Held up by its four pillars — MCing, DJing, B-boying and graffiti-writing — hip hop culture stands tall in the 21st century. In India though, hip hop was slow to be taken up in terms of practice, but with YouTube wonders Naezy and Divine, and graffiti festivals like St+art, it has started to infiltrate mass consciousness.
But the dance form of B-Boying, also known as breaking (or breakdancing, if you’re older than 40), still stands in the shadows; hundreds of B-Boys and B-Girls do exist, breaking their way through the sparse landscape of local battles. This is where a brand can make a difference. In this case, Red Bull. While the product’s benefits are dubious, it’s commendable how its managers have built the brand in India, cleverly associating it with subcultures like surfing, skateboarding and hip hop. For these subcultures, their association has only been a good thing.
B-boying had struggled for years to find the infrastructure and organisers to set up large-scale battles and help them train more efficiently. Then, in 2008, the energy drink entered the picture and brought down some of the top B-boys at the time — Lilou, Roxrite, Pelezinho and Benny — for the Red Bull BC One Tour, one of the premier global breaking competitions.
BC One returned to India for a breaking workshop by the Algerian-French Ali Ramdani a.k.a. B-boy Lilou. Recognised the potential of the art form in India, the company then launched the Red Bull BC One India Cypher in 2015. The Red Bull BC One All Stars — Hong 10, Taisuke and RoxRite, all global stars in the breaking scene — came in to judge the event and host workshops. It was a great way for Indian B-Boys and B-Girls to interact with the international stars and hone their skills; till then, YouTube had been their only source of training.
Around this time, B-Boy Flying Machine a.k.a. Arif Chaudhary was dominating the scene with consistent performances in local battles. This earned him a wild card in the Top 16 of Red Bull BC One and he battled his way through to won the India Cypher. He was then sent to compete in the Asia Pacific Final in Seoul, South Korea. “I got to meet a lot of B-Boys there and share my experiences with them,” he says. “It was fantastic because we had been following the work of these guys.”
Unfortunately, he lost the battle to Korean B-Boy Octopus. He has continued to train, and he’s geared up for 2016 Red Bull BC One.
“Few people stick to B-boying,” he says. “It gets difficult, and they shift to easier styles. Or new styles come in and they get caught up with that. B-boying is a part of hip hop so if you want to be a good B- Boy, you have to fully understand hip hop.”
2016’s BC One promises to be bigger and better, with workshops and cyphers in four cities, New Delhi, Bengaluru, Kolkata and Mumbai, before the Mumbai final. Hong 10 will be returning as a judge, along with fellow South Korean Differ, and Menno from the Netherlands. “The Indian B-boying community has grown very quickly, and I congratulate them for that,” says Hong 10. “However, they have to be careful not to lose people’s interest along the way. It has happened in Korea.” He also commented on the revamped structure of the championship: the Indian winner will qualify for the World Finals in Japan in November, instead of first heading to the regional finals, as Flying Machine did last year. To some, the move seemed like a shoddy attempt at inclusivity, one that wasn’t going to help Indian breakers in the long term. But Hong 10 clarifies: “I think it’s good for some countries that might have not made it to the World Final with the previous format. This way, they can see and feel the World Final, so they chase it harder. Personally, however, I feel like the Regional Finals were more dynamic.”
There’s no doubt that this sort of initiative is doing wonders for the Indian breaking community though, giving them a chance to showcase their talents on a world-renowned platform. One of the best B-girls in the country, Preeti Tiwari, who goes by the name Shawty Pink, said that the main obstacle for the community was that “a lot of people start B-boying but they drop out because of parental and societal pressure. They do it in college, but after that they need to get a job because there’s no income in B-boying. I want to be the type of B-girl that has started and won’t stop and will motivate other girls to start dancing.”
Hopefully, more championships like BC One will be launched in India, getting the subculture into the mainstream. Popularity will bring funding, infrastructure and trainers. There’s no dearth in talent; all the community lacks is support from their own country.
BC One India Cypher 2016 workshops and cyphers are underway. Finals: 6 pm, May 13, Bandra Fort Amphitheatre, Bandstand. Entry is free.
The author is a freelance writer
Hundreds are breaking their
way through the sparse landscape
of local battles
