LA breaking footage from back in 1983
August 29th, 2006 by cloudysunshine
I felt bad for not getting video clips from AIR, so I’ve got another nice little video clip I found on YouTube for ya. It’s 9 min 52 sec of old-school HipHop/breakdancing filmed in LA back in ‘83. The quality is pretty bad, and there’s a delay between the sound and video, but it’s worth it, cause this is history in the making here. The images are straight from the LA underground, back when breakdancing and Hip Hop were fresh on the scene:
For those who don’t know, the MC rapping at the beginning of the film is Ice-T, straight from South Central LA. He went on to become an actor in movies and TV. Maybe you can recognize him from the popular show, “Law & Order.”
Some of the quotes from the party people are classic, so I wrote them down for those who can’t hear cause of the muffled sound:
(Filipino kids)
“We come here for the breakin”
“The breakin’. We wanna see everybody break down here. We heard everybody breaks down here and they got the #1 breakers down here too.”
“We wanna show ‘em our stuff.”
“Yeah, we wanna break with them too. We wanna show what we can do with it.”(Girl in the red)
“This place is the best, it’s the best place to come see breakers. There’s no place in the Valley to go see ‘em.”(Blonde girls)
“A lot of people told us about the breakin’ stuff and we just come to watch.”
“It’s interesting. I mean, it’s um, fun to pick up different things, and try out new clubs and stuff.”(Arcadia girls)
“We come down cause we like the music here and the atmosphere and it’s…kinda casual it’s…I don’t know, you tell them..”
“It’s not real trendy you know, we don’t see all our friends from Arcadia or Pasadena here. It’s a different crowd.”
“Yeah.”
I wonder how many of those folks had any idea how long it would last. 23 years later, it’s still going strong, even half-way around the world, from New York 2 LA 2 Tokyo.
I watched the video. It’s really old fashion and Lo-Fi, but cool! It reminds me memories when I was crazy about playing music. Actually some of friends danced “the breakin’” and I thought their dancing was harder than this. But probably good days memories are exaggerated due to the impression…
Yeah, some of the styles in this video seem kind of primitive and not so technical, but this was when it was just beginning. At that time, they were busting stuff people had never seen before. But I have to give New York credit, cause it started there first!
I love breakdancing!!! My little brother goes in for it and I adore looking at him dancing!!! It’s great!!!