The Official Red Bull BC One Blog

The World’s Best B-Boys Compete Head-to-Head on November 18th at Hammerstein Ballroom

For the first time in its five-year history, the world’s most important one-on-one B-Boy competition, Red Bull BC One, will take place on the streets where Hip-Hop began –New York City, USA. The famed Hammerstein Ballroom will host the highly anticipated battle where sixteen of the globe’s best dancers will compete head-to-head to determine who will be the ONE crowned Red Bull BC One 2009 Champion.

How does it feel to be the officiating champion of the Red Bull BC One?
I’m glad to have won and I’m really happy that I will be able to compete again in 2009. Since I am the champion, the only thought I have is to do better.

This was the second time the crown went to Korea. What makes Korean B-Boys so strong?
I believe it’s because the environment in which we live and the bboys around us right now are living and training in a system truly ideal to excellence and progress. If I do well, the ones around me must do well also and vice versa. This system seems to be making us better.

On June 12, I went to the first international Hip Hop festival in Honduras which was supported by Red Bull. I went to the bus station in San Salvador where I was supposed to meet with a whole bunch of guys from El Salvador who’d also go to the festival. You could see all these flyers all over Central America educating you about the swine flu and teaching you how to cough – into your hand or into your shoulder – that’s right – not into your neighbours face…

At the station I met DJ Flako from Guatemala. We started to talk cuz we had the same sticker on our luggage – a sticker from ZOAD, a graf writer from Guatemala. Flako used to live in Cologne and speaks perfect German, a language that I hardly ever got to speak on this trip.

When we arrived in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, the guys started to cover each others shirts and the local bus station in tags. From the bus station we were ferried to a radio station right away, were the guys did some promotion for the event.

Right after that, we drove to a TV station where we had lots of fun fooling around. We had quiet a bit of time, as the president’s car had just gotten attacked and they needed to cover that news first. Yes, the same president that got thrown out of the country a couple of days later.

The first international Hip Hop Festival in Honduras was da bomb!!! During the day, the festival was taking place in the National Library of Tegucigalpa. People were just jamming and throwing down. And after a while, Milo and Manyu gave workshops. They gave 2 different workshops at the same time in the same room! That was the first time I saw something like that – surprisingly – it worked!!!

There was a graffiti presentation going on in the hall and then the MC shows started. Lots of different talent was displayed – guys, girls, kids, and a crew that mixed their Garifuna heritage into the Hip Hop – a GUY!!! shaking his booty for once – I was happy!!!

At night, when I got to Bar La Caramba, the guys were on TV again – this time it was a big TV station, not like the little place that we went to the night before, where the guys actually managed to wreck the scenery as you could see in one of the pictures.

At La Caramba, there were B-Boy Shows, more MCs, and two really good Beatboxers! One of them was Tiux-Machine www.myspace.com/tiuxmachine Quite a show! And TV was there again. I had the feeling Coco, the promoter of the event, is pretty organized when it comes to media presentation, which is very important!

There is a lot of gang crime in Honduras as well. Tegucigalpa lies on one side of the river Choluteca. On the other side of the river you find the city Comayaguela, where according to my taxi driver every family has at least one member in the Mara Salvatrucha.

The day after the dance battle, a graffiti battle was being held in the skate park Parque Balboa. I got there late. It was actually mostly over and the writers from Guatemala were throwing T-Shirts into the crowd – damn, I didn’t get one – shoulda been on time! Since the jam was over, I hopped onto a pickup truck with a bunch of writers and went back into town. Part of the crew was DJ Freddie B from Guatemala, who had been a very successful DJ in LA and now moved back to his home country. He was supposed to DJ at an event this evening, but the event got cancelled – don’t ask me why…

El Salvador is the smallest country in Central America and the most densely populated one. I didn’t see much of the country apart from the capital San Salvador though, where I was invited to a Hip Hop Event! I was welcomed by Manyu and Milo aka Lil B-Boy. Milo does a lot for the scene. He organizes events, networks with other countries, gets gigs abroad for the Salvadorian B-Boys and in his workshops he not only teaches breaking, but also talks about the history of the culture—he really sticks to the “each one teach one” mentality of Hip Hop. Milo also has the one and only Hip Hop website of the country, www.expresionurbanasv.es.tl