Good For The Soul

Wild Style, Style Wars, Beat Street and Breakin (Breakdance the movie in the UK) will be classic films to anyone with an interest in the b-boy or hip hop culture. It is now 25 years since many of these films hit our screens in 1984 and 1985. Whilst Style Wars and Wild Style are regarded by many as giving a more accurate and realistic account of the scene at that time, it was Breakin and Beat Street that were the most popular in the UK.

Even though I replayed the Turbo broom dance to Tour de France by Kraftwerk over and over and over from Breakin, Beat Street remains my favourite. As the streetsounds electro series was up to 5 at this time, the music featured was familiar to many and could have even been viewed as a little commercial. Apart from encoraging you to steal your mums lino from the kitchen floor, this type of film would influence fashions mostly from Puma and Nike. My strongest memory of this time was the two colour Nike Windrunner that was worn in Breakin’ by Turbo (as well as being copied the same jacket was released again by Nike a few years ago)

At the time of release and for a long time later I gave little or no thought to the history behind Beat Street or the people involved. It all started when a journalist Steven Hager started visiting the south bronx area of New York researching hip hop music, breakdancing and graffiti in the early eighties. During this time he wrote a script called The Perfect Beat which he took to various production companies in New York with the aim of giving an accurate and realistic view of the scene at that time. After attempts from executives to get him to sign over the rights to a film for small amounts, the script ended up being sold to The King of Calypso, Harry Belafonte, who to me is now far more famous for his Day-O in the banana boat song than the electro sounds of the eighties.

Belafonte was however keen to express a more positive story than what featured in the original script, so although Steven Hager gets writers credits on the film, the storyline (apart from a couple of characters) is much different. Whilst Steven Hager has since gone on record saying “My film was closer to Boyz in the Hood than the dream world they came up with” he has also stated that with age and the responsibility of a family he has sinced realised the motivations for the change.

The music for the film was by Arthur Baker who has had a very colourful career as a dj, producer and remixer from disco to hip hop to present day. Arthur has great links to Manchester through New Order and he is currently based in the UK and involved in the bar chain The Elbow Rooms. Also featured in the film, with equally great stories to tell, are Afrika Bambaataa & the Soul Sonic Force, Jazzy Jay, Doug E. Fresh, Grandmaster Melle Mel & the Furious Five, The Treacherous Three and Kool DJ Herc. Just as interesting but less publicised is the role of the two dance crews, The New York city Breakers and the Rock Steady Crew (Manchester of course had its own crew at this time called Broken Glass who had an association with Manchester DJ, Greg Wilson). More about Greg next time….

Buy Breakdance – The Movie [1984] [Widescreen] [DVD] & Beat Street [DVD] [1984]