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Dancers’ ABC: J = Juste Débout

Shorty — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 15:21:53 +0000

Juste Debout (“just upright”) is an international, annual dance competition founded by Bruce Ykanji and focuses on street dance styles. The four main categories are hip hop new style, house, locking and popping.

Juste Debout was initially held in 2002 in Paris, France, and has since then returned each year around February. The 2006 edition was the first to feature a number of linked events (so called pre-selections) in countries outside of France, with the finals being held in Paris. This allowed Juste Debout to reach a larger and more international audience. The preselections are held in countries all over the world, including Japan, Canada, Spain, Ireland, Netherlands, Germany and more.

While the first battle in 2002 took place in a regular gym, it has become the biggest urban dance battle and needs the space of France’s biggest stadium today. The main events of Juste Debout consists of two on two battles in which two dancers work as a team trying to outperform the opposite couple in a specific dance style category. The music is chosen by the Juste Debout DJs and the dancers are not told of the songs in advance.

Juste Debout will take place in Bercy stadium, Paris, on March 11, 2012! Make sure to catch some video highlights after the jump!

Back in 2002:

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Finals hip hop new style 2011:

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2011 recap:

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Dancers’ ABC: I = IBE

troj — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 14:43:35 +0000

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.

The festival‘s visitors can watch or participate in about 35 dance programs in 10 different locations called “Cyphers”. Each year, the IBE invites world renowned dancers (breakdancers, lockers, poppers, house dancers), DJ’s, photographers, video editors and special guests from the international dance scene.

The program includes dance battles, workshops, talk shows, dance shows and music performances. The IBE entrance ticket gives free access to all “Cyphers” and activities during the event.

The IBE is commonly known for presenting special dance programs like “Seven2Smoke” and the “Longest BBoy Move Battle”. In recent years the “Trukendoos XL TrickBattle”, the “Footwork Battle” and the “Powermove Battle” have grown in popularity.
Since 2008 IBE is hosting the European Finals of the UK BBoy Championships. With 80 crews participating, it’s the biggest Breakdance Crew Battle in Europe.

Soup of the Day: Crew Boot

troj — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 16:44:07 +0000

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 €

Soup of the Day: Shorty H1top LE

troj — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 17:55:19 +0000

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

Soup of the Day: College Jacket

troj — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 15:29:22 +0000

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

Dancers’ ABC: H = Hype Williams

troj — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:31:35 +0000

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”.

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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.

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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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Nas ft. Laurin Hill “If I ruled the world”

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R. Kelly “I belive I can fly”

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Pharrell Williams “Angel”

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Lil’ Wayne ft. Corey Gunz “6 Foot, 7 Foot”

Soup of the Day: 93.0 FM Tee

troj — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 10:57:27 +0000

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

Dancers’ ABC: G = Ghettoblaster

troj — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 17:37:29 +0000

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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Soup of the Day: Keep’em Cozy Jacket

troj — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 11:58:46 +0000

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

Dancers’ ABC: F = Funk

troj — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 16:41:33 +0000

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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Named after a slang word for “stink,” funk was indeed the rawest, most primal form of R&B. It was also the least structured, often stretching out into extended jams, and the most Africanized, built on dynamic, highly syncopated polyrhythms. The groove was the most important musical element of funk – all the instruments of the ensemble played off of one another to create it, and worked it over and over. Deep electric bass lines often served as main riffs, with an interlocking web of short, scratchy guitar chords and blaring horns over the top. Funk bands were just as likely to repeat a catchy chant or hook out of the blue to give different song sections equal weight and to avoid disrupting the groove by building to a chorus-type climax. In essence, funk allowed more freedom and improvisation.

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Sly & the Family Stone “ Everyday People”