Cassie Traun
Melisa RiviŽre
Anth 3980
Hip-Hop Pioneer Paper
2/23/08
The
Last B-Boy Standing
As
a young ten year old living in the Bronx, Crazy Legs, who acquired his name
from a girl in junior high who saw him dancing and exclaimed, ÒOhh, he got some
crazy legs!,Ó[1]
got his first taste of hip-hop and b-boying when his cousin, Lenny Len, took
him to his first jam on Crotana Avenue and 180th Street in 1977.[2]
ÒAh, I was just blown away. [É] I just immediately became a part of it,Ó Crazy
Legs remembered.[3]
Crazy
Legs, born Richard Col—n on January 1, 1966, became the individual to revive
the art of b-boying, not once, but twice as the leader of the Rock Steady Crew.
Crazy Legs began dancing with Lenny Len, his cousin, and they both joined Rock
Steady in 1979, two years after the formation of the group in the Bronx by
Jimmy D, JoJo, and JoJoÕs brother, Easy Mike, in 1977.[4] At that time,
Crazy Legs was living in Manhattan[5],
most likely because, as he has noted, his family moved around a lot due to
being on welfare and getting evicted frequently.[6] Crazy Legs
started going out to the Bronx on a regular basis to hang out with Rock Steady,
but doing so became much too expensive, so he stopped going to the Bronx and
lost touch with the b-boys from that area. Wanting to start a Rock Steady Crew
chapter in Manhattan, Crazy Legs went looking for Jimmy D in the Bronx, but was
unable to find him to get permission to use the Rock Steady name; he then
joined a b-boy group in Manhattan called Rockwell Association, which was a competitor
to Rock Steady Crew.[7]
Crazy Legs fostered a large following in Rockwell, and finally found Jimmy D in
1981, when Rock Steady Crew officially became Crazy LegsÕ group. He recounts
the passing of the torch in ChangÕs CanÕt
Stop WonÕt Stop:
Jimmy
Dee had seen that I had so many people down and I kept it going and a lot of
the other b-boys werenÕt still as active. It was a humble stance he took. He
reduced his own rank and gave me everything and never got in the way of doing
things, but was still there to give me guidance at being a crew leader.[8]
Chang
sees this as the beginning of the Rock Steady Crew as we know it today, ÒThe
new Rock Steady Crew became a magnet for isolated Bronx-styling youths across
the city, a second-generation supergroup, the last b-boys standing.Ó[9]
The transition of Rock Steady from Jimmy D to Crazy Legs marks the first time
Crazy Legs saved the crew from extinction, and the art of b-boying would get
its due attention in the coming years.
1981
was a turning point in Crazy LegsÕ life, and for Rock Steady Crew as well. Take
One introduced Crazy Legs and Frosty Freeze, another member of Rock Steady, to
meet Henry Chalfant, a sculptor and photographer who had become interested in
the growing hip-hop scene in the Bronx. Chalfant asked if they would like to
perform at an upcoming graffiti show he was putting on called ÒGraffiti Rock.Ó[10]
Crazy Legs said that this was Rock Steady CrewÕs first show, and Òit was the
first time hip-hop was presented as a culture,Ó[11] which is
obviously a monumental event in the history of hip-hop, and Crazy Legs was
fortunate enough to be a part of the show. His crewÕs performance at Graffiti
Rock was featured in The
Village Voice called ÒTo the
Beat YÕall: Breaking is Hard to Do,Ó and it was the crewÕs and b-boyingÕs first
major press story. Chang points out the article was, conceivably, Òthe first to
link graffiti, rapping, and b-boying.Ó[12] Hip-hop was
beginning to take shape as a culture (or counterculture), especially through
the mediaÕs stories about the four elements, though b-boying and dance
certainly garnered the most press attention.
From
this onslaught of media attention came the acceptance of b-boys into the
eccentric downtown scene. In 1982, Crazy Legs, along with Rock Steady Crew, was
invited to perform at the Ritz nightclub, and he was on the bill with Afrika
Bambaataa and others. After this performance, Crazy Legs became more involved
in the club culture, where diversity was a key element of the scene.[13]
As Chang points out, ÒCrazy Legs, a true believer in the power of hip-hop, saw
what many others saw -- a bit of magic happening. ÔIt was the beginning of the
breaking down of racial barriers,Õ he says, ÒÕ82 was the beginning of the
worldwide understanding.ÕÓ[14]
Throughout
this time, Crazy Legs was placing his mark on the b-boy scene on his own,
developing new moves, and evolving b-boying from what it was when the
African-Americans were mostly involved in it to what it became once the Puerto
Ricans took over the art form. As seen in Style
Wars, Crazy Legs developed
his own move called the backspin, about which he said: ÒIt was an accident. My
accident though.Ó[15]
In an interview with Davey D, Crazy Legs talks about the differences between
African-American b-boying and Puerto Rican b-boying: ÒI think the difference is
when the brothas first started doing and it was at its infancy they weren't
doing acrobatic moves. That didn't come into play until more Puerto Ricans got
involved in the mid Ô70s. We then took the dance, evolved it and kept it
alive.Ó[16]
Like
many of the other pioneers of hip-hop, Crazy Legs appeared in the first movies
to expose the culture, including Style
Wars, Wild Style, Beat Street, and
he also appeared in Flashdance, both as a part of Rock Steady and as
Jennifer BealsÕ body double in the famous audition scene. These videos helped
commodify the culture and make it reproducible through fast-forward and rewind.[17]
Today his involvement in those movies would likely earn him the title of a
sellout, but as Crazy Legs explains,
There
wasn't anything about selling out back then. We had no concept of what was
going on and what we were getting into. There was no conscious effort by anyone
to say 'Yo! Forget these people, I'm gonna go get paid'. [É] Yes, Flashdance
created opportunities for us. But we never had to hear anything about us
selling out. It probably had a lot to do with the way we did it.[18]
After
appearing in the introductory movies, Crazy Legs and Rock Steady Crew somewhat
fell off the map because it was now possible to find b-boys for cheaper prices
to appear in videos or television.[19] But, another
reason was that Rock Steady Crew was taken advantage of through this
commodification, and the group opted to go into hiatus in 1984.
In
1991, after lobbying from several different people, Crazy Legs decided to
revive Rock Steady Crew once again, and their official return came at the
Source Magazine Show. In 1992, he performed with Rock Steady at the Kennedy
Center Honors, gaining a standing ovation.[20] Since the
revival, Crazy Legs and Rock Steady have enjoyed new success, staging annual
Rock Steady anniversaries, curated and organized by Crazy Legs. In 1994, Crazy
Legs won the Hip Hop Pioneer award from The
Source. In 2002, he was
inducted into the Hip Hop Hall of Fame, and in 2004, he was honored as a part
of Rock Steady Crew at the first VH1 Hip Hop Honors ceremony. Today, Crazy Legs
donates his time as his schedule permits to teach the art of b-boying.[21]
Running along the same vein as his teaching of younger generations, Crazy Legs
also wants to Òcontinue to develop new members of Rock Steady Crew so that one
of the pillars of Hip Hop will continue to last for generations to come.Ó[22]
From
the first time he saw b-boys at ten years old to the present day, Crazy Legs
has put his heart and soul into breakdancing, and in that time has re-shaped
b-boying several times. He was at the forefront when hip-hop first garnered
media attention, and he was able to travel the world through his art. For his
contributions to the art of b-boying, Crazy Legs will forever be remembered as
a hip-hop pioneer and one of the last original b-boys standing.
[1] Youtube.com. ÒCrazy Legs Interview,Ó
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6LMQNYSo6g (accessed February 20, 2008).
[2] Chang, Jeff. CanÕt Stop WonÕt Stop. New York: St. MartinÕs Press, 2005, 110.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Davey DÕs Hip-Hop Corner. ÒCrazy Legs
Speaks.Ó http://www.daveyd.com/crazylegsinterview.html (accessed February 21,
2008).
[5] Wikipedia.com. ÒRock Steady Crew.Ó
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Steady_Crew (accessed February 21, 2008).
[6] Youtube.com ÒCrazy Legs: A 5-Minute
History.Ó http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03Y3S6h0o58 (accessed February 22,
2008).
[7] Wikipedia.com. ÒRock Steady Crew.Ó
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Steady_Crew (accessed February 21, 2008).
[8] Chang, Jeff. CanÕt Stop WonÕt Stop. New York: St. MartinÕs Press, 2005, 137.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid, 156
[11] Youtube.com ÒCrazy Legs: A 5-Minute
History.Ó http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03Y3S6h0o58 (accessed February 22,
2008).
[12] Chang, Jeff. CanÕt Stop WonÕt Stop. New York: St. MartinÕs Press, 2005, 157.
[13] Wikipedia.com. ÒRock Steady Crew.Ó
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Steady_Crew (accessed February 21, 2008).
[14] Chang, Jeff. CanÕt Stop WonÕt Stop. New York: St. MartinÕs Press, 2005, 168.
[15] Youtube.com. ÒCrazy Legs Interview,Ó
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6LMQNYSo6g (accessed February 20, 2008).
[16] Davey DÕs Hip-Hop Corner. ÒCrazy Legs
Speaks.Ó http://www.daveyd.com/crazylegsinterview.html (accessed February 21,
2008).
[17] Riviere lectures
[18] Davey DÕs Hip-Hop Corner. ÒCrazy Legs
Speaks.Ó http://www.daveyd.com/crazylegsinterview.html (accessed February 21,
2008).
[19] Riviere lectures
[20] Wikipedia.com. ÒRock Steady Crew.Ó
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Steady_Crew (accessed February 21, 2008).
[21] Rock Steady Crew. ÒCrazy Legs.Ó
http://www.rocksteadycrew.com/crazylegs/crazylegs.html (accessed February 23,
2008).
[22] Ibid.