{"id":508,"date":"2011-08-31T05:44:01","date_gmt":"2011-08-31T05:44:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/desihiphop.com\/?p=508"},"modified":"2012-06-17T06:40:39","modified_gmt":"2012-06-17T06:40:39","slug":"well-break-your-streets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jcsoftwaresolution.com\/desihiphop\/well-break-your-streets\/010544","title":{"rendered":"B-Boys: We’ll Break Your Streets!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Rocking to the hip-hop beats, Mohit falls to the ground, and with his left arm as pivot spins 360 \u00b0. From here, he builds a dazzling routine \u2014 half art, half sport \u2014 comprising back flips, head stands and body spins. Similar scenes are proliferating across India. At Chennai\u2019s Marina Beach, kids from fishing settlements battle their upper-class fri e nds. The bboy crew in Mumbai\u2019s Dharavi calls itself the Slumgods. Several classes are conducted by groups like Fre ak N Stylz, Underdog Kombat and Rock Fresh. Energy drink major Red Bull invited international b-boys like Roxrite to cities like Hyderabad for workshops. They feature in mu sic videos, Bollywood dance sequences and Indian ads of Sony, Yamaha and Samsung.<\/p>\n

The crews are thriving in cities like Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Chennai, Aizwal and Jalandhar, but Mumbai and Delhi are the main hubs. The international b-boying event BOTY (Battle of The Year) held its first Indian edition this year. Come September, the winning crew will head to Bangkok for the South Asia qualifications. Another popular event is Cyperholics. Held every three months, it attracts close to 300 dancers.<\/p>\n

B-boy street dancing developed in the \u201970s New York among African-American and Hispanic youth. After spreading across the world and raging in countries like South Korea, it has arrived in India via the opposite classes \u2014 the hip-hop that DJs introduced in our nightclubs a decade ago has trickled down to the streets. Many between the age group of 10 and 25 watch b-boy videos on TV shows like Footloose, Dance India Dance, Just Dance and India\u2019s Got Talent and, of course, on YouTube. They share them on their cheap Chinese cell phones and meet up to try it out. The cell phone provides the music as they practise daily for two to three hours, often in public spaces, and network on Facebook. Some also invent alternate personas to match their moves \u2014 Raju, 14, is b-boy Trax, Milan, 13, is b-boy Mady. Most wear caps backwards and baggy jeans. Unlike DJing or graffiti, it doesn\u2019t cost anything.<\/p>\n

At Chennai\u2019s Marina Beach, kids from fishing settlements dance with their upper-class friends. In Dharavi, the b-boy crew calls itself the Slumgods<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t tell my parents when I go for practice. They think I\u2019ll break my bones,\u201d says Mahinder, 16. There\u2019s also a fear of police harassment. So why do it? It\u2019s cool, it satisfies their need to be competitive, it\u2019s affirmative to be inducted into a peer group, it\u2019s thrilling to master difficult moves. Says Pran jal, 18, \u201cIt\u2019s an ad re naline rush to hit a move or see someone do it.\u201d Above all, you dance because it\u2019s just fun.<\/p>\n

Courtesy of Tehelka.<\/p>\n

Garima Jain is a Photo Correspondent with Tehelka.<\/em>
\ngarima@tehelka.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rocking to the hip-hop beats, Mohit falls to the ground, and with his left arm as pivot spins 360 \u00b0. From here, he builds a dazzling routine \u2014 half art, half sport \u2014 comprising back flips, head stands and body…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":511,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[231],"tags":[236,150],"class_list":["post-508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-bboys","tag-slumgods"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcsoftwaresolution.com\/desihiphop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcsoftwaresolution.com\/desihiphop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcsoftwaresolution.com\/desihiphop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcsoftwaresolution.com\/desihiphop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcsoftwaresolution.com\/desihiphop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jcsoftwaresolution.com\/desihiphop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcsoftwaresolution.com\/desihiphop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcsoftwaresolution.com\/desihiphop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcsoftwaresolution.com\/desihiphop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcsoftwaresolution.com\/desihiphop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}