Still Crazy (Legs) After All These Years

Rock Steady Crew – Still Crazy (Legs) After All These Years
AMW !.e Talent: DJ Single Handed
July 15, 2006

I love when I get the chance to write about what’s right in hip-hop instead of expressing my laundry list of what’s wrong with it. This month’s anniversary celebration of the Rock Steady Crew is my opportunity to do just that.

Three decades after its inception, the crew of “true school” hip-hop heads is still going strong. Their 30th anniversary celebration will include exhibitions of the four elements, including DJ and b-boy and b-girl battles as well as panel discussions, art shows, and parties galore. Most of the events will be taking place in Manhattan and the Bronx starting July 23, and a free concert featuring EPMD will happen Sunday, July 29 at 1 pm at Lincoln Park in Newark, NJ.

Rock Steady Crew president and renowned b-boy Richard “Crazy Legs” Colon wants the anniversary to “focus on all aspects that make Hip-Hop the social force that it is. This is about education and entertainment. With crew battles, hot DJs, panels, and live graffiti shows, our 30th promises to showcase everything Hip-Hop represents.”

I can only hope that there’s still an audience for it. With any luck, there’s as much of a “below the mainstream radar” following as there was when I first attended a Rock Steady Crew anniversary as a college freshman in 2000.

Concerts in Manhattan featuring Dead Prez, Gang Starr, M.O.P., and Tony Touch among others were the highlights of my experience that year. The b-boy and b-girl competitions were amazing to watch. I even got my first taste of Reggaeton before it hit the American mainstream as Ivy Queen, Daddy Yankee, and Mexicano 777 took the stage to perform their track off Tony Touch’s “Piecemaker” album.

I will, at the very least, attend the EPMD concert and see if there’s still a connection between me and the art form that gave me a voice in the first place. If not, I guess I’ll continue spitting my brand of disgruntled old man “music was so much better when I was your age” rhetoric. At least for as long as the upper management at AMWie tolerates it.

Source: Allhiphop.com