What is a Bboy? The No Longer Exist

By Matt Da 5hat

I just found a really cool post, that was no longer up here on the boards.
I really felt that this type of knowledge needs to be up here on the boards for people to read and see so just to clarify, it's not me who wrote this, it was Alieness about a year ago as a reply to a question "What is a Bboy."

"Really really great post.
I want to answer this as honestly as I can, but I need to stress TIMES HAVE CHANGED, AND BECAUSE TIMES HAVE CHANGED, TERMINOLOGY, VOCABULARY, AND MEANINGS, change swell.
We live in a day and age where anyone who does a round of footwork and a baby freeze calls themselves bboy.
Look how many people start breaking, do it for like 3 months, and in those 3 months sign on to message forums and use the term in front of their name.. I.E. "BBoy Idiot"
I also understand that my views won’t change anything and nor do I intend to change anything, I will always speak my mind, however it doesn’t mean that what I say is law in this day and age.
Off the top...
BBOY = BRONX BOY
‘Nuff said.
That’s like me being born in the South Bronx, and holding up the west coast sign just cause I like gangsta rap.
Secondly, as time progressed, the word bboy described a certain caliber of people. not dancers. its just coincidence that breaking is a danced that was done by the bboys, however there were many dances that the bboys did, it just so happens that breaking outlasted them all and got international exposure. But breaking comes from the house party era and party dances were the norm.
In those days, the word hip hop did not exist. So there was no such thing as "hip hoppers" but if there was ever a term for hip hoppers before the word existed, that term was bboy.

I know bboys who don’t break and never did. It wasn’t just about the dance; it was a way of life. And when I say way of life I don’t mean like you guys do it now, trying to dress the part, or watching YouTube or such, I mean living a life in a poor broken down Bronx and making the best out of what you got.
From the way you walked, to how you dressed, to how you talked, made you a bboy, not the fact that you can break, bboys were dancers, and breaking was just ONE dance.

I once had a guy step to me and say to me "why you say I’m not a bboy? I top rock, I do footwork, I do power, I do freezes, meanwhile he was wearing (no joke) tight ass pants, fingernail polish, eyeliner, and a punk rock band patches on his jacket. My response, “look in the mirror,” which brings me to fashion. Some people have a misguided notion on what it means to dress like a bboy.
I’ve seen a lot of cats denim jacket try to dress like old school bboys with denim jackets and fat laces and mock necks (yuch) etc.

You have to look at it like this, the original bboys set the pace for what is known today as hip hop. What people call hip hop fashion is just bboy fashion of this era. When you dress like a 70's or 80's bboy, to a true bboy your outfit is 20 years outdated!!
Bboys dressed in the fashion of that time, or created something that would fit in with the fashion of that time; they didn’t dress like dancers from the 60's. The Nigga Twins were inspired by the Nicholas Brothers but never walked into a jam wearing a suit and tie like the Nicholas Brothers, get it?

Now compare it to today...the shirts and kicks that don’t match, kneepads
sweats with shirts that don’t match, kneepads and elbow pads, the so ugly head spin caps, the bummy sneakers, and the worst thing ever (drum roll please) mock neck shirts with sweatpants. Seriously, that’s like wearing wing tipped shoes which is normally used with a tux, and some track pants. It just don’t work. People don’t understand that the mock necks was used ‘cause it was a fly DRESS SHIRT, not a good spin shirt.

As mentioned, bboys came out of a party generations. you have people calling themselves bboys and go to events to break, I’m a bboy and i go to clubs literally every night to dance (for those in Barcelona, you can catch me any night in club Marulas near Plaza Real, best funk music party 7 nights a week).
With that being said, bboys was dancers, they partied, they had a god time, they didn’t go to jams to break, they went to jams to find girls and chill and dance, if by chance a BREAK BEAT came on, he did his thing.
If you aren’t an avid dancer, if you can’t get up and kill a 50 cent song like you can get down and kill a James Brown song, chances are your far from a bboy. If you can’t get your 2 step on, I don’t know what you’re thinking.

In a recent Paul Skee interview I said bboys don’t exist anymore, and many people got offended, so i will explain it in lamens term....
Girtisholland , you and I can go out together and learn all the dicaplins of the samurai. we can master Bushido, Zen, Kempo, Akido, Judo, shit, all the styles that made a samurai a samurai.
we can earn black belts in all those disciplines, we can get worldwide fame, we can open schools everywhere including japan and be respected by the masters, we can go on to win comps in the martial arts world, be number 1 in the world, we can go on to make movies and be world famous like Van Damme and Segal.

But the second either of us say we are samurai, we will be laughed at, ridiculed, and lose the respect of the people who know and understand that despite the fact we know it all, the true samurai didn’t belong to the martial arts, it belonged to a period of time in ancient japan. There are elements and conditions that help create the samurai that don’t exist today.
to me a bboy is the samurai of the Bronx that seeped into the rest of NYC, and there are elements and conditions that existed then that help create the bboys that don’t exist today.




In my opinion, today’s generation are not bboys, they pay tribute and do what the original bboys do in celebration of what they created. And in the end, carrying on tradition is not a bad thing, so please don’t take offence to anything i wrote, i just like spitting everything from the heart.
Love me or hate me, I’ve never bullshitted any of you at the least" - Alieness

First of all I never go on the bboyworld.com forums and this is one post that caught my eye. This was a post from Bboy Dyzee from the Super Naturalz crew from Toronto, Canada. Bboy Dyzee was quoting a post from legendary Bboy Alienness from the Mighty Zulu Kingz and Qweenz worldwide. I totally agree with Alienness's point of view. a lot of negative and positive things can be said about today’s bboys, but honestly just the way the dance is being carried on ‘til today and having younger generations catching in to breaking is much better to see than having the label bboy or not. even if we are just dancers living through a part of history it still is a culture to us, it’s not just a thing we do it’s a part of who we are. But take what Alienness said as it is. He’s not disrespecting anyone. I personally don’t take it as an offense, to me what he said is a lesson. Also visit Alienness’s BlogSpot at alienness.blogspot.com , it’s pretty sick.

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