Yo peeps its that time of year again! Get ready! Tickets on sale soon!

Here it is breakin Convention 08! A 3 day festival with jams, cyphers and hip hop theatre performances, its a must for any aspiring street dancer or hip hop head.  We have been asked by Jonzi D and the team at breakin convention to perform on the main stage on Saturday 3rd of may between 6-8pm at Sadlers Wells.  Come and support we have a sick new section with our beatboxer, “experimental” that is exclusive to breakin convention, for tickets check out www.breakinconvention.com If you can’t make it check out our performance diary in the blog categories section as to when our next performance is. Come and represent you will meet some wicked peeps and be inspired I will be there all 3 days so come and say hi!

 see you there

 Andy 

I went up to my second home (LIPA!) on Saturday for a weekend of hip hop luv. Teaching the authentic nature of hip hop dance styles with Jonzi D-Breakin Convention, Ivan-Birdgang, Mouse-2006 world BBoy champion and Bagzi-House master.  Presented by Xena productions we all taught our styles to a wicked hip hop community, I had a great weekend and met some serious funk heads, a great weekend of sharing knowledge and cyphers.  Thanks for all who attended and Christina for putting on a sick event. If you were there let us know what you thought.

Peace

Andy

Andy asked me to write a little blog to explain how I became such a nerd when it came to remembering where certain samples and drum breaks came from and also to help point out a few good sources to learn more about the origins of hip-hop.

The main reason I know what I know is simply down to the amount of crate digging I’ve done in record stores throughout my life and more importantly piecing together the links between these records, labels, genres etc. Many people know the artists who became famous for certain tracks but it’s often more important to know the producer or who did the arrangement of the track or other info. You start to see patterns or links between records you never knew were there. The key is to never stop asking questions like: what year was this track produced? who was the bass player? etc. etc. You can never get to a point where you know too much and the great thing about music is that your tastes are constantly evolving, I mean, you think back to what you were listening to 5 years back and what you listen to now and the progression you’ve taken. It’s not that u used to like crap but as clichéd as it sounds, music is a journey and as u hear more u understand more of the subtleties etc. Also, try not to get bogged down in genre pigeon-holing, firstly, coz it’s a pain in the ass and secondly, coz it gets u nowhere!! I mean, who cares if its hip-hop/rnb or neo-soul, drum n bass or jungle, House or US Garage…… u either like it or u don’t!!!!!! Listen to as much diverse music as u possibly can get your filthy little hands on coz u will find the weirdest things popping up in tracks u hear. One of the best examples of this is a track u might not know but it’s a killer UK hip-hop track called Lofi Rocka off Lotek HiFi’s debut album on Big Dada Records and well the intro has a sample taken from Rodrigo playing Narciso Yepes’ Concierto De Aranjuez which is a classical Spanish guitar album. Yeah, exactly, random but it works and that’s the key. Anyone can grab well-known samples but to go beyond that and find something no one has uncovered before is the reason why producers like Dj Shadow get to where they are; seriously respected in the industry.

Now if u lookin for the origins of hip-hop, especially in terms of the instrumentals that were used and sampled, then the best place to start is with the funk bands of that era….. people like The Meters, Kool & The Gang, The JB’s, Parliament/Funkadelic, Sly & The Family Stone……….. the list goes on but seriously, their music has been raped over the last 25 years to produce the music u hear today, from hip-hop to drum n bass, electro to breaks… its all there!

Right, I’m not gonna go into a whole monster history lesson coz u can find it all out for yourself  (which is far more fun) but here’s a little top 5 bits of sample history plus my top 5 b-boy tracks so check em out and shout me in the comments sections if there are any questions u need answering, happy to help!

Keep Diggin,

B

My Top 5 Pieces of Hip-Hop Thievery

Eric B & Rakim- Paid in Full (Bassline taken from Dennis Edwards’ “Don’t Look Any Further”)

Common- The Light (Vocal taken from Bobby Caldwell’s “Open Your Eyes”)

Eminem- My Name is (Basically completely lifted from Labi Siffre’s “I Got The”)

2Pac- Picture Me Rollin (Instrumental taken from Kool & The Gang’s “Winter Sadness”)

House of Pain- Jump Around (Intro horns taken from Bob & Earls “Harlem Shuffle”)

Top 5 B-Boy Breaks

Incredible Bongo Band- Apache

The JB’s- Blow Your Head

Afrika Bambaataa & the Soulsonic Force- Planet Rock

Kurtis Blow- The Breaks

Jackson Sisters- I Believe in Miracles

I have been asked to do a lecture for over 100 young people on the urban scholars programme.  This is a programme set up to help people achieve their full potential.  I will be talking about the dedication, sacrifice but ultimately the feeling off fullfilment you have when you start to realise your dreams. I will be talking about the positivity needed when things don’t go as planned and how to keep on going no matter what, ( you know, light subject matter?!) Hopefully by sharing some personal experiences it should be interesting, if not it will just be me chatting rubbish on stage in front of over a 100 young people, standard fare really! should be fun! If you were at the lecture let me know what you thought feedback is always appreciated.  have a good weekend!

keep dancin

Andy

I have had a lot of requests for my music I used at move it. The warm up cd was a mix tape I received from a friend in LA and I have no idea what it was called.  The routine we did was an instrumental and was given to me by a student of mine in Liverpool again I have no idea who the artist is! Sorry I can’t be of more help but now you have heard the style of music I use hopefully that will spur you on to follow your own music journey.  I have spoken to Dj smokey (a good friend, hip hop head and all round music officiando!) and he will put up a list of old skool hip hop tunes that should start you off so keep your eyes peeled!  The other CD I used was my own compilation album and street dance tutorial “Urban Dance explosion” there may still be a few copies left, you can buy it in our dvd section on the website.

p.s. Smokey’s blog will appear in the culture category of the blog

keep dancin

Andy