The Notorious IBE (international breakdance event) was founded in 1998 in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Between 1998 and 2006 the event took place in the Nighttown Music Theatre in Rotterdam. In 2008, after a two year break, the festival moved to the city of Heerlen in the South of the Netherlands. Today, the IBE is an annual 3 day festival, gathering more than 10.000 visitors from all over the world. Unlike many other hip hop dance events, the IBE is set up as a 3 day festival.

Highlight of the festival is the “All Battles All”, a special program in which the top dancers of countries or continents are being selected to compete in a 3 story arena without judges and time limits. In recent years the All Battles All featured teams from the USA, Korea, Japan, Russia/Ukraine and Europe. In 2011 the Latin American continent was represented for the first time by a team with dancers from Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela.

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Yes, Jack Frost is having a little attitude problem right now, but we can hook you up with the right pair of shoes for every weather! The K1X Shorty Crew Boot is out now! 89,90 €

The latest edition of the K1X Shorty H1top is equipped with a premium leather upper and wool lining. Out now, 79,90 €.

The Shorty college jacket with mixed materials and a very unique collar in white/navy. Out now for 89,90 €!

Harold “Hype” Williams was born in Queens, New York in 1970. From 1991 until today, he has been one of the biggest and most influential music video and film directors. His nickname “Hype” comes from his hyperactive nature as a child. He first displayed his work by tagging local billboards, storefronts and playgrounds, using “HYPE” as his graffiti tag. “That’s probably what stimulated my interests in color”, he says. “I wanted to be Basquait or Keith Haring of the streets”.

Hype’s videos set new standards in the business and he turns everything he does into something special. In 2006, Hype got venerated with MTV’s VMA “Video Vanguard Award” for his work on memorable clips, starring big names like The Notorious B.I.G., Tupac, Jay-Z and Mariah Carey. Kanye West, who presented the award to him, especially honered Hype’s signature style. Williams was the first who used the “Fisheye lense”, which distorted the camera view around the central focus (as seen in Busta Rhymes “Gimme some more”) and videos, where he placed shots in regular widescreen ratio, while a second shot is split and placed in the upper and lower bars. This technique was used in many videos, like Beyoncé’s “Check on it” or “So sick” by Ne-Yo.

Since 2003, Williams has adopted a signature style combining a center camera focus on the artist or actor’s body from the torso upward and a solid color background with a soft different-color light being shown in the center of the background. This technique allows a sense of illumination of the background by the foreground subject, as seen, for instance, in Kanye West’s “Gold Digger” or “Video Phone” by Beyoncé and Lady Gaga. When Kanye West held his laudation on Hype, he said: “If you wanna be number one, you gotta work hard, you gotta pray hard… and you gotta get Hype Williams!”

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Don’t mess with the radio! One-shoulder 93,0 fm t-Shirt with breezy batsleeves. 27,90 €

Some of you may remember it, some probably still have one and even some of you have only seen one in old 80s movies or video clips: the ghettoblaster, or also called boombox. They were used, long before mp3 players and cellphones made it possible to carry your music around.
Ghettoblasters were introduced commercially by various companies in the late 1970s, when stereo capabilities were added to existing designs of the radio-cassette recorder, which had appeared earlier that decade. More powerful and sophisticated models were subsequently introduced. They are often associated with 1980s phenomena such as breakdancing and hip hop culture, having been introduced into the mainstream consciousness through music videos, movies, television and documentaries. It was during this time that the major manufacturers competed as to who could produce the biggest, loudest, clearest-sounding, bassiest, flashiest and/or most novel boomboxes.

As the decade progressed, manufacturers tended to compete more on price (often at the expense of quality), and smaller designs (often designed for simple background listening) became more popular. This era was prior to the introduction and cultural entrenchment of the Walkman style, personal stereos with headphones which would later displace ghettoblasters in popularity.
Until today, boomboxes stand as a symbol for hip hop music, breakdance and old school and many people collect them passionately.

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Keeps you warm and catches some eyes along the way. 129,90 €. Available in blue/white and black/red.

Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s, when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable form of music. The roots of funk lay in James Brown’s post-1965 soul hits, particularly “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” (1965) and “Cold Sweat” (1967). Sly & the Family Stone, who started out as a soul band influenced by rock and psychedelia, became a full-fledged (albeit pop-savvy) funk band with their album “Stand!” (1969). However, the record that officially ushered in the funk era was James Brown’s epochal “Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine.” The arrangement was spare, the groove hard-hitting, and Brown’s lyrics were either stream-of-consciousness slogans or wordless noises. Brown followed it with more records over the course of 1970 that revolutionized R&B, and paved the way for the third artist of funk’s holy trinity, George Clinton. Thanks to Sly, Brown, and Clinton, many R&B acts adopted funk as a central style during the 70s. It also had a major impact on jazz and became the musical foundation of hip-hop.

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Launched in 2006, the “Express Your Style” battle has taken place in Munich for six times now and is a unique event in Germany. Over 700 international dancers compete with one another in categories including Locking, Hip Hop, Popping and House, exhibiting their own style. To maintain the battle’s high artistic, authentic and quality standards, there is an international approved jury, consisting of the best dancers the hip hop scene has to offer. The result is an exchange between established artists of the scene and young, aspiring dancers.

Watch out for the next edition of “Express your Style” in May, 2012!

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You have certainly seen this dance before. Kids pull out in the club all the time: leaning side to side, putting their arms out front and running their hands over their heads? That’s the “Dougie”! A dance trend, that came along with the Jerk, the Cat Daddy and others.

The original dance was developed in Dallas, Texas by a hip hop artist and beatbox pioneer named Doug E. Fresh. Today’s version – made popular by Cali Swag District and others – is a modified version of the original that was first shown in a music video by Lil Wil called “My Dougie.”

“One of our friends from Inglewood went to Texas Southern University and he came back on a break and mentioned that the dance was hot out there.” says C-Smoove of Cali Swag District. “He knew how to do it, and he was like, ‘Ya’ll should make a song about this.’ So, he came up with the concept and we just went to the studio and made it happen.”

Now that you know the history behind it, enjoy “Teach Me How to Dougie” by Cali Swag District!

This lightweight jacket with the eye-catching wrap-around logo will defenitely shelter you from the storm… Available in red/white or blue/white for 74,90 €

When you see people standing in a cricle, clapping, shouting and moving their bodies, while one person is in the middle, dancing and showing their best moves… that is what you call a cypher!

Dancers’ share their skills with others and feed off the crowd’s energy when in the cypher. But you cannot only dance in a circle: freestyle rap cyphers are also very common, it works the same way, just with words instead of moves of course… Maybe you can even get the chance to catch the magic of a cypher in Capoeira or African dances! And as you already know, we rule the cypher!

Catch more heat after the jump!

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Many dancers have made experiences with ballet during their life. It incorporates fundamental techniques for many other dance forms and is a great education for a dancer’s body tension and coordination. Ballet originated in the Italian Renissance courts of the 15th century as a dance interpretation of fencing and was further developed in France and Russia.

Not only does ballet inspire dancers from different genres but it’s part of our past collection books as well, as we worked with elegant and light-footed ballerinas.

Discover the three segments, that make up ballet, after the jump!

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Our female line “Shorty” has blown up like you thought it would. Here’s a look at our current window campaign at top-dog retailer “Snipes”, who’s store destinations include city centre locations in forty cities all over Germany and Austria. The images feature our homegirl Dinah as well as the lovely Katharina Wyrwich (aka the reigning Wies’n / Oktoberfest Playmate). Yeah, you might wanna google that. We rule the cypher.

For more, check out our latest lookbook!

Starting today, our Shorty Dancers’ ABC will spotlight household names that should not be missing in anyone’s dictionary, starting things off with Afrika Bambaataa. Along with Grandmaster Flash and DJ Kool Herc, he was known as part of the “Holy Trinity” of hip hop. His influence is still felt after more than 30 years and has been a corner stone for almost everyone who has worked in the business.

Inspired by the movie “Zulu”, Bambaataa shaped his own movement, the Universal Zulu Nation, which was all about spreading peace, unity, love and happiness and his means of conveying his message were various forms of the (perfoming) arts: deejaying, emceeing, dancing and graffiti. Before the crossfader was introduced to DJ sets, Bambaataa employed two DJs for his jam parties, that played their tracks in turn, so that the music would keep on playing. This was a revolutionary idea and paved the way to an entirely different experience of hip hop music.

Stay tuned for the next entry of our dictionary next week and check out a lot more examples of Afrika Bambaataa’s influence on fellow greats after the jump!

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We are proud to launch our brand new Shorty collection for the fall/winter 2011 season. You can check out the collection in its entirety in our K1X Shorty lookbook starring the talents of professional dancers Anja, Antoinette, Honji and Marie. Enjoy!

Go behind the scenes with our K1X Shorty crew of Anja, Antoinette, Honji and Marie and see the making of our new catalogue which will be released later this month!

… is the name of her in 2000 released debut album which quickly underlined that Rashia Fisher, better known by her stage name Rah Digga, is one of Hip Hop’s most skilled female MCs out there.

Doubts? Make sure you catch her live then. We were able to witness what she can do on stage this past Friday when she performed in Munich/Germany as one part of the lineup together with Smif-N-Wessun, Inspectah Deck and DJ Premier at the Rockin With The Best Jam. Just her and a DJ. No hype man, nothing. Straight spittin’ and most definitely no little kids rap. Harriet Thugman remains raw. Make sure you check out her latest album “Classic”, entirely produced by Nottz.

Rah Digga is wearing our K1X Shorty weather girl jacket.

More images after the jump! Photo Credit: Daniel Klein

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Just like the vibrant dance culture itself, K1X Shorty is constantly on the move. So what better inspiration could we find for our new Spring/Summer 2011 line than the city that never sleeps. Shot by Quazi Aisha, Larissa, Desiree, Shireen, Leslie and Nyne take center stage as we give you an in depth look at the new collection. Keep it glued to K1X.com as we will introduce the new faces of K1X Shorty right here over the course of the next few days.

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