America’s Best Dance Crews….
04
Apr/2008
The 2 strongest troupes from the MTV hit America’s Best Dance Crew, Jabbawockeez and Kaba Modern, help to illustrate that US BBoying is now very much ‘an Asian thing’. While Asian agency in hip-hop has been big since the late 90’s (turntablism + sneaker culture being the strongest), it’s now gonna go pop on the mass culture radar. Soon a raft of them cool brands will have ads featuring Asian breakers, a new move in representational politics for the danceform.
(the dad in the above McDonalds spot is not just wondering “What is my kid doing?” but “Who is this ad reaching?”)
In addition to the MTV show, the sharp doco Planet BBoy takes this conversation onto the global level, examining different crews from around the world. Witness a clip on the recent Korean BBoy explosion:
In all honesty, the last thing I want to see is more hip-hop used in adverts. In the 80’s, BBoys and breaking were overexposed in pop culture, and the form went back underground. Twenty years hence, with this ‘new’ BBoy writ large, I do wonder what connections (or caricatures) will come from Madison Avenue.
(photog credit)
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6/10/08 Model Minority?
Comments:
Mar 4, 2009 at 11:09 am
what up man nice move i like that man i am asia too man ok man
Jul 24, 2009 at 5:28 am
hi i love invet to you web site plz add me tanks ! i love ll bboys
Oct 28, 2009 at 1:03 pm
[...] heroes and our audience hail from the same world of early adopters, one encompassing Black Nerds, Asian BBoys and Wassup [...]
Nov 17, 2009 at 6:07 pm
An “asian thing”? These are the type of comments that bring segregation to Hip Hop culture. Bro, you gotta get out and travel more. I understand what you are trying to say, but please don’t use MTV as an example of what bboying seen is, or even Hip Hop. MTV is all about stereotypes and ratings. Lots of crews get cut from that show because they “don’t fit the profiles” that MTV is looking for. That includes cats of latino origins. They would rather choose Vogue Revolution so that their ratings stay up.
As the matter of fact, Jabba and Kaba are not bboy crews, they are choreography crews with a couple of breakdancers (please note: Breakdancer is not the same as a BBOY), and they don’t represent the bboying scene at all. What about Knucklehead Zoo (aka SuperCrew) , Killafornia, Battle Born, RockSteady, Now or Never, Alaskan Assassins. Have you been to the last Freestyle Sessions?
These crew and hundreds of others are the ones who rep the bboy scene, not Jabba or Kaba. Please be respectful of the bboy culture, and do more research.
Peace
Nov 18, 2009 at 1:41 am
@tommygun
thanks for continuing the conversation. and I agree with what you are saying, esp about the idea of MTV creating a profile – I had put ‘an asian thing’ and the idea of this as a ‘new’ BBoy in quotes because that’s how I think that the MTVs and reductionist mass culture channels will be packaging this as an idea/concept/trend etc..
Feb 9, 2010 at 1:58 pm
And you should give photo credit for those shots of the Drifterz Crew and Moonie (kid in the yellow jacket) to Jason Lewis.
http://jasonglewis.com/blog
He took those in ‘07 in Brooklyn.
Feb 9, 2010 at 2:01 pm
@james – credit is posted under the 2nd photo. Love Jason – some more of his work is here:
http://desedo.com/blog/urban-brand-planning/
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