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Article Excerpt
In the late 1960s and '70s the four elements of hip hop--graffiti, rap, break dancing, and DJ-ing--blasted out from the Bronx in a complete cultural package. Pioneering black and Latino B-boys dancing to "Hip Hop, It Don't Stop!" foretold the future with each move, causing a seismic shift in dancing that set a revolution in motion. They were the original prophets wearing Pumas.
Break dancing ties the world's youth together through the universal language of the beat. This hip-hop world is positive, brilliant, and fresh. The other hip-hip world, the mainstream, is bigger, older, and richer. They are dedicated to big-time money, big-time stars selling sex, violence, materialism, and misogyny. ("Hey, we only reflect reality" they say.) But reality can be tough or tender. The youthful alternative is dedicated to re-establishing the realities of hip hop's positive power and values. This story is concerned with these dancing freedom-fighters.
Hip hop's elder founding fathers, DJ Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash, and Afrika Bambaataa, molded a world view that encompassed a life-affirming philosophy, complex music, raw poetry, graffiti, and beautiful virtuosic dancing. Hip Hop ripped though urban areas and grabbed hold by 1980. And today battles of innovative wild-styles and rap and breaking flare around the globe. Versed in the world beat and ciphers, breakers in Paris, Tokyo, or Sri Lanka are more like, than...
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