left blank

vii

Acknowledgments

This book is based primarily on my experiences in the New York City b-boy
scene between 2003 and 2008. That community, like all communities, is built on
relationships. This book, on every level, is a product of these relationships and
the individuals who work to maintain them, and I would like to take a moment
to offer my thanks.

One of the running themes of my work is that hip-hop did not “just hap-
pen,” that it was the result of specifi c innovations and choices made by specifi c
people in specifi c times and places. And even if we do not know—and may
never know—all of their names and the exact nature of their contributions, we
do know that they existed. So I would fi rst like to thank all of the pioneers of
hip-hop, both known and unknown, who created this remarkably complex and
vital series of art forms.

Second, I would like to thank all of the b-boys, b-girls, rockers, deejays, and
others who have spoken with me, on and off the record, about hip-hop dance.
The individuals who are quoted here represent neither a statistical cross-section
of dancers in New York, nor an exclusive list of the most signifi cant b-boys
and b-girls (though the list includes many I am honored to know). They are the
people I have met as part of my experience. My relationship to each of them is
slightly different from all of the others, and while everyone I spoke with was
extraordinarily supportive and gracious, I would like specifi cally to acknowl-
edge several of them.

MiRi Park, aka Seoulsonyk, has had a profound infl uence on this book as a
friend, sounding board, reader, and consultant. While I accept full responsibility
for any factual errors or general foolishness to be found in the pages that follow,
her insight and critique has allowed me to substantially reduce both, and for that
I will always be thankful.

Acknowledgmentsviii

Ralph “King Uprock” Casanova ran a free, open b-boying practice every
Thursday afternoon in the gymnasium of P.S. 93 in Ridgewood, Queens, for
much of the time I was researching this work. He also sponsored monthly battles
in the same venue. These events provided a kind of home base for my research,
offering me not only opportunities to meet people, but also a chance to estab-
lish continuity in my relationships with them. I am clearly not the only person
who owes him a debt of gratitude, as there are very few contemporary b-boys
and b-girls in New York who did not spend some time there at one point or
another, benefi tting from both his knowledge about rocking and his organiza-
tional skills.

One of the people I was honored to meet at one of Casanova’s battles was the
photographer Martha Cooper, who was one of the fi rst outside documenters of
hip-hop (the book that she coproduced with Henry Chalfant, Subway Art [1984],
is considered not only a classic study of early graffi ti but also a signifi cant infl u-
ence on the subsequent development of hip-hop culture). She soon became a
friend, valuable critic, and connection to many of the more senior b-boys whom
I was able to interview, including Alien Ness and Ken Swift. She also provided
several of the photos for this book. Thanks, Marty!

The b-boys, b-girls, and others whose voices appear here are, of course, the
heart of the book, and my appreciation for their help is boundless. My thanks go
to Character, Phantom, Rob Betancourt, BOM5, Buz, Anthony Colon, DJ DV-
One, DJ E-Rok, KaoticBlaze, Ken Swift, Kevski, GeoMatrix, Michael Holman,
Eddie Luna, Mr. Supreme, Pedro “Pjay71” Martinez, Amigo Rock, Ru, Richard
Santiago, Emiko Sugiyama, Tiny Love, Trac 2, and Waaak One. I would particu-
larly like to thank PopMaster Fabel and Alien Ness, who have served as older
brothers/gurus (a rare and underappreciated combination to be sure), helping
me to understand the culture, challenging me when necessary, and keeping me
going when my energy fl agged.

In this project, there were a huge number of b-boys and b-girls whom I spoke
with informally or briefl y, but whom I was not able to formally interview due to
time limitations. I would specifi cally like to thank Kwikstep and Too Sweet in
this regard, and I apologize to any others who may fall into this category.

Beyond that, there have been a number of people whose advice, critique, and
support have been essential to this manuscript. My editor at Oxford University
Press, Suzanne Ryan, has been an ongoing source of energy, inspiration, and
valuable advice, and I am deeply thankful. I would also like to thank Oxford’s
anonymous reviewer, whose thoughtful critique contributed substantially to
both the tone and nature of this work.

Other individuals whose valuable insight have affected the specifi c content of
this book include Lynne Fredricksen, Kyra Gaunt, Jocelyne Guilbault, Benson
Lee, Benjy Melendez, Wanda Melendez, Elizabeth Mendez-Berry, T. J. Desch

ixAcknowledgments

Obi, Marc Perlman, Raquel Rivera, Francis Rodriguez, Grete Viddal, Oliver
Wang, and Christie Z-Pabon.

People who have provided less specifi c, but no less important, insight into
hip-hop culture and/or life in general include Bill Adler, Harry Allen, Adisa
Banjoko, Howie Becker, Mike Beckerman, Jane Bernstein, Andy Brown, Jalylah
Burrell, Garnette Cadogan, Dan Charnas, Lisa Coleman, Njeri Cruse, John
Elstad, Sujatha Fernandes, Marcella Runell Hall, Mae Jackson, Imani Johnson,
David Locke, Wayne Marshall, Ivor Miller, Ingrid Monson, Sarah Montgomery-
Glinski, Matt Morin, Mark Anthony Neal, Dawn Norfl eet, Deborah Pacini
Hernandez, Lara Pellegrinelli, Holly Beth Plowman, Guthrie Ramsey, David
Sanjek, Jay Smooth, Jason Stanyek, Chinua Thelwell, and Jessamyn West. I
would particularly like to thank Jeff Chang, who has helped me to sift through
many of the ideas in the following pages, and Joe Conzo, who provided an
excellent photo of PopMaster Fabel.

Institutional support of both a material and spiritual nature has been provided
by Tufts University, New York University, Baruch College of the City University
of New York, the Experience Music Project, the Society for Ethnomusicology,
and All-City Thinkers. And a special shout to all Flavor magazine alums.

Finally, my deepest thanks to my family tree: John and Suzanne Schloss,
Sara Schloss Stave, Channing M.-L. Stave, and Stratton Stave, the b-boy of the
future.

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F O U N D AT I O N

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3
1

Introduction

Hip-hop is a problem. It is the cultural embodiment of violence, degradation,
and materialism. Hip-hop is rappers exploiting women in videos and shooting
each other in front of radio stations. Hip-hop is parties on $20 million yachts and
Cam’ron claiming that he would never “snitch” to the police, even if he knew
that a serial killer was living next door. It is a multi billion-dollar industry based
on debauchery, disrespect, and self-destruction.

Yet, when I think of hip-hop, I think of shopping for rare funk records on a
Saturday afternoon. I think of a 12-year-old girl defeating two older boys in a
dance battle as her mother proudly videotapes her. I think of people from all over
the world popping and locking in Manhattan’s Union Square as the sun sets on
a hot summer evening. I think of Zulu Nation founder and deejay pioneer Afrika
Bambaataa wandering around a jam, happily taking pictures of random strang-
ers—including me—as if we were his nieces and nephews.

That, to me, is hip-hop.
So why is the hip-hop I’ve been experiencing so different from the hip-hop

that I see on television and read about in books? After all, it’s not as if the hip-
hop portrayed in the media doesn’t really exist; it does. But hip-hop, as both a
community and an art form, is far more heterogeneous than it is given credit for.
Should that make its more troubling aspects immune to criticism? Not at all. If
anything, hip-hop’s conceptual diversity actually encourages criticism: that’s
what battling is all about. And just as it would be an insult to refuse to battle
someone, it would be an insult to refuse to critique them. It would mean that
you didn’t take them—or their point of view—seriously. When it comes right
down to it, the most sincere, most effective, most passionate critic of hip-hop has
always been hip-hop itself.

But to understand hip-hop’s powerful self-critique, we need to understand
hip-hop on its own terms. Not only because it has interesting symbolic, political,

Foundation4

and social implications (although they are important), not only because it con-
fi rms our theories about the work of art in the age of electronic reproduction
(although that’s valuable, too), but simply because the way hip-hop sees the
world is itself a legitimate and consistent and fascinating intellectual system.
And dance is a crucial part of that system.

For most people, “breakdancing” belongs somewhere between parachute pants
and Rubik’s cubes, a Reagan era fad that lingers only as a punch line, if it lin-
gers at all. From that perspective, the idea that the dance could have a serious
contribution to make to the discussion of hip-hop’s infl uence in American cul-
ture may seem laughable. But to its adherents, b-boying (its correct name) is no
joke. It is a profoundly spiritual discipline, as much a martial art as a dance, as
much a vehicle for self-realization as a series of movements. “Ultimately, in so
many ways, I just feel like b-boying is . . . a metaphor for life,” says MiRi Park,
also known as b-girl Seoulsonyk, a dancer and writer in her late 20s. “And the
culture . . . is a culture that the world should aspire to be. . . . Hip-hop, just its ide-
ology, allows you to be the best person that you can possibly be, which is not
what I get from mainstream culture” (Seoulsonyk, interview). Even hip-hop’s
staunchest defenders may have to take a moment to digest such a statement. It
is relatively easy to rationalize hip-hop as a necessary evil whose value lies pri-
marily in its role as a diagnostic tool for the ills of America. But few would go so
far as to say that hip-hop in and of itself can actually make you a better person.
Few would say that America should not only accept hip-hop grudgingly as bitter
medicine, but actually embrace and support it as something valuable for its own
sake. So how can we explain this discrepancy?

A large part of the confusion is semantic. The term hip-hop is used to refer
to three different concepts, which—although they do overlap—are distinguish-
able from each other. In the fi rst sense of the term, hip-hop refers collectively to
a group of related art forms in different media (visual, sound, movement) that
were practiced in Afro-Caribbean, African American, and Latino neighborhoods
in New York City in the 1970s. The term, when used in this sense, also refers to
the events at which these forms were practiced, the people who practiced them,
their shared aesthetic sensibility, and contemporary activities that maintain those
traditions.

Perhaps the most important aspect of this variety of hip-hop is that it is unme-
diated, in the sense that most of the practices associated with it are both taught
and performed in the context of face-to-face interactions between human beings.
To some degree, this constitutes an intentional rejection of the mass media by
its practitioners, but to a great extent it is just the natural result of the practices
themselves. Activities like b-boying and graffi ti writing are simply not well
suited to the mass media. Although in both cases, brief attempts were made to

5Introduction

bring these forms of expression into mainstream contexts (b-boying in a series
of low-budget “breaksploitation” movies in the early 1980s and graffi ti as part
of a short-lived gallery trend around the same time), neither developed sub-
stantially in those environments. This, it has been suggested, was not so much
because the forms lacked appeal, but because—on an economic level—b-boy-
ing was an advertisement with no product.1 This reality is refl ected in the phrase
that is often used to refer to this branch of hip-hop: “hip-hop culture,” which
suggests something that is lived rather than bought and sold.

The second sense of the term hip-hop refers to a form of popular music that
developed, or was developed, out of hip-hop culture. This hip-hop, also known as
“rap music,” resulted from the interaction between hip-hop culture and the preex-
isting music industry. As we would expect, this hip-hop features elements of both
sensibilities. My students are often surprised when I point out that, even when
hip-hop lyrics seem to reject every aspect of mainstream culture and morality, the
one thing they almost never reject is a strict 16-bar verse structure derived from
Tin Pan Alley pop music. But this should not be surprising. This hip-hop, in con-
trast to hip-hop culture, is deeply intertwined with the mass media and its needs,
largely because it does have a product: records, CDs, MP3s, and ringtones.

Although the concept of hip-hop as popular music is commonplace now, it
was far from self-evident that such a thing would emerge. It is often forgotten
that hip-hop existed as a culture and performance context for at least fi ve years
(1974–1979) before it became a genre of popular music. For many in that era,
the idea of hip-hop as a product was literally unthinkable. “I did not think that it
was conceivable that there would be such thing as a hip-hop record,” Chuck D
of Public Enemy told writer Jeff Chang. “I could not see it. . . . I’m like, record?
Fuck, how you gon’ put hip-hop onto a record? Cause it was a whole gig, you
know? How you gon’ put three hours on a record?” (Chang 2005:130). Chuck
D’s comments point up the broad chasm between hip-hop as an experience (hip-
hop culture) and hip-hop as product (rap music). It is worth emphasizing that I
am making the distinction between “hip-hop culture” and “rap music” on practi-
cal grounds, not moral or aesthetic ones. The “rap music” category includes all
commercially recorded hip-hop, both “mainstream” and “underground,” from
the most culturally uplifting to the most destructive.

Finally, the term hip-hop is increasingly used as a kind of loose demographic
designation for contemporary African American youth, regardless of whether or
not they have any overt connection to rap music or to other hip-hop arts. This
is the sense of hip-hop that is evoked by such phrases as “hip-hop attitude” and
“the hip-hop generation.” Hip-hop, in this sense, is usually invoked to empha-
size age and class over race when singling out young African Americans, either
for praise or criticism. At its best, this makes social distinctions more precise
without sacrifi cing their relevance to readers. Used more opportunistically, the

Foundation6

term allows writers the freedom to generalize broadly without appearing to traf-
fi ck in racial stereotypes.

The demographic sense of the term can be seen in a Chicago Sun-Times op-ed
piece titled “Hip-hop Attitude Leads to Mayor’s Downfall,” in which hip-hop is
blamed for the misbehavior of Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick:

Kilpatrick’s real mistake was in believing the hype that is hip-hop. It’s a culture stuck
in perpetual teendom, where artists, trends and music constantly morph into new
states of hipness to maintain credibility. To the extent to which this evolution creates
better art, great. But the pressure, for example, for young girls to eschew their natural
beauty in favor of the Lee-Press-On-Hair good looks of the newest video ’ho, well,
there’s something morally corrupt in that. That young men know droopy jeans origi-
nated in prison culture yet still embrace that look in the name of coolness is corrupt.

Hip-hop has a jewel-encrusted veneer that covers some pretty rotten values. We
see rappers surrounded by scantily clad women sipping Cristal by their pools, as
fl aunted on TV reality shows. We see a generation of young women determined to
use their feminine wiles to get ahead instead of valuing the education they can put
in their heads. (Oh, why is Flava Flav even a phenomenon?) We’ve even embraced
a woman who once called herself SupaHead. Illegal drug use, marijuana, is encour-
aged. (Douglas 2008)

Similarly, in an online column, Jason Whitlock blames hip-hop for the lack
of discipline among contemporary football players:

Hip hop is the dominant culture for black youth. In general, music, especially hip
hop music, is rebellious for no good reason other than to make money. Rappers
and rockers are not trying to fi x problems. They create problems for attention.

That philosophy, attitude and behavior go against everything football coaches
stand for. They’re in a constant battle to squash rebellion, dissent and second opin-
ions from their players. . . . What we’re witnessing today are purposeless, selfi sh
acts of buffoonery. Sensible people have grown tired of it. Football people are
recognizing it doesn’t contribute to a winning environment. (Whitlock 2007)

More positive versions of the demographic sense of the term hip-hop have
been produced by Bakari Kitwana, who coined the term “hip hop generation”
(Kitwana 2002), and Jeff Chang, who writes:

Kitwana grappled with the implications of the gap between Blacks who came of
age during the Civil Rights and Black Power movements and those who came of
age with hip-hop. His point was simple: a community cannot have a useful discus-
sion about racial progress without fi rst taking account of the facts of change. . . . My
own feeling is that the idea of the Hip-Hop generation brings together time and
race, place and polyculturalism, hot beats and hybridity. It describes the turn from
politics to culture, the process of entropy and reconstruction. It captures the collec-
tive hopes and nightmares, ambitions and failures of those who would otherwise
be described as “post-this” or “post-that.” (Chang 2005:2)

7Introduction

It is clear, then, that many misunderstandings about hip-hop stem from a
confusion of terms, or perhaps a deeper confusion between the concepts that
those terms represent. The three kinds of hip-hop—hip-hop culture, rap music,
and hip-hop attitude/generation—are closely related to each other, but they
are not the same thing. If, for example, one were to apply Douglas’s sense
of the term hip-hop (“scantily clad women sipping Cristal by their pools”) to
Seoulsonyk’s comment above (“Hip-hop . . . allows you to be the best person
that you can possibly be”), Seoulsonyk would appear misguided to the point of
psychosis. In reality, however, Seoulsonyk (who holds an Ivy League graduate
degree) is using the term hip-hop to refer not to a world of poolside debauchery,
but to the discipline and aesthetic principles associated with a traditional form
of Afro-diasporic competitive dance that she learned directly from one of its
early practitioners, Richard Santiago. Taken in that context, her words seem
entirely sensible.

I am not suggesting that any one of the three senses of hip-hop is inher-
ently more legitimate than the others. Quite the opposite: hip-hop’s strength lies
precisely in the diversity of its concepts and practices. Trying to weed out the
good hip-hop from the bad (or, more commonly, the “authentic” from the “com-
mercial”) sets up a loaded and almost completely useless distinction. And when
that distinction is applied to scholarship, it can distort the work in any number of
ways. The most obvious of these is the romanticism that so often accompanies
the campaign for moral legitimacy in hip-hop. Academic scholars’ tendency to
ascribe the loftiest motives to the most mundane choices made by hip-hop prac-
titioners is the main reason that most hip-hop scholarship is considered laugh-
able by the hip-hop community. At the same time, this tendency has also created
a kind of backlash. The fact that many academics have overstated hip-hop’s
profundity may tempt others to actually understate profundity where it really
does exist, just to avoid being associated with academic romanticism. This ten-
dency exerts a particular infl uence on works, such as this one, that attempt to
address the unmediated, cultural aspects of hip-hop. Finally, the overemphasis
on morality positions the good-versus-bad question as the defi ning factor in any
individual or group’s attraction to any given aspect of hip-hop. This, in turn,
presumes that interest in certain aspects of hip-hop, and not others, is based pri-
marily on moral grounds. Other possible motivations, such as personal aptitude
or pure aesthetic appreciation, recede into the background.

As I have discussed elsewhere with regard to sampling, the disproportionate
emphasis on questions of morality—positive or negative—in hip-hop has tended
to distort its portrayal in both scholarly and popular writing:

I believe that the main reason that the indigenous discourse is overlooked is that
it is not primarily concerned with the issue that most sympathetic researchers are
interested in: justifying the use of sampling. By this I mean that most scholars seem

Foundation8

concerned with demonstrating ways in which sampling, despite its rejection of
live instrumentation, is consistent with more conventional value systems, whether
those be social, political, musical, or otherwise. Hip-hop producers, by contrast,
are rarely interested in such moves because for them sampling doesn’t require
justifi cation on any grounds; it is the foundation of the musical form. (Schloss
2004:66–67)

Academic writers are often consumed with hip-hop’s moral or artistic legiti-
macy, a pursuit that necessarily focuses on the relationship between the subject
of their study and the standards of whatever outside authority the argument is
appealing to. This naturally tends to downplay the artistic discourse going on
within the community. While this is true for discussions of all varieties of hip-
hop, it takes specifi c forms when it comes to b-boying.

Perhaps the most obvious of these is a hesitancy to focus on the body in dis-
cussions of the arts of the African diaspora, for fear of implying that the activity
is not intellectual. While that fear is based on Eurocentric mind-body distinc-
tions that have long since been debunked, the issue remains sensitive. As Kyra
Gaunt has written:

The tendency to accentuate the “positive” (the artistic) and diminish the negative
(embodiment, sexualized dancing, unequal gender relations within black culture)
has led to fi xations on the analysis of musical sounds and textures at the expense
of the embodied and gendered social relations expressed in black music practices.
(Gaunt 2006:7; emphases in original)

Another reason that the internal discourse of b-boying has been overlooked
is that most academic hip-hop scholarship still operates within the framework
of literary analysis and culture studies. Literary analysis naturally tends to
emphasize forms of expression that are specifi cally concerned with the art-
istry of language, while culture studies tends to emphasize forms of expres-
sion that are deeply engaged with the mass media. Both naturally make use
of modes of inquiry that are well suited to those areas of study, in particular
the abstraction of processes into texts and their subsequent analysis as such.
But this approach has two negative effects when it comes to studying the
practice of b-boying. First, it puts the theory in the hands of the scholar, thus
implying that b-boys and b-girls do not have their own theories about what
they do, which is clearly not true. And second, in doing so, it relieves the
scholar of the obligation to actually engage with the community. In the case
of something like rap music, which is intended to be experienced by people
who have no personal relationship with the artist, this may not be a substan-
tial liability. But in the case of b-boying, which is intended to be experienced
in person, such an approach can distort its subject to the point of invisibility.
Unmediated hip-hop, by defi nition, cannot be understood without becoming
personally involved in it.

9Introduction

In retrospect, it seems strange that I didn’t become interested in b-boying until
almost 20 years into my relationship with hip-hop. But then, on the other hand,
why would I have? B-boying doesn’t really exist in the mass media. Like most
b-boys and b-girls, I was introduced to it by people I met along the way, and if
I had never met them, I would probably still be largely unfamiliar with it. In
fact, b-boying’s unmediated character has profoundly affected its relationship to
other aspects of hip-hop, in several ways.

Foremost among these, as I mentioned earlier, is its connection to the role
of the body in the experience of other aspects of hip-hop. While many hip-hop
scholars acknowledge the signifi cance of dance and physicality, very few actu-
ally address the body in any depth (one notable exception, very infl uential on
the present work, is Gaunt 2006). In reality, dance and movement are indispens-
able to the understanding of hip-hop culture, since physical movement underlies
virtually every element of its expression. As I mentioned, this is part of a larger
tendency among writers—scholarly and popular alike—to focus on the product
of hip-hop over the process. This is primarily due to hip-hop’s collision with the
popular music industry in 1979. That interaction resulted in a mass-produced
physical product, the rap record, becoming the most widely known aspect of
hip-hop culture. In response, writers, critics, and scholars developed ways of
looking at hip-hop that were designed to analyze a mass-media object. But those
approaches tend to focus on the result, the recording, rather than the process that
created it. The physicality inherent in that process—the way a producer moves
as he hits the sample pads or nods his head when trying to “lock up” a beat;
the way an emcee shifts her weight back and forth to the rhythm, emphasizing
her words with broad slashes of her hands—receded into the background. But
a more inclusive view of hip-hop shows the mind-body connection to be at the
very core of its aesthetic.

An introduction to the practice of graffi ti writing, for example, actually pres-
ents a series of yoga-like training exercises that students are expected to com-
plete before even picking up a spray can:

These exercises are suggested to all writers as a way of maintaining the body’s
painting abilities, and of keeping the essential painting body actively engaged in
physical and kinesthetic activities related to spray-can use. . . . One must learn how
to use the entire body for painting. The painting stance has often been compared
with fencing. The body must be able to bend low, reach high, and make adjust-
ments, all within the frame of its physical ability to do so. (Raven 2007:232)

And in his discussion of deejay battles, Mark Katz devotes a substantial
amount of space to the deejays’ movements:

In addition to the verbal and instrumental aspects of a routine, the physical element
can be just as crucial. Part of the appeal of a successful routine is the sight of the

Foundation10

swift and intricate motion of the DJ’s hands; in fact, it is sometimes hard to appre-
ciate the diffi culty of a routine without seeing it. . . . To make their virtuosity clear
to audiences and judges—and in fact, to make their routines even more demand-
ing—DJs often employ what are called “body tricks.” These moves do not—or
should not—affect the sound of the routine, but add to its visual appeal and level
of diffi culty. This may involve spinning in place between beats, or scratching or
juggling the records with the hands under the legs or behind the back. Sometimes
DJs will use any part of the body other than the hands (which can lead to rather
lewd gestures). Body tricks often act as self-imposed hurdles for the performer to
overcome, though sometimes they’re purely for show. (Katz 2004:126)

Since dance, quite naturally, is the aspect of the culture in which physical
movement is the most thoroughly abstracted, analyzed, and realized, its prin-
ciples in many cases can be productively applied to the physical aspects of other
hip-hop arts. In fact, since beginning this project, I have started to make students
in my hip-hop classes dance at the beginning of each meeting to the music we
will be discussing that day. I have found that there are things that one can learn
about a song instantly by dancing to it, which might take hours to articulate
verbally. When you discover what kinds of movement can be performed to a
song—and what kinds cannot—you discover a wealth of information about the
social and physical environments in which it was intended to be heard, how the
musicians viewed those environments, what their priorities were, and so forth.
One of the most profound experiences I’ve had as an educator was when stu-
dents in my spring 2007 Hip-Hop and American Culture class at Tufts University
insisted on ending the semester by dancing together. I plugged in my iPod and
dropped the sureshot “Scenario” by A Tribe Called Quest, as the entire class
spontaneously formed a circle and students took turns in the middle showing off
their best moves. The fact that, to this day, I am unable to articulate the power of
that moment in words only proves my point.

Another area of hip-hop into which b-boying can provide deep insight is the
role of competition and the specifi c ways it can affect one’s outlook toward cul-
tural production. This is an important factor in any discussion of hip-hop culture
and one for which b-boys and b-girls have developed a highly sophisticated
analysis. Battling is foundational to all forms of hip-hop, and the articulation
of strategy—“battle tactics”—is the backbone of its philosophy of aesthetics.
And, again, since these tactics are part of the process, and thus largely invisible
in the fi nal product, they are frequently overlooked. This is particularly the case
as many battle tactics address the things one shouldn’t do, strategies that leave
one open to attack. But of course the casual observer can’t see the things that an
artist doesn’t do, so those things—crucial as they may be—often go unnoticed.
When Eminem fi rst came to prominence, for example, several emcees told me
that the most surprising thing about him was that he insulted his own mother, a

11Introduction

move that was not only morally suspect but also the battle equivalent of forfeit-
ing. The strategic avoidance of this subject on the part of other emcees, to my
knowledge, had never been noted by any writers. B-boying, since its primary
expressive environment is the battle, is more explicit than most other elements
in articulating its battle strategy, at least if one is inclined to ask. Like its articu-
lation of physicality, b-boying’s articulation of competition can also provide a
valuable perspective for other elements of hip-hop.

B-boying also illuminates another of hip-hop culture’s most distinctive fea-
tures: it was designed not only for teenagers, but by teenagers. The original
hip-hop culture, taken as a whole, includes almost everything an adolescent
could be interested in: music, dancing, sports, vandalism, fashion, various
games and pastimes, art, sexuality, the defi nition of individual and collective
identities, and numerous other activities. But what’s even more striking is
that, rather than leave these pursuits behind as they entered adulthood, many
of these teens simply made them more elaborate and sophisticated as their
mentality matured. The result is that the pioneers of this art form have been
refi ning their aesthetic for upward of three decades, are still a vital part of
the community, and are barely even in their 40s. During the course of my
research in New York City, I regularly saw DJ Kool Herc at hip-hop events
and enjoyed pointing him out to friends: “See that guy sitting on the picnic
table over there? He invented hip-hop. No, seriously.” The result is that young
adherents who live in New York cannot help but have a deep sense of history,
even if they don’t consciously realize it. The vast majority of serious b-boys
and b-girls in New York have studied directly with the elders of the art form,
and even those who haven’t are still affected by the presence of these individu-
als in their environment.

Waaak, a b-boy and graffi ti writer in his mid-20s, for example, notes that one
of his infl uences in rocking—a hip-hop dance form closely related to b-boy-
ing—was a mysterious, possibly homeless, man that he met one night while
writing graffi ti in Bushwick, Brooklyn:

So we’re walking with the guy. We’re drinking 40s.2 . . . And we’re talking.
And we’re walking down Knickerbocker Avenue, and he’s like a old Spanish
guy. . . . And he’s just blessing me with history on Bushwick, you know? He’s
blessing me with some stuff I didn’t know.

And . . . he said something about dancing and we made some comment about
rocking. . . . So the guy hands my boy the 40, and he starts [dancing]. Next thing
you know . . . the sun is coming up. We stop painting. And I stood on the corner
with this guy, rocking with him for like a hour. You know what I’m saying? Like,
some random drunk dude . . . I’ve never seen him in my life! But he was, like, doing
some shit I’d never seen. . . . I was seeing shit from this guy that was: “Oooooh,
shit!” Like, “What?”

Foundation1

2

And the guy was being a little vague, and he wasn’t giving too much
[information]. . . . He really didn’t understand why or how important it was to me.
But . . . [just] seeing him getting down. And seeing such a different rocking style
from what I had been knowing the last three or four years, was incredible.

So, yo: New York. I’m fortunate enough to be in the right places and in the right
time, and just, like, take these opportunities to build with these dudes. So I always
tell the young kids nowadays, “Yo, talk to those elders. One day they’re not gonna
be there.” Get that information. Get those jewels. You know what I’m saying?
That’s why they’re there. (Waaak One, interview)

These kinds of experiences have, in turn, deeply affected the stylistic con-
cerns of the New York b-boy community. The self-policing inherent in having
the elders present has led to New York b-boying taking on a noticeably tradition-
alist approach, as compared to other b-boying communities around the world.
Since the ’90s, in fact, there has been an ideological split in the b-boy world
between those who favor more acrobatic “power moves” and “air moves” and
those who favor the more traditional, intricate, and rhythmic style. As a com-
munity, New York comes down fi rmly on the fi nesse side of the debate.

Of course, to even have such a debate in the fi rst place, both sides must be
in conversation with each other. In reality, New York is only one node of a
community that is truly international. Dancers from around the world visit New
York regularly, while b-boys and b-girls from New York routinely travel to other
states and countries to compete, teach workshops, and judge competitions. Yet
there remains a unique sense of history in the New York b-boy scene—a mixture
of the past with the present—that does not exist in other places. For better or
worse, this book is deeply informed by that perspective, starting with its title.

Foundation is a term used by b-boys and b-girls to refer to an almost mystical
set of notions about b-boying that is passed from teacher to student. In addition
to the actual physical movements, it includes the history of the movements and
the form in general, strategies for how to improvise, philosophy about dance
in general, musical associations, and a variety of other subjects. The idea that
a core b-boy philosophy should be so important that it requires a special term
says a great deal about the dance and why it is so signifi cant in the lives of its
practitioners.

In “ ‘The Original Essence of the Dance’: History, Community, and Classic
B-Boy Records,” I look at the role of music in preserving the dance’s cultural
traditions. Specifi cally, the chapter addresses what I have termed the “b-boy
canon,” a recognized repertoire of songs that b-boys and b-girls are expected
to be able to dance to. I look at the many ways that the negotiation of such a
canon—which songs are included and why, how specifi c musical fi gures encour-
age certain kinds of movement and discourage others, etc.—can create and
defi ne a community.

13Introduction

In the following chapter, “ ‘Getting Your Foundation’: Pedagogy,” I address
the relationship between the teaching philosophy expressed by b-boys and
b-girls and the content that they transmit. Again, “foundation,” a concept that
combines the physical knowledge of specifi c movements with a profound his-
torical and philosophical context in which to place those moves, is essential to
the process. This chapter also explores the ways that gender is implicated in the
teaching process and thus in dancers’ identities. Finally, I briefl y discuss the
term b-boying itself along with some of the discourse in the community regard-
ing the use of that term.

In the next chapter, “ ‘We Have to Be Exaggerated’: Aesthetics,” I discuss the
artistic principles of b-boying. Specifi cally, I look into the many ways in which
the dance provides an opportunity to engage with social issues on a more abstract
level than might otherwise be available. These include such areas as the choice
of a b-boy or b-girl name, the way individual and group identities are expressed
through clothing choices, and the aesthetic values and formal structures of the
dance itself. The form of b-boying, in particular, provides a narrative structure
that gives meaning to the specifi c moves. Each performer begins with toprock
(rhythmic upright dancing that introduces a dancer’s style and character) before
dropping to the ground and engaging in footwork (disciplined, fl owing moves
that display rhythm, fi nesse, and creativity), power moves (displaying strength),
and air moves (acrobatics). Each dancer’s turn ends with a freeze, a concluding
pose that summarizes his or her statement. Every time b-boys or b-girls return
to their feet, they have made an assertion about who they are, and the group has
accepted or rejected that assertion.

In the fi fth chapter, “ ‘In the Cypher’: B-Boy Spaces,” I address these issues
with specifi c regard to the spaces in which b-boying has developed and takes
place. This discussion includes exploration of the physical surfaces on which
the dance has developed, the musical and spiritual environment in which it is
performed, and the socially constructed dance space known as the “cypher.”
This term, drawn from the lexicon of the Nation of Gods and Earths (also known
as the Five Percenters, an African American spiritual movement that developed
in Harlem in the 1960s), refers to the circle of onlookers in which the dance is
performed. While the concept of a circular, more or less participatory audience
is found in many traditions of the African diaspora (and elsewhere), it has devel-
oped a unique character and set of associations in the context of b-boying.

The sixth chapter, “ ‘I Hate B-Boys—That’s Why I Break’: Battling,” concerns
the most fundamental context for the dance. In looking at the ways that both the idea
and reality of competition affects the lives of b-boys and b-girls, we can see the way
that b-boying teaches specifi c skills for dealing with confl ict in other contexts. In
this chapter, I also take some preliminary steps toward looking at b-boying through
the lens of recent work on the martial arts traditions of the African diaspora.

Foundation14

“From Rocking to B-Boying: History and Mystery” attempts to forge a criti-
cal engagement with b-boy epistemology by exploring the ways that b-boys and
b-girls think about the history of their dance. In this chapter, I suggest that the
b-boy community’s model of historical inquiry is itself a kind of battle, based
on the same principles as the actual dance battle: respect, personal honor, and
giving credit where credit is due (as opposed to the kind of broad social analysis
that one might fi nd in an academic study). In order to explore this issue, the
chapter focuses on a specifi c debate within the hip-hop community: the his-
torical relationship between “rocking,” a battle dance associated with Latinos in
Brooklyn, and b-boying, whose origins are associated with African Americans in
the Bronx. In so doing, I attempt to fi nd ways to reconcile an academic approach
with that of the community, as opposed to simply replacing one with the other.

Such reconciliations have implications for the study of hip-hop that go far
beyond b-boying. Frankly, it is rare to see academic scholarship that takes
hip-hop’s own intellectual principles seriously (as opposed to taking hip-hop
seriously as an object of intellectual inquiry). As I suggested earlier, this is pri-
marily due to the fact that the vast majority of academic hip-hop scholarship has
focused on commercial recordings of hip-hop music, a subject which does not
necessarily require a substantial engagement with the intellectual principles of
its creation. But for aspects of hip-hop culture where appreciation is bound up
in face-to-face relationships, it is far more likely that the conceptual principles
of the art will be articulated at some point. That has certainly been the case with
my research.

Ethnography—participant observation—is the foundation of this study, and it
has deeply affected the nature of my approach. I attended virtually every major
b-boy event in New York City between 2003 and 2008, studying the dance both
formally and informally. As in any fi eldwork situation, the personal nature of
my relationship to this community means that my quest for knowledge about
its ways has also been very personal.3 In other words, in addition to the gen-
eral commitment to objective inquiry and self-criticism that should be part of
any ethnographer’s approach, I am particularly devoted to accuracy because the
information is also important to me for its own sake. B-boying (to the limited
extent that it can be practiced by a relatively sedentary, 40-year-old college pro-
fessor) is a part of my life.

This book is based primarily on my experiences in a specifi c time and place,
New York City in the early and mid-2000s. The people who are quoted here
represent neither a statistical cross-section of dancers, nor a list of the most
signifi cant b-boys and b-girls. They are the people I have met as part of my
experience. The nature of the way they are quoted, I hope, refl ects this. Some
are elders and teachers, some are contemporaries, some are friends. My personal
relationship to the New York b-boy scene is also manifested in choices I’ve

15Introduction

made about how to write about what I’ve learned. I have dealt elsewhere with
many of the issues involved in writing about hip-hop, particularly the poten-
tially jarring juxtaposition between my academic writing style and the transcrip-
tions of my consultants’ comments, which were delivered improvisationally and
without preparation (Schloss 2004:11–12). I feel that the best way to address this
issue is simply to point it out and to ask the reader to keep in mind that the differ-
ences that appear are primarily differences of style and expressive context. One
thing that I especially love about b-boy discourse is the way it uses aggressive,
raw, and often profane language to talk about the most abstract issues of aes-
thetic philosophy. This juxtaposition, as exemplifi ed by Ken Swift in particular,
is itself an important part of the b-boy aesthetic.

Perhaps the most daunting obstacles I’ve encountered in terms of writing are
also the simplest: the terms b-boy and b-boying. As I discuss more extensively
in the third chapter, the term is clearly gendered, which leaves a writer who
wishes to refer to dancers of both genders with a substantial stylistic challenge.
One option is to refer to “b-boys and b-girls” in each case, which can become
unwieldy. Although I actually prefer this option and have tried to use it as much
as possible, there is a point at which its repetition begins to overwhelm the other
aspects of any given sentence. Another option is to use the non-gender- specifi c
terms dancer and breaker, which I have also done, mainly in cases where I can
no longer stand to repeat the phrase “b-boys and b-girls.” The negative aspect of
this choice is that these terms, while used in the community, are not the norm,
and their overuse—to me at least—starts to read as ostentatiously gender- neutral,
to the point of being judgmental. Also, of course, the term dancer doesn’t refer
specifi cally to dancers in this style, so its use here is imprecise. The fi nal option
is to simply use the term b-boy, with the explanation that this is widely viewed
in the community as a generic term that includes women. While this may appear
to be begging the question, I would argue that the ambiguity of the term refl ects
an actual social ambiguity: to what degree, and in what senses, is a b-girl a kind
of b-boy?

Another signifi cant issue has been the relationship between b-boy culture and
ethnicity. Clearly, ethnicity and its expression through culture are major themes
of most scholarly writing about hip-hop. But b-boying presents some complex
challenges in that area, for several reasons. First, a central theme of b-boy ideol-
ogy is that the culture is a meritocracy. The assumption of unbiased competition
is the basis of almost all b-boy philosophy; the idea that such a competitive
practice should favor individuals of one ethnicity over another runs directly
counter to the ideals of the dance. Of course, this is not absolute: aesthetic ide-
als such as “fl avor” and “soul” implicitly have a cultural element to them. As I
will discuss, the expectations of b-boying clearly derive from an Afro-diasporic
world view, but one need not be of African descent to understand or follow

Foundation16

them. Moreover, even if that issue is put aside for the moment, the relationship
between the African diaspora as a general concept and the infl uence of specifi c
ethnicities is far from clear.

The conventional narrative among dancers is that b-boying was invented by
African Americans, but was only popular in that community for a few years. By
the late ’70s, it had been adopted by Latinos, who became its primary practitio-
ners. And, while the ’90s saw an infl ux of dancers from a variety of ethnicities,
Latinos remain by far the most dominant ethnicity in b-boying to the present day
(at least in New York City). If, just for the sake of argument, we say that b-boy-
ing was invented and performed primarily by African Americans for 5 years,
then developed and maintained primarily by Latinos for 30 years, which group
does the dance really “belong” to? This question is signifi cant not so much for its
answer (I have no idea), but for the issues it raises: what does it mean for a dance
to belong to an ethnic group? Why is it important that b-boying should be cred-
ited to one and only one ethnic group? If Puerto Ricans and African Americans
are both peoples of African descent living in the same neighborhoods and par-
ticipating in the same culture of hip-hop, in exactly what sense do they constitute
different ethnic groups?

Part of the power of b-boying is that it complicates these questions; it has
drawn its foundational movements and concepts from African American cul-
ture, the cultures of the English and Spanish Caribbean, and Africa itself.
B-boying is truly and deeply a dance of the African diaspora. Even the music
that gave birth to the dance is notable for its fusion of cultural elements drawn
from both African American and Latino musical traditions, including Latin
percussion and song structure, African American melodic and vocal techniques,
and an overall aesthetic that speaks to the struggles and aspirations of urban
youth of the early 1970s. And the fact that the musical soundtrack to b-boying is
still primarily drawn from recordings produced between 1969 and 1974 suggests
that this fusion—and the tradition it gave birth to—is still highly valued almost
four decades later.

17

I was introduced, basically, to James Brown, Jimmy
Castor Bunch, and the rest of my life listened to that
music and enjoyed that music and did the dance that
went along with it. . . . I believe it’s important to learn
to that, to break to that, because that’s the original
essence of the dance. It was inspired by that music. So,
I think, in order to have the original style, you would
have to be able to rock to that. And make it look good.
All the intricacies of the horns and the snares and
the toms and all that. If you can’t fi nesse those basic
sounds, then . . . you’re not really b-boying. You need to
be able to do it. It’s important to do it. It’s keeping the
culture alive by doing it. You gotta keep doing it. . . .

We were passed down those records, and now it’s
our time to pass those records down.
—Phantom (Ready to Rock, Mighty Zulu Kings), a
b-boy in his mid-20s

Every hip-hop deejay knows the cuts that b-boys favor: a few energetic, bongo-
laden tracks from the early ’70s: “Apache” (1973), “Give It Up or Turnit a
Loose” by James Brown (1969), “T Plays It Cool” by Marvin Gaye (1972), “It’s
Just Begun” by the Jimmy Castor Bunch (1972), “The Mexican” by Babe Ruth
(1972), and a handful of others. These songs can be heard at any b-boy event, on
the soundtrack to virtually any video that shows b-boying, and on a variety of
b-boy-oriented mix tapes and compact discs.

They are not hip-hop songs. They are the rock and funk songs that b-boying’s
originators danced to in the half-decade between hip-hop’s emergence as a
sociocultural movement around 1974 and the development of an associated
musical genre in 1979. For those who see hip-hop as a wild, anarchic expression

2

“The Original Essence of the Dance”
History, Community, and
Classic B-Boy Records

Foundation18

of youthful abandon, brutal materialism, criminality, or even political change,
this may seem odd. Could today’s rebellious b-boys really be so mindful of
history—so culturally conservative—that they insist on dancing to the exact
records that brought the form to life 35 years ago, long before most of them
were even born?

In both scholarly writing and the popular press, hip-hop culture is often pre-
sented as a response to the disruption of a tradition, a kind of cultural scab that
formed over the wounds of African American and Latino youth in New York. An
implicit corollary of this premise is that any social or cultural coherence that can be
found in hip-hop is primarily a result of a common opposition among practitioners
to some outside force. Whether these strange bedfellows are using their shared
aesthetic of disjuncture to address concerns in the social (Erskine 2003; Rose
1994), musical (Krims 2000; Lipsitz 1994; Walser 1995), or ideological (Perry
2004; Potter 1995) spheres, the essential mechanism remains reactionary. In cases
where active cultural continuity is emphasized, it is to be found in hip-hop’s rela-
tionship to broader cultural patterns, such as gender (Gaunt 2006), Afro-diasporic
identity (Keyes 1996, 2004), and Latinidad (Rivera 2003). But hip-hop culture is
now over three decades old: does it not have its own internal continuities?

If it does not, then hip-hop constitutes not only a new musical genre, but truly
a new kind of cultural practice. But if it does—and it does—we should not shy
away from applying conventional methodologies and theoretical models to its
study. Nor should we retreat from the commonalities that such methodologies
may reveal between hip-hop and other expressive practices around the world.
In other words, the question is not so much whether hip-hop has developed its
own conventions, stylistic norms, and historical self-consciousness, but how it
has done so. In this chapter, I will argue that the establishment of an honored
repertoire of records that b-boys prefer to dance to—in effect, a canon—is one
way in which hip-hop has developed its own set of cultural traditions.

B-boy songs hold several elements in common: they tend to date to the early
’70s, feature Latin percussion (especially bongos), have relatively fast tempos
(110 to 120 beats per minute), use horns and guitars in a percussive way, use
stop-time at various points in the song, and feature a formal structure that builds
to decisive musical peaks. But, most important, they have breaks.

B-boying began with the break, the part of a song where all instruments
except the rhythm section fall silent and the groove is distilled to its most fun-
damental elements. In the 1970s, when kids began throwing rebel street parties
in the Bronx, people from different neighborhoods came together for the fi rst
time since the gangs had taken over, and there was one thing they all agreed on:
the break was an opportunity. It was a moment on a record that was so power-
ful that it could actually overpower day-to-day reality and become an environ-
ment unto itself. The power of the break was so evident that DJ Kool Herc even

19History, Community, and Classic B-Boy Records

began to play two copies of the same record on separate turntables, repeating the
break over and over again, giving the dancers more time to showcase their most
devastating moves. Before long, Herc and other pioneering deejays like Afrika
Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash were playing nothing but breaks. And the
dancers responded by creating a new dance form that was nothing but devastat-
ing moves: b-boying. Some even began dropping to the ground and spinning
around. Hip-hop music and b-boying were born as twins, and their mother was
the break.

By the mid-’70s, the musical break in the song had taken on a new life as a
historical break between the end of soul culture and the beginning of hip-hop
culture. It became a psychological break between the b-boy’s pre- and postdance
identities. And it became a break from everyday life, allowing the dancer to enter
a heightened world where ideas about time and space and spirituality and style
could be addressed through raw physicality. The break is the original essence of
the dance and the seed of its tradition (it is also where the much-disputed term
breakdancing comes from).

In discussing a somewhat different phenomenon, the syncopation of samba
rhythms, Barbara Browning has articulated a fundamental aspect of the rela-
tionship between movement and “suppressed” elements of a composition. “This
suspension leaves the body with a hunger that can only be satisfi ed by fi lling the
silence with motion,” she writes:

Samba, the dance, cannot exist without the suppression of a strong beat. . . . In fact,
the breaks in rhythmic structure, the ruptures in the pattern are the points at which
the full complexity of the original pattern becomes evident. But the break pre-
cisely points out all that was inherent or potential in the texture before the tear.
(Browning 1995:9–10; emphasis added)

Browning is addressing a rupture in rhythm created by suppressing particular
beats, while the break is a rupture in form created by suppressing particular instru-
ments (and, by extension, their melodic and rhythmic contributions to the groove).
In both cases, the suppression serves to accentuate musical absences, creating a
sense that a contribution is required from listeners to restore the music to its proper
state. In both cases, that contribution takes the form of dance. B-boy records are
songs that have breaks which—in a visceral way—impel b-boys to dance.

A version of this process that is closely related to hip-hop occurs in many
musics of the African diaspora, especially mambo and salsa music. In his autobi-
ography, for example, legendary rock promoter Bill Graham refl ects on his experi-
ence dancing to Machito, Tito Puente, and Tito Rodriguez during their legendary
tenure at New York’s Palladium in the late 1950s: “In the middle of a song, the
orchestra would suddenly stop playing except for the bass line,” he remembers.
“But nobody would stop dancing. We’d all clap our hands and keep the clave beat
and everybody simply surrendered to the passion of the music—thousands of us.

Foundation20

We’d keep perfect time till the solo was over and the entire band would come back
in and take it on home. Thousands of us. And everybody felt good. Everybody felt
so good” (Graham 49).1 The fact that Graham, who was not Latino, would single
out this element of the performance for special mention suggests that the break,
whether called by that name or not, was appreciated by New York dancers for at
least several decades before hip-hop emerged.

Latin music was also infl uential on a more immediate level. In the ’60s and
’70s, notes pioneering Bronx b-boy Trac 2, “There was no ‘dusk to dawn,’ when
the parks were closed. You would hear that conga—boom boom boom, boom
ba-boom—and the people jamming. ’Cause that’s what was called a ‘jam’ back
then. It was an outdoor music session” (Trac 2, interview).

As Raquel Rivera explains, “The long-standing tradition of street drumming
among New York Puerto Ricans and Cubans—in which African Americans also
have participated—strongly infl uenced the music that was recorded as soul and
funk, which was later played as break-beats at hip-hop jams” (Rivera 2003:35;
emphasis in original). If one views this infl uence from the dancers’ point of
view, Rivera may even be understating the case. Since early hip-hop jams took
place in the same spaces as street drumming—sidewalks, parks, public beaches,
and schoolyards—the experience of dancing to an extended, Latin-style per-
cussion break played by a deejay in a park would have been extremely simi-
lar to the experience of dancing to live drummers in that same park. It would
have been surprising if youths who suddenly found themselves dancing to an
extended recording of congas and bongos extracted from the center of a James
Brown song didn’t turn to the Latin drumming experience for guidance. Such
moments—combining the street drumming environment with funk records—
represented a cultural activity that fi t equally well into both Latino and African
American traditions.

Ned Sublette sees the increased prevalence of conga drums in the African
American music of this era—one of the foundations of the break, and thus of
hip-hop itself—as itself refl ecting such a fusion sensibility:

[In the 1970s], conga drums had become one of the signature sounds of African
American musical nationalism, ultimately even acquiring a faux-African pronun-
ciation unknown in Cuba: kungaz. Along with the one-chord groove tune that the
conga helped defi ne, the instrument was an important part of the sound of another
of America’s great cultural achievements: funk.

When I asked Bobby Byrd (James Brown’s music director in the glory days)
about funk, I had expected that, being a pianist, he might say something about the
harmony—the insistent use of sevenths, or something like that. Instead, he told
me: “It was the syncopation of the instruments—everybody playing a different
part. Okay now we winded up with a seven piece band, but everybody had a dif-
ferent part to play. That’s where the funk part of it became. Everybody playing a
different part and it’s all fi tting together like a glove.”

21History, Community, and Classic B-Boy Records

That’s exactly what Latin bands did, and exactly what American bands up
until that time did not do. Funk polyrhythmicized the R&B combo the way the
mambo had earlier polyrhythmicized the jazz band. But then, Bobby Byrd and
James Brown, like Chuck [Berry] and Bo [Diddley], like Elvis [Presley], came
of age in the mambo era. The example of Cuban music was everywhere in those
days. (Sublette 2007:91)

The break, then, is an interruption of an integrated groove. In a very real
sense, by inviting the dancers to “fi ll the silence with motion,” the break is reach-
ing out to the listener. And by interacting with the dancers in this way, the break
provides a way for recorded music to serve many of the same functions as live
music. There is a general sense among b-boys that, despite being prerecorded, a
good b-boy song can be animated by the way its rhythms interact with dancers,
to the point where it almost does become a live performance.

Pioneering hip-hop promoter Michael Holman describes James Brown’s
b-boy classic “Give It Up or Turnit a Loose”—one of the songs Bobby Byrd
was referring to in the above quote—as if it is intentionally helping dancers
every time it’s played. “ ‘Give It Up or Turnit a Loose’ is designed to let
you ride on it,” he points out. “To let you dance. It’s like it cuts your work
in half, you know? It’s like a galloping anthem. I like to associate it to [the]
William Tell Overture because they’re both anthem-like. And they’re just,
like, this galloping, charging, martial music, in a way” (Michael Holman,
interview).

Holman’s use of the word martial is no accident: part of a b-boy record’s
job is to make dancers want to go to war. The tempo, intensity, and aggressive
feel of these songs elicit battling rather than socializing. As Alien Ness, a b-boy
in his early 40s who is president of the Mighty Zulu Kings (the b-boy divi-
sion of hip-hop’s oldest and most respected cultural organization, the Universal
Zulu Nation), states fl atly, “I can’t break to happy songs. My stuff has to be all
down. . . . That’s what I like. I like down. I like ‘car chase’ music, you know
what I mean?” “Now one of my favorite songs in the whole wide world is [the
Jackson Sisters’] ‘I Believe in Miracles,’ ” he continues:

I will dance to that song all night. Let the deejay play it all night, I will dance
to it all night. Will you see me breaking to it? Hell no. Why? . . . It’s happy.
That’s how I feel when I hear that song. I feel happy. I feel good. I don’t feel
like breakin’. . . . That’s not something I’m trying to rip somebody’s head off in a
cypher2 on. (Alien Ness, interview)

One song that does feature the qualities Ness seeks is 1972’s “It’s Just Begun,”
by the Jimmy Castor Bunch. “ ‘Just Begun’ is the epitome,” he stresses:

“Just Begun” personifi es the b-boy mentality. From the opening words to the fi nal
words: “Watch me now / Feel the groove / Into something / Gonna make you
move.” That’s gangsta. That’s exactly how you feel when you breakin’. I don’t

Foundation22

care what song you’re breakin’ to. But when you’re breaking, subconsciously
you’re singing “Just Begun” in your head. Subconsciously, you understand what
I’m saying. ’Cause it’s the b-boy mentality. (Alien Ness, interview)

Alien Ness. Photo © Martha Cooper.

23History, Community, and Classic B-Boy Records

Jorge “Fabel” Pabon, a popper, locker, and uprocker in his early 40s who is
vice president of the best-known b-boy organization, the Rock Steady Crew,
emphasizes the sheer intensity of the song’s musical setting, “ ‘Just Begun’
sounds like a bat outta hell! It’s like a car chase, you know? Like a crazy car
chase! . . . So imagine trying to dance to that intensity!” (Fabel, interview).

Eddie Luna, a Queens-based b-boy in his early 40s, agrees that these
songs are distinguished by the emotions they spark in b-boys. He says that
the songs are so powerful that they can make b-boys dance when they don’t
even want to:

That is the adrenaline. If you know b-boying, that’s like anthems, you know?
This is where you stand up. This is where you gotta do what you gotta do. I
mean, when I hear—to this day—the beginning of “Just Begun,” “Apache,” “The
Mexican” during its breaks . . . and “Drummer’s Beat,” when it starts, when you
hear those bongos going, it’s just—oh, man! It’s war time. It is. It’s just this
rush. . . . Like, you don’t care no more, you just go ahead and do it. Doesn’t matter
what it costs! You didn’t even practice this move! You’re at the point, I mean,
whatever comes out is gonna come out, you know what I mean? You have a black
eye or a scratched arm or whatever. Because the adrenaline rush that you get
from the music. . . . “Apache”? Forget it! I can’t listen to “Apache.” I just—I start
sweating, you know! And I get angry! And it’s like, I wanna hit the fl oor! (Eddie
Luna, interview)

The vibrant relationship that b-boys and b-girls maintain with these songs
belies easy stereotypes about the relative value of live versus recorded music.
In fact, the “recordedness” of these songs—the way they seem to capture
the time and place in which they were made—is an important part of their
appeal. This sensibility is similar to that of hip-hop deejays and producers who
value the sound of recordings over that of live instrumentation (see Schloss
2004:63–78).

Many b-boys feel that these emotions—and the environment that produced
them—were literally encoded into the songs by the original social context in which
they were recorded. As Richard “Breakeasy” Santiago, a Brooklyn-based b-boy in
his early 40s who serves as a mentor to many younger dancers, explains:

If you were to go back in time and . . . listen to that record being played while the
conditions and the environment are around at that moment in time, you [would]
understand why is it that we move[d] the way we did. A lot of people, when they
just hear the music, they don’t understand that that music is played by a group
of people that were somehow affected by their environment to express that train
of thought. The words, if there’s words. In the rhythms and beats, because the
energy of that music can be hardcore, like just letting it all go out, or it can be a
guitar just wailing and stuff, just to self-express and experiment or go into a zone.
There’s so many different things involved in just that piece of music. . . . if you

Foundation24

understand that, you’re gonna ride that drummer going crazy ’cause he wants to
vent it out. Then you’re gonna move your feet to that rhythm. (Richard Santiago,
interview)

When the song is blasted through huge speakers—and properly danced to—
that time and place are virtually reconstituted. The songs paint a three-dimen-
sional picture of an environment that b-boys can then enter through the dance.
By engaging with the music, the dancer can experience the emotions of the
original musicians—and the original b-boys.

“When I really like a song—especially all these ill breaks, the classic breaks
from back in the days—I feel like the artist put their heart and soul into it to
deliver me that ill fuckin’ song,” agrees Waaak:

That ill, classic, timeless . . . piece of music. So when I go out there to dance to it, I
gotta do it justice. So every time I go out and I dance to these songs that I like, I put
emotion to it. Because, to me, I gotta match that level of that song. . . . I mean, when
you’re hearing a ill piece of music, a masterpiece of music, and you’re watching
somebody dance that song correctly? It’s what b-boying is. It’s pure. It’s beautiful.
And I don’t throw that word around like that, but that’s what it is. (Waaak One,
interview)

“I think that music is there just to remind people,” says Ru, a Brooklyn-based
b-boy in his 20s:

That’s just basically what that music is there for. It’s just a picture book, you
know, . . . to remind them of that world, but to have it in a way where they would
feel it. You know what I’m saying: instead of actually seeing it on a picture. ’Cause
[if] you see it in a picture, you’re like, “Wow, man, that was back in the days,”
but you can’t feel why . . . they were like that. Why they were dancing. What made
them tick. . . . Music’s mad powerful. It is. (Ru, interview)

“It’s not like a secret,” says Tiny Love, a Brooklyn-based popper, uprocker,
and b-boy in his 20s:

But nobody talks about it. It’s the real deal: basically, these songs have a message.
The ’70s songs, they talk about something that would change the world. . . . Those
are classics and those beats have life. You see, we play the same music on and on
and we don’t get bored of it. That means that, basically, it’s not going to our minds;
it goes to our soul, you know? It’s gonna keep on moving, you know? We’re
always gonna listen to that. Those beats have life. (Tiny Love, interview)

And yet there were other songs recorded in the early ’70s that had similar
qualities, but which are not considered b-boy cuts (the song “A La Escuela”
[1974] by Malo is a prime example—it even has a break). This is apparently
a result of a series of lost decisions that were made by hip-hop practitioners at
that time. In other words, we may not understand or remember why one song
was included and another was not, but it’s too late to go back and change it

25History, Community, and Classic B-Boy Records

now. The fact that these choices are still adhered to more than 30 years later
suggests a deep respect for the community that made those decisions, as well
as the tradition that has preserved them over the ensuing decades. That, too,
is encoded into the sound of the songs. As Philip Bohlman points out with
regard to the European art music tradition, the reason that one would single
out songs in the fi rst place is precisely to defi ne a vision of the past that has
utility in the present. “Perceptible in a work of music,” he writes, “should be
some model of the past, expressed as formal similarity, aesthetic context, or
mythological purity,” all of which obtain in the case of b-boy songs (Bohlman
1992:204).

As Fabel refl ects, b-boys do view the use of these particular songs as a cultural
tradition, an outlook that he explicitly ties to that of a broader Afro-Caribbean
world view:

For the younger people, I think those who have had the privilege to watch older
people get down to it, that’s a defi nite inspiration. The minute you see it, you’re
gonna say, “wow, that makes sense.” Just like when you see someone doing real
dope mamboing to mambo music, or a salsa dancer who’s right on. You know . . . it’s
the native music of the dance . . . the old-timers do it and still love it and keep it
alive, because, honestly, I think that it’s part of the ritual.

[Like] when certain drummers drum the same patterns, whether it’s guaguancó
or whatever: for Afro-Caribbean communities and people who sort of keep folk-
loric culture alive, there’s no questioning about, “Hey, are we gonna break the
pattern?” Maybe they’ll build on top of the foundation, but the main base of it all
is still the same. . . .

So I think the young people do it because they see the value in its tradition.
(Fabel, interview)

The Dynamic Rockers’ KaoticBlaze, a New York b-girl in her 20s who has
appeared as a kind of coach on the b-girl episode of MTV’s Made, confi rms
this interpretation. “It’s important, in the aspect that it does have history behind
it. And to think that you’re getting down to the same beats that the pioneers of
the dance got down to before. Like the killa beats from back in the day . . . it’s
important to remember not to forget songs like that. It’s history” (KaoticBlaze,
interview).

B-Girl Emiko, a Philadelphia-based dancer in her 20s, expresses a similar
outlook, despite (or possibly because of) the fact that she was not born when the
songs were recorded and was raised in Japan, half a world away:

That gives me the . . . hypeness. Especially . . . “Just Begun.” It’s just one of the
songs. Being the b-girl or b-boy, no matter where you’re from, once you listen to
the song, you just get crazy! I don’t know the reason why. I didn’t live in the time
when the music came, but I just feel it—feel that energy of the music. Just say
“Aah!” Just start battle rock[ing] to each other. (B-Girl Emiko, interview)

Foundation26

DJ E-Rok also emphasizes the idea of tradition, comparing b-boy songs to
folk songs:

Joe Schloss (author/interviewer): There’s probably a lot of tunes that you could
b-boy to, but there’s like fi ve songs that people always play, you know what I
mean? Why do you think that is?

E-Rok: You’re talking about, like, “Apache”? “It’s Just Begun”? I think those
are just handed down from generation to generation. Say, like, if you’re a kid
who’s b-boying, you’re looking up to the older generation, who you’re getting
your learning from. And you’re watching how they dance. But then you’re also
listening to the type of music they’re playing. You become accustomed to danc-
ing to that particular song. So it’s almost like old folk songs handed down
from generation to generation. (DJ E-Rok, interview)

Rock Steady Crew DJ DV-One suggests a more abstract idea of “energy,”
which seems to confl ate rhythm and social history into single concept. “I’m sure
there’s [other] upbeat songs that you can dance to or that you can break to, but it
just doesn’t feel the same,” he notes:

If you’re on the inside—like, if you’re a hip-hop head—even a 15-year-old could
feel the energy in “The Mexican” or in “Apache.” You know, you can feel that. I’m
sure you can fi nd some, like, house record or even some R&B record . . . that has
the same tempo or the same speed. It’s just not the same as b-boying to the original
joints. (DJ DV-One, interview)

Note that DV-One specifi es that the listener must be “on the inside” to feel the
“energy” of the b-boy songs. In other words, their value, while powerful, is not
inherent; one must have some preexisting knowledge to be able to appreciate it.
And part of what one is appreciating lies in the play between the practical value
of the song as it’s being danced to right now and the historical value it carries
as a hip-hop classic.

Again, it seems to me that a productive way to address this interplay is by
viewing these songs collectively as a canon. As Edgar and Sedgwick observe,
the term has several distinct connotations:

Typically, the term is used to encompass what are generally recognised as the
most important works in a particular artistic tradition (most usually of literature or
music). It is derived from its original use, dating from the fourth century, to refer
to the authoritative and defi nitive books of the Christian Bible. Defenders of the
notion of a canon would argue from the position that there are universal aesthetic
values (albeit that these values may unfold over time, with the development of the
tradition). Individual works are therefore included in the canon on the grounds that
they best express these universal values. The canonical works are therefore the fi n-
est expression of a particular language, and may indeed be taken as the expression
of a culture’s or a nation’s identity. (Edgar and Sedgwick 1999:51–52)

27History, Community, and Classic B-Boy Records

There are a number of reasons that b-boy songs could be viewed as a canon.
First, the group is a collection of specifi c songs, as opposed to a generic profi le
or type of song that is good to b-boy to. Second, the songs are described via a
discourse of quality; they are presented as being “the fi nest expression” of the
b-boy song genre. Third, the fact that b-boys would want to specify the fi nest
expression of the genre in the fi rst place requires agreement about both the val-
ues of the community and, more fundamentally, the actual existence of a com-
munity of b-boys. Fourth, the status of the songs is axiomatic. That is, elements
of the canon cannot be questioned, because the criteria for what makes a good
b-boy song are derived from these examples in the fi rst place.

If we view these records as being analogous to “texts,” Robert Alter’s com-
ments on the biblical canon are useful:

A canon is above all a transhistorical textual community. Knowledge of the
received texts and recourse to them constitute the community, but the texts do not
have a single, authoritative meaning, however much the established spokesmen for
the canon at any given moment may claim that is the case. After all, even within
the community of traditional believers, the biblical canon has been imagined to
endorse as a matter of divine revelation rationalism, mysticism, nationalism, uni-
versalism, asceticism, sensualism, determinism, free will, and a good deal else.
(Alter 2000:5)

What gives these interpretations both their power and their audience is their
derivation from the canonical texts in the fi rst place. In other words, it is the
canon itself that allows such a diversity of opinion to assemble itself under the
single phrase “the community of traditional believers.”

Literary theorists in particular have made valuable analyses of the ways in
which canons—particularly the Western literary canon—refl ect the social and
ideological relationships between art and community (see Guillory 1993). In
the case of the b-boy canon, negotiations are mainly embodied in, and mediated
by, the relationship between b-boys and the disc jockeys who provide the music
for them to dance to, many of whom are themselves current or former b-boys
or b-girls.

Guillory’s comments with regard to the Western literary canon are particu-
larly relevant to the question of how contemporary b-boying practice is related
to the idea of a “classic b-boy songs” canon. “The canon is itself a historical
event; it belongs to the history of the school,” he writes:

If there is now a need to rethink and revise what we do with the curriculum of lit-
erature, this project will entail not only reading new works, or noncanonical works
(both of which it should entail), but also reading in a better way, by which I mean
reading works for what they say and do in their place and time, as well as reading
the difference between those meanings and the meanings which have been imputed
to them by virtue of their being canonical works. (Guillory 1990: 244)

Foundation28

The b-boy canon is ripe for such a reading because the idea of canonicity—of
tradition—actually plays an integral role in the musical practice. That is partially
due to the historical factors I discussed above and partially because b-boy songs
operate as familiar “frameworks for invention” in a manner similar to the role
that so-called standards play for jazz musicians:

Lee Konitz has performed standard compositions “like ‘All the Things You Are’
for over forty years now” because of their unlimited substance as frameworks for
invention, inspiring him to probe ever more deeply into their “possibilities.” And
Charlie Parker explained to Red Rodney that he routinely practiced formulating
solos “on the blues, ‘Rhythm’ and ‘Cherokee’ in every key.” Over artists’ lives,
mastery of form resulting from the repeated performance of favorite compositions
obviously contributes to their extraordinary fl uency as soloists. Konitz adds that
improvising on familiar repertory also serves players “as a measuring device” for
assessing their creative powers “at that moment” in relation to their recollection of
their past improvisations on the composition.3 (Berliner 1994:226–227)

B-boy songs are valued as frameworks for the act of b-boying because they
combine practical factors that facilitate the particular dance style (including fast
tempos, loud drums, rhythmic horns, and breaks) with sociohistorical associa-
tions that place any given performance in the context of b-boy history. A good
deejay, then, is one who is able to properly deploy these factors to help the
b-boys accomplish their goals for the dance. In other words, the interaction is
not simply one of b-boys appreciating the deejays’ choices on an abstract aes-
thetic level. Rather, it is the deejay giving the b-boys the tools to express them-
selves and the b-boys validating the deejays’ choices by making use of those
materials.

In addition to the pragmatic value of the rhythm fi tting the steps of the dance,
which I will discuss in a moment, a major part of a given song’s value as raw
material for performance is that it is canonical, that it is known to be a b-boy
song. This is especially striking when one considers that none of these songs
was originally written or recorded for this purpose. Their status as b-boy classics
was something that developed organically as a result of the relationship between
deejays and b-boys. It is no exaggeration to say that hip-hop itself was a result
of this relationship.

The earliest b-boys danced to these songs in their entirety, saving their best
(or most hostile) moves for the break; that was why the deejays began to focus
on the breaks in the fi rst place. This focus soon led to the innovation, credited
to DJ Kool Herc, of using two copies of the same record on two turntables, a
process which enabled the deejay to repeat a given break endlessly, by rewind-
ing one copy while the other was playing. It was the deejays’ recognition of,
and service to, the b-boys’ needs that prompted the birth of hip-hop as a discrete
performance practice. As Nelson George has noted:

29History, Community, and Classic B-Boy Records

Records such as Jimmy Castor’s “It’s Just Begun,” the Incredible Bongo Band’s
“Apache,” and Herman Kelly’s “Dance to the Drummer’s Beat” didn’t become hip
hop classics in a vacuum. DJs played them, and often unearthed them, but it was
the dancers who certifi ed them. It was their taste, their affi rmation of certain tracks
as good for breaking, and their demand to hear them at parties that infl uenced the
DJs and MCs who pioneered hip hop’s early sound. (George 1998:16)

One example of this “certifi cation” process is the case of the 1972 record-
ing “The Mexican” (performed by the British rock band Babe Ruth), which
b-boy and popper GeoMatrix explains is specifi cally “for” uprock, an aggressive
precursor to b-boying in which an individual directly confronts an opponent
who is dancing simultaneously. As he says, “ ‘The Mexican’ . . . [is] more for
fi ghting. The Brooklyn uprock. . . . Really, people don’t really break to it, but
they just uprock to it. . . . That’s the type of song, you just wanna uprock. Like
when you doing ‘Mexican,’ man, you always wanna go out there and just fi ght.
Like battling” (GeoMatrix, interview). Although the song’s performers had cer-
tainly never heard of hip-hop or uprocking when they recorded it (since hip-hop
didn’t exist and uprocking was limited to teenagers in a few neighborhoods in
Brooklyn and the Bronx), “The Mexican” has become so associated with uprock
that whenever GeoMatrix hears it, he is immediately fi lled with an aggressive
competitiveness that compels him to perform the dance.

Shortly after conducting that interview, I attended the Universal Zulu Nation’s
30th anniversary celebration in Harlem.4 At one point in the evening, the deejay
played “The Mexican,” and b-boys in the crowd began uprocking within fi ve
seconds. This suggests that the association of this particular song with this par-
ticular dance is literally embodied knowledge; when “The Mexican” is played,
a b-boy or b-girl’s body is simply inclined to uprock.

The idea of uprocking as a preconscious—though learned—physical
response to hearing “The Mexican” is consistent with Bourdieu’s notion of
the habitus as a “system of dispositions” (Bourdieu 1977:82) or an “acquired
system of generative schemes objectively adjusted to the particular conditions
in which it is constituted” (Bourdieu 1977:95). Ken Swift, often described
as “the epitome of a b-boy,” sees the development of this kind of b-boy intu-
ition as the central value of designating a canon in the fi rst place: “I think it’s
important to know those songs. I think it’s important to know those songs.
’Cause you never know when they’re gonna come up. . . . You don’t want to
think about the song. You wanna react to the song without thinking about it”
(Ken Swift, interview).

In Ken Swift’s opinion, the existence of an agreed-upon repertoire of b-boy
songs allows dancers to develop the ability to react instantaneously to each in a
manner that reproduces the aesthetic principles of the b-boy community. From
the moment this ability becomes a part of any given dancer’s disposition, that

Foundation30

individual carries a piece of hip-hop history in his or her physical being and
recapitulates it every time he or she dances. When he introduces “The Mexican”
on his underground mix CD Throwback Breaks and Beats (Grandmaster Caz
2004), DJ Grandmaster Caz mentions neither the name of the song nor the art-
ist.5 As the song begins, he simply declares, “If you don’t know what this is, you
don’t need to know! You just wasn’t there!”

In addition to the general emotional power of a song like “The Mexican,”
a good dancer also responds to the lyrics, interesting musical fi gures, and the
pulse of the rhythm. “I dance according to what the music tells me,” says
B-Boy Phantom, a New Yorker in his 20s. “So, if there’s a horn . . . that’s going
on a quarter note, you’re gonna dance to that the way you hear it. That’s how I
express my dance to the beat” (B-Boy Phantom, interview). The establishment
of a discrete set of b-boy songs aids this process by limiting the repertoire of
songs that dancers need to master, so they can direct their energies toward learn-
ing the details of each.

On a more general level, encouraging b-boys to gear their dancing to a spe-
cifi c song necessarily promotes the idea that the relationship between music and
dance is important. This is by no means a foregone conclusion in the b-boy world.
The rise of air moves and power moves (demonstrating acrobatic ability and
strength, respectively) has led to a signifi cant portion of b-boying being arrhyth-
mic. The underground b-boy DVD Power Moves, for example, contains instruc-
tional material on how to perform these impressive feats, footage from three
b-boy contests (including one called Chico Got to Get His Share, named after a
lyric from “The Mexican”), and interviews with well-known b-boys and b-girls.
But the video begins with the following voiceover: “It’s cool if you’ve got the
most incredible power move in the world. That’s cool. That looks hot. But the
shit gotta have neatness to it and structure. . . . Remember, this is a dance. . . . This
is not a gymnastics event; you not being judged on your fl ips and how many
fl ares you do. So remember, this is dancing” (Power Moves 2004). Trac 2, who is
credited with the introduction of gymnastics moves to b-boying in the mid-’70s,
could not be clearer about this issue: “I incorporated gymnastics into the dance,”
he says. “I didn’t put the dance into gymnastics” (Trac 2, interview).

“You can’t really dance without listening to the music,” agrees Phantom. “It’s
an acrobatic dance, yeah, but—exactly—it’s an acrobatic dance. You have to
dance fi rst, then get acrobatic. People don’t understand that and it’s a shame. I
tell this to people, ‘look, get some rhythm fi rst.’ Make your toprocks look good
before you decide to jump into a windmill” (B-Boy Phantom, interview). The
promotion of the b-boy canon works as the promotion of b-boying as dancing
rather than gymnastics.

In addition to this general sensibility, the b-boy canon also works to promote
the use of specifi c rhythms. Many b-boy songs share the same implicit rhythmic

31History, Community, and Classic B-Boy Records

pattern. Like the clave in Latin music, from which it may well be derived, this
pattern is sometimes articulated in the music, and sometimes not. But it can
always be felt by the dancer. And while there is no standard term for it, several
b-boys have described it to me with a phrase from KRS-One’s 1993 song “Boom
Bap,” which seems to serve as a mnemonic device: “Boom! Bap! Original Rap!”
Essentially, it is a slightly modifi ed cha-cha-cha, a fact which is not insignifi cant.
As Ned Sublette has noted, the cha-cha-cha pattern pervades postwar American
dance music (Sublette 2007). (Here, and throughout the book, I will try to repre-
sent rhythms as they are conceived by b-boys and b-girls.)

Rhythm mnemonic
Cha-cha-cha

1
Boom!
one

and 2
Bap!
two

and 3
O-rigi-
cha

and

nal
cha

4
rap!
cha

and

The close association of this rhythm with the dance has two effects: it allows
the dancer to lock in to songs that share the rhythm, and it makes it diffi cult to
dance to songs that do not fi t the pattern, especially songs that are too slow. The
speed at which gravity acts on the human body alone exerts a decisive infl uence
over which songs can be used. As b-boy GeoMatrix notes, this is actually one
of the reasons that the canon is so essential. “This type of music represent[s]
breakin’,” he says:

When you play this type of music, people already know. And you could play, like,
“Apache,” already the b-boys gonna say to themselves, “this is our music—we
gonna go down.”6 ’Cause nowadays you can go to a party and you can’t break to
hip-hop. And [if] you don’t give ’em this type of beat, the b-boys always gonna
stay, like, just chillin’. But if you give ’em that beat, they’re like, “nah, nah, I gotta
go for it!” (GeoMatrix, interview)

Due to the nature of the movements, the music cannot be signifi cantly sped up
or slowed down without altering the form of the dance. In fact, when the tempo
of hip-hop music began to slow down in order to better emphasize the words of
its emcees, b-boys collectively decided that, rather than change the dance to fi t
the new tempos, they would actually reject hip-hop music. To this day, danc-
ers rarely break to contemporary hip-hop, a choice which has had two related
results. First, it has reinforced the dance’s estrangement from rap music, and
thus from the money and fame associated with it. Second, it serves to continu-
ously reemphasize the stylistic relationship between the dance and the social
world from which classic b-boy songs originally emerged: New York City in
the ’70s.

Of course, tempo is important to almost all dance forms, but it is all the more
so with b-boying since many of its moves consist of jumps, hops, and shuffl es
that incorporate leaping or falling. For example, a sequence of movements is
sometimes decisively concluded with a “blowup,” a category of move in which

Foundation32

the breaker leaps into a frozen position, usually one that requires a high degree
of balance (the most common blowups involve variations on a one-handed
handstand). For the blowup to be considered successful, it must be landed pre-
cisely on the beat, a feat which requires that gravity be taken into account in two
ways: the initial leap must be timed so that the dancer touches down at the right
moment, and then the dancer must be able to balance in the position for several
beats, returning to her feet at a rhythmically appropriate moment as well. The
most successful blowups coincide with decisive beats in the song. At one battle
I attended in 2005, the entire contest was won with such a move. The dancer
leaped into a one-handed handstand and aimed an imaginary gun at his opponent
with his free hand. The song to which he was dancing—chosen spontaneously
by the deejay—contained a gunshot sound at exactly the moment he assumed
the pose.7

Another example of how this works can be found in toprocking, the upright,
rhythmic cross-stepping that precedes “going down” to perform breaking’s
characteristic fl oor moves. The simplest toprocking step is known as the “Indian
step,” and it consists of the following movements, beginning from a stance in
which both feet are parallel, about shoulder width apart:

1. The right foot crosses in front of the left and takes the body’s full weight.
2. The weight is shifted back to the left foot.
3. The right foot swings back to a position parallel to the left and

takes the weight again. The dancer has now returned to the original
position. The process is then repeated to the right side.

4. The left foot crosses in front of the right and takes the body’s full
weight.

5. The weight is shifted back to the right foot.
6. The left foot swings back to a position parallel to the left and takes the

weight again.

The step is performed in double-time so the entire process (to both sides) fi lls
one four-beat musical measure:

This rhythm makes physical sense, because it takes twice as long for the leg to
cross over in front as it does to step back (on the 1 and the 3), since the crossing
leg’s return trip is rhythmically divided by the other foot’s step. When I initially
learned this movement, I was instructed to associate the rhythm of my steps with
a “boom boom bap” rhythm. (When describing hip-hop’s rhythmic patterns, the

1
right left

2
right –

3
left right

4
left –

1
right left
2
right –
3
left right
4
left –

33History, Community, and Classic B-Boy Records

onomatopoetic “boom” is conventionally used to represent the sound of a kick
[bass] drum, and “bap” is used to represent the sound of a snare drum.)

If we lay this rhythm on top of a typical drum rhythm from a b-boy song and
the general rhythm mnemonic I discussed earlier, it is easy to see how they fi t
together. Moreover, since the overall rhythm concept is held in the mind, the
drum is heard in the ears, and the rhythm of the dance step is manifested in the
body, the resulting groove—at its most potent—can actually integrate all three
aspects of the dancer’s being:

Foot rhythm
(body)

Drum rhythm
(ears/music)

Rhythm concept
(mind)

1

boom

boom

X

and
boom

2

bap

bap
X

and 3
boom

boom
X
and
boom
boom
X

4
bap

bap
X
and

This rhythm is well suited to the dance: it is sparse at the beginning, but then
speeds up as it goes along, culminating in a decisive emphasis on the fourth beat
of the measure, which is then followed by a short rest that allows both the dancer
and the observer to absorb what has just happened before beginning the process
again. This also creates a distinct call-and-response feel, with the fi rst half of the
phrase building tension and the second half resolving it. Furthermore, once this
pattern is established, the dancer can then work against it to create new tensions
and grooves, a process known as “rocking the beat.”

As I will discuss extensively in chapter 7, the term rocking is an evocative
one in the b-boy world. It has many senses, but perhaps the most potent is when
it’s used to suggest that someone has used her creativity to demonstrate control
over some area of life: a microphone, an audience, clothing, a beat. It repre-
sents the nexus of creativity and power, an important intersection for hip-hop.
So when dancers are said to be rocking the beat, the implication is that they are
actually using their dance skills to wrestle with the song itself, to actually force
the rhythm to conform to their desires.

Conceptually, this ties in to some of the deepest aspects of hip-hop philoso-
phy. The idea that something as seemingly unalterable as a prerecorded piece of
music could be changed by dancing to it requires an extremely abstract view of
the situation. From the b-boy’s standpoint, however, the song is not the record-
ing; the song is the recording being played by a particular deejay through a
particular sound system in a particular room to particular people at a particular
moment in a particular musical context. The song and the social experience
of hearing it become one and the same. And that experience—like any social
circumstance—can be rocked. The idea that one’s creativity can allow them to

Foundation34

change situations that might appear to be unchangeable is an extremely power-
ful one. That b-boying should serve as a form of training in how to do this is an
equally signifi cant concept, and I will discuss this process more thoroughly in
the chapters that follow. What is important here, however, is that b-boy songs are
chosen for their conduciveness to being rocked in this way.

The canon, then, is the site of mutual infl uence: b-boys who wish to maintain
these steps as part of their dance will show a strong preference for b-boy songs.
At the same time, the continued prevalence of b-boy songs preserves such steps
as an integral part of b-boying. Issues such as speed, openness to improvisation,
and the original conditions under which the songs were recorded all infl uence
this process.

In addition to the rhythm and tempo, another factor that comes into play in
the canon is the formal structure of the songs. On one level, the formal structure
is used in much the same way as the rhythm itself—as something to be rocked.
Major moments in a b-boy’s set, especially the moment when the dancer drops
to the fl oor, will often be timed to coincide with signifi cant structural moments
in a song, such as the beginning of a new verse. But song structure can also be
signifi cant on a more general level. When Fabel discusses “Apache,” for exam-
ple, it is noteworthy that the fi rst thing he mentions is his appreciation for its
formal structure. “I love ‘Apache’ because it has a lot of buildups in the song,”
he says. “The hype of anticipation, a lot of times, is what did it . . . knowing, ‘Oh
shit—here it comes!’ And wondering what’s gonna jump off, a battle or what-
ever. Or if anyone in the crowd that you don’t know is schemin’ on you, you
know?” (Fabel, interview).

In his comments, Fabel places the specifi c formal characteristics of “Apache”
within a broader social context: the sense of “anticipation” that arises as musi-
cal peaks approach is based on listeners having heard the song before; other-
wise, they wouldn’t know they were coming. Moreover, the knowledge that
these peaks are signifi cant is based on the expectation that certain kinds of social
interactions—“a battle or whatever”—will take place at that point in the song.

There is a general understanding that the high-energy point of the song
“Apache” will be one of the most important moments of any given b-boy event.
Anyone who has something signifi cant to do—debut a spectacular new move,
resolve a long-simmering dispute with another breaker—will often wait until
that point in the evening to do so. This, in turn, means that when the deejay
chooses to play this song, the energy in the room will rise noticeably as b-boys
look around and wait to see what will happen. The power of being able to deploy
this song at the appropriate time is not something deejays take lightly.

When I asked deejay Mr. Supreme if there were specifi c moments when he
knew “Apache” was called for, his answer was immediate. “Oh, for sure!” he
said. “Certainly. I mean, just the other night was a perfect example. . . . I was

35History, Community, and Classic B-Boy Records

playing some salsa stuff, really, and it had a lotta Latin rhythm and percussion in
it and these cats started b-boying. So I knew: ‘Yeah, OK, now’s the time.’ And
it worked, you know?” (Mr. Supreme, interview).

From the deejays’ point of view, it is the song’s dance-fl oor effectiveness (“it
worked, you know?”) that sets it apart. In 2002, for example, hip-hop journalist
Smokey D. Fontaine zeroed in on the power of “Apache” to inspire b-boys when
he listed the song as one of the best singles of the 1970s: “This cornucopia of
psychedelic keyboards, conga drums, and spaghetti western–like trumpet playing
became one of the main building blocks of the break-dancing movement. Thirty
years later, every riff in this manic workout will still incite spontaneous acts of
backspinning at a park near you” (Poulson-Bryant and Fontaine 2002:7).

The ability of this song to move b-boys is apparent, as Mr. Supreme
continues:

That particular song is the b-boy anthem. The one. . . .
I usually have that record with me, everywhere I go. Just because you never

know. It’s just one of those records that I always take with me. . . . It’s a powerful
song, there’s lots of energy in it. The change-ups and the orchestrated [horn] hits
and everything. . . .

It’s the energy of the song and the way that you feel the song. I mean, I’m
an original b-boy, you know what I’m saying? . . . And it’s like, feeling that song
within your body, when you hear it, the energy that just—it makes you wanna
dance. More so than any other song.

Even, like, the other night, when I was spinning, these guys started b-boying.
Everybody got all happy, they gathered around and there was lots of energy.
But it seemed like—even though there was that much energy—when I dropped
“Apache,” there was even more energy. It was like the turbo boost. (Mr. Supreme,
interview)

Mr. Supreme cites many valuable aspects that “Apache” offers: its rhythm, its
horn arrangements, its energy, and the way it seems to animate the human body.
For the deejay, though, all of these aspects are subsumed to its functional value:
it can be depended upon to make a good social situation even better, which is
why Mr. Supreme specifi es that it is “one of those records that I always take
with me.”8

The ability to bring forth fun, energetic social gatherings is the deejays’
stock in trade. Having canonical songs at their disposal is one tactic that is often
utilized:

It all depends on the vibe of the moment, the spirit of the energy, and what’s
happening at the moment. It’s kinda like a half-improvised and half set-up thing,
the way that I do it. And I’ll bring some cuts that are defi nitely the classic joints,
but then I’ll also bring a set of cuts [that] are kinda like warm-up cuts. Say, like,
if I’m deejaying a b-boying [event], right? If I’m deejaying the whole thing, I’ll

Foundation36

defi nitely bring some warm-up cuts. Something not too hype, something just kinda
like mid-tempo, but upbeat at the same time. Get everybody warmed up.

But, all of a sudden, when I feel and I see the b-boys getting really into it, and
you see, like, two guys or two crews really getting into it and starting to battle,
that’s when I’ll throw on the really hype cuts, the really serious cuts that the b-boys
would really enjoy the break to. Whether it’s like “Just Begun,” “The Mexican,”
“Apache.” It’s whatever song at the moment, what the b-boys are feeling. From
then, I’ll just hit ’em with song after song after song, where it’s basically, you
know, I just want them to lose their mind[s] when they’re breakdancing. (DJ E-Rok,
interview)

It is useful at this point to compare the work of the contemporary hip-hop
deejay to that of the “selector” in Jamaican dance-hall music, as described by
Stolzoff (2000), from which the role of the hip-hop deejay is derived:9

Choosing what songs to play is no simple matter. Competent selectors think about
tempo, key, texture, genre, mood, and theme, among other things, when decid-
ing which record will follow the one they are playing. These “intelligent” selec-
tors keep the crowd on its toes by the seemingly improvisational ordering of his
selections, yet his selections have to “make sense” and are far from random. In
actuality, the selector draws on both established sequences of songs as well as
spontaneous gut feelings about what song should go next. (Stolzoff 2000:203)

As I mentioned earlier, the development of a framework of songs that is
responsive to the needs of b-boys at any given moment is one of the major goals
for deejays at b-boy events. Moreover, the ability to deejay b-boy events, once
developed, can also be deployed strategically by deejays to bring the b-boy sen-
sibility into other performance environments, such as nightclubs. DJ DV-One,
for example, does this as a conscious strategy:

Part of being a deejay is being kind of in tune, or really responsive, to what your
crowd is doing. So if you’re deejaying and then you see someone in the corner
b-boying, maybe you play like two or three more b-boy cuts in a row, to see how
many other b-boys are there. See who else is gonna start b-boying. Or, you could
have people b-boying and come up to you and be like “Yo, play some b-boy cuts.”
And then that would start off your b-boy set. (DJ DV-One, interview)

The deejay can use the symbolic power of b-boy songs to create an exciting
environment in non-b-boy contexts. This is not insignifi cant. One of the hall-
marks of good deejays is that the audience trusts their judgment with regard to
which songs are appropriate to play at any given time; they know how to rock
a crowd. Their understanding of how music serves various social needs is the
primary reason that fans pay money to hear them. While other factors may come
into play (e.g., institutional status, the size and diversity of their record collec-
tion, whether they have a radio show), they are all secondary to the deejay’s
ability to facilitate positive social situations in general, and a sense of group

37History, Community, and Classic B-Boy Records

cohesion in particular. Again, while a deejay’s actions occur in real time, his
or her split-second decisions are informed by years of experience, as well as by
conscious planning. This experience, it is worth noting, is the mirror image of the
crowd’s experience. What has historically worked for deejays is, by defi nition,
what crowds have enjoyed. And crowds enjoy watching b-boys and b-girls.

As I mentioned earlier, the different varieties of hip-hop often overlap. For
those who view hip-hop as a cultural practice, there is a general understand-
ing—originally developed by Afrika Bambaataa, the Zulu Nation, and the Rock
Steady Crew—that hip-hop comprises four elements: deejaying, emceeing/rap-
ping, b-boying, and graffi ti (Bambaataa subsequently added a fi fth element:
knowledge). Adherence to the elements mythology is one of the primary factors
that hip-hop traditionalists use to distinguish themselves from those whom they
see as having a more superfi cial interest in the popular music aspect of hip-hop.
Taking into account that, by its nature, graffi ti does not come into play in a musi-
cal performance, it is worth noting that the pop music aspect of hip-hop (i.e., rap
music) is composed of emceeing and deejaying (or some deejaying substitute).
Therefore, an environment that contains only emceeing and deejaying is a rap
environment and thus ideologically ambiguous from the point of view of tradi-
tionalists. But an environment that contains emceeing, deejaying, and b- boying
is a hip-hop environment, that is, one concerned with history, tradition, and
community values. B-boying alone is enough to tip the balance. And canonical
songs speak to and for the b-boys. A song like “Apache,” then, can actually alter
the environment for all participants, even those who are not themselves b-boys
or b-girls.

Moreover, not only do these songs promote b-boying and the environment
it creates, but they are also fun for others to dance to as well. “The key to the
whole hip-hop culture is built on the deejays playing for the dancers,” observes
Michael Holman. “And not just the b-boys and b-girls, but . . . the club dancers.
You can have a very good time dancing to ‘Give It Up or Turnit a Loose’ without
having to breakdance. Believe me” (Michael Holman, interview).

These opportunities, while valued for their own sake, are also viewed func-
tionally by deejays. If they can use the b-boy canon to create a sense of group
cohesion in the moment, then they can count the evening as a professional
success, a step toward greater respect and earning power. While most deejays
believe their work can be art, they are well aware that an economic imperative
may take precedence if confl icts arise:

In your club, you pretty much have to be really really selfl ess. You know, ’cause
you can’t go to a club and play for a crowd of people and expect to play your
personal favorites because, you know, a lotta people might not be feeling you.
So you have to play pretty much what people wanna hear, and then you have to
manipulate it in a way to where it’s the way you like to hear it. So, if it’s a song you

Foundation38

don’t like, maybe you can juggle it. Or mix it with a different song or just speed it
up, slow it down, however. But you pretty much have to be selfl ess and play to the
crowd in a club-type setting. (DJ DV-One, interview).

But this does this not exclude the promotion of ideas about tradition; in the
case of the b-boy canon, it virtually demands it. As DJ E-Rok puts it:

It’s defi nitely something like a ritual that you do. And it kinda keeps the culture
alive. . . . These songs were very important songs of . . . hip-hop culture. And as a
deejay you try to play those songs, and you try to educate that these were the
songs that made a lotta noise during the golden age of hip-hop. And, basically, you
wanna get a crowd response to that. (DJ E-Rok, interview)

The b-boy canon is a tool of tradition building as much as it is a result of it.
The existence of a b-boy canon is one of the things that makes b-boying a single
community. By dancing to “Apache” or “It’s Just Begun,” any contemporary
b-boy or b-girl is arguing that communal values are shared by anyone who has
b-boyed over the last four decades. The fact that such gestures are not unique to
hip-hop is not a weakness on hip-hop’s part, but a strength. If hip-hop uses its
historical consciousness to achieve the same goals as any other musical culture,
that only gives us the opportunity to dig more deeply into the specifi cs of how
it does so and what those choices can tell us about hip-hop culture, its values,
and its concerns.

The existence of a b-boy canon represents a particular perspective on tra-
dition and a particular way of engaging with it. Specifi cally, it advocates two
general premises: that there should be a close relationship between music and
choreography; and that this relationship should serve as a conduit that allows
b-boys and b-girls to transfer the historical associations of the music to their
dance and, by extension, to their bodies.

In terms of the fi rst premise—the advocacy of a close relationship between
music and dance—several signifi cant themes emerge. The fi rst of these is the
clear fusion of African American and Latino cultural outlooks. The recordings
themselves are drawn primarily from African American musical genres, par-
ticularly soul and funk music. But within that tradition, the chosen songs tend
to be the ones with the most obvious Latin connections. Not only do the record-
ings themselves contain many obvious Latin elements, such as the use of Latin
percussion, but they also have a deeper conceptual foundation in Latin music,
making use of such ideas as the cha-cha-cha feel and the clave concept. The use
and signifi cance of breaks also points to a world view infl uenced by the experi-
ence of dancing to Latin music. The fusion of Caribbean and African American
approaches, in turn, suggests a broader, more Afro-diasporic approach to dance.
The break’s invitation to fi ll the silence with motion and the idea of integrat-
ing music, mind, and body through rhythm patterns both speak to a view of

39History, Community, and Classic B-Boy Records

performance that sees music and dance as being two facets of a single greater
activity.

In terms of the second premise—the idea that these songs allow b-boys and
b-girls to carry history in their bodies—a number of issues also appear, the most
obvious of which is the historical signifi cance of the songs themselves. The
fact that these specifi c songs are associated with the early history of b-boying
is an explicit part of their appeal. But beyond that, there are other elements that
come into play. The emotions that the songs evoke—particularly, aggressive-
ness—provide a deep connection to that history as well. The form of the songs
also serves to maintain the social form of the event. These songs have special
moments in them, which are manifested in real time every time the songs are
played. On top of that, b-boys and b-girls are encouraged to develop the ability
to rock the beat of a record, in essence to interact with the original musicians in
a way that transcends historical time. Moreover, the fact that dancers actively
train themselves for these goals reinforces the effect. Developing a feel for how
to dance properly to a specifi c song is to have the culture in your body.

To dance well to the chosen songs is to live in hip-hop history. The existence
of a recognized group of b-boy songs from another era represents a relation-
ship between individual skills and collective history. The b-boy canon serves
as an almost spiritual connection between modern proponents and the historical
essence of the dance, giving strength, energy, and legitimacy to modern devo-
tees. Or, as Alien Ness puts it, “I think, just for the sake of spirituality, you
should get into those beats. Because those are the beats that moved the original
b-boys, and it had to be for a reason. Without a doubt. So just for spiritual rea-
sons, you should try to get into those beats and really see what it is about that
beat that moved people and moves you” (Alien Ness, interview).