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Breakdancing Television You Control,” The Box gained popularity for video multiple times in one day. Its early technology was playing videos that MTV and VH1 would not play, more about the ability to provide audiences with the particularly hip hop videos. In its prime the network music videos they wanted to see than a futuristic viewing reached about 30 million households (Thompson 2016), experience. Also, with viewers in charge, there was no introducing viewers to such acts as 2 Live Crew, Sir mechanism for limiting how many times a video could be Mix-a-Lot (Anthony Ray, 1963–), and Vanilla Ice (Robert played within a day. Nevertheless, The Box continued to Matthew Van Winkle, 1967–). By providing a space for gain viewership through the 1990s and at its height was hip hop videos to reach wider audiences, The Box helped available on 115 stations. hip hop grow as a genre and culture. Money problems and issues with cable affiliates that Vending machine entrepreneur and mortgage broker felt the content was too controversial eventually led to Steve A. Peters (1945?–) founded the Video Jukebox The Box’s downfall. In 1999 MTV bought the network Network in 1985. Three years later he received a patent and turned it into MTV2. The Box’s influence is visible for his video jukebox system, in which television viewers on MTV’s hit video request show Total Request Live would call a phone number and enter a code that allowed (1998–2008; 2017–), which began airing in 1998. In them to make up to three video selections. A computer 2010 cable music service Music Choice revived the would then prepare the video for broadcast, and the concept of The Box by launching Music Choice Play, a viewer’s telephone company would charge a fee anywhere video request network driven largely by social media. from $0.99 to $2.99 for the request. Information about SEE ALSO Campbell, Luther “Luke”; Commercial Hip Hop; how viewers could request videos would be displayed Culture Wars; Entrepreneurialism; Miami; Payola; between videos on the lower part of the screen while the Video Music Box; Yo! MTV Raps videos were playing. Investors in the new network included Communications Equity Associates, Tele- Communications Inc., the Newhouse brothers (the media BIBLIOGRAPHY moguls behind Condé Nast), and Island Records. By Communications Equity Associates. “The Box: Thinking outside 1990 the network was known simply as The Box. the Box.” http://www.ceaworldwide.com/about-cea-group Peters launched the network in Miami, Florida. The /cea-highlights---transforming-business/the-box network’s first hosts were the Miami Boyz, a local rap Cuff, Daniel F. 1988. “Video Jukebox Network Appoints Its New ” group. The network then launched in Jacksonville before Chief. New York Times, November 11, 1988. http://www .nytimes.com/1988/11/11/business/business-people-video spreading across the nation to other local cable affiliates. -jukebox-network-appoints-its-new-chief.html During its fifteen-year run, The Box catered to local “ ’ Thompson, Barry. 2016. The Box: How a Forgotten TV audiences desires, revealing the growing popularity of hip Network Changed Music and Predicted the Future.” Thrillist, hop. The network began showing hip hop videos years August 12, 2016. https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment before MTV. Even after MTV started playing hip hop, /nation/the-box-tv-channel-changed-music MTV avoided airing risqué content, whereas The Box fulfilled this demand for audiences. For example, 2 Live Crew, a controversial Miami-based rap crew, found great Courtney Cain success on The Box. At one point they were the network’s most requested artist, and their video for “Pop That” (1991) reached a wide audience despite being banned from MTV. BREAKBEAT DJing Other hip hop artists who gained popularity due to SEE DJing. The Box include Heavy D and the Boyz, Sir Mix-a-Lot, and Vanilla Ice. Although musical artists from other genres, such as R. Kelly (Robert Sylvester Kelly, 1967–), Brandy (Brandy Rayana Norwood, 1979–), Madonna BREAKDANCING – (Madonna Louise Ciccone, 1958 ), Green Day, and Breakdancing began in the South Bronx, New York, in – Britney Spears (1981 ), also gained viewership and fans the 1970s as an underground dance movement. As ’ on The Box, hip hop artists were the network s main Elizabeth Burbach observes in her 2013 essay in Voices: success story. For hip hop artists the network provided a Journal of New York Folklore, breakdancing “became an launchpad and testing ground for mainstream success. alternative to gang fighting: that is, a non-violent The Box was known not only for helping up-and- resolution to the problems of the street through the coming hip hop artists reach a wider audience but also for creative use of the body, mind, and space without its low-quality aesthetic and penchant for playing the same weapons” (32). Breakdancing often involves groups of ST. JAMES ENCYCLOPEDIA OF HIP HOP CULTURE 51 Breakdancing performers, although it can also feature soloists. Break- inspired the breakdance, DJs began using two turntables dancing groups are known as crews, and the competitions to loop and repeat the break so that the dancers could in which they participate are called battles. dance for a longer time than they could with a single Breakdancers are known as B-boys and B-girls. Along groove. with the dancers themselves, hip hop aficionados prefer In her 2006 article in Clergy Journal, Richelle White the terms B-boying or breaking to breakdancing. In her identifies breakdancing as one of nine central components description of hip hop in The Grove Dictionary of of hip hop. The others are MCing, DJing, graffiti art, American Music (2013), musicologist Felicia Miyakawa beatboxing, street fashion, street language, street knowl- argues that the term breakdancing represents the perspec- edge, and street entrepreneurialism. Of the nine elements tive of a cultural outsider, whereas B-boying/B-girling is the identified by White and others, four are integral to a hip preferred term. Various interpretations exist for what the hop aesthetic: DJing, MCing, breakdancing/B-boying/ “B” stands for in B-boy and B-girl, including “break,” B-girling, and graffiti art. “Bronx,”“beat,” and “battle.” Regardless of the gender of the performer, B-boying tends to be preferred over RISING POPULARITY B-girling. Breakdancing became a part of mainstream culture in America in the early 1980s, especially due to the ORIGINS popularity of the Rock Steady Crew, who appeared in The origins of breakdancing trace to the “break” aDJ the movie Flashdance (1983). The Rock Steady Crew would incorporate into his or her performance. During effectively transitioned breakdancing and B-boying from this break the vocals would fade out into a purely an underground localized movement into a global instrumental groove, most frequently a funk or soul phenomenon. Several other groups also promoted the recording, offering the dancers on the floor an opportuni- style, including the organizers for the closing ceremony of ty to improvise and display their virtuosity. The DJs, too, the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games and the producers displayed physical finesse in the art of spinning and for films such as Wild Style (1983), Style Wars (1983), scratching records—it was customary to use multiple Breakin’ (1984), Beat Street (1984), and Breakin’ 2: records during a single song. To create the break that Electric Boogaloo (1984). However, as Miyakawa notes, Breakers “Les Twins” Larry (left) and Laurent (right) Bourgeois of France and Hongyul “Hong 10” Kim (center) of Korea in Italy, 2015, at the Red Bull BC One, an annual international breaking competition. HANDOUT/GETTY IMAGES 52 ST. JAMES ENCYCLOPEDIA OF HIP HOP CULTURE Breakdancing “B-boys had a short media life, virtually disappearing from (movements intended to demonstrate physical strength).” the big screen by the late 1980s until revival films such as A debate surrounds the aesthetic merits of air moves and Planet B-Boy (2007) brought the dance back to popular power moves in contrast with dancing that incorporates attention” (2013). subtler and less flashy technical skills. As Schloss explains, “Since the ’90s … there has been an ideological split in DANCE TRAITS the b-boy world between those who favor more acrobatic ‘power moves’ and ‘air moves’ and those who favor the Some of the characteristics of breakdancing include call- traditional, intricate, and rhythmic style” (2009, 12). and-response participation in a cypher, represented as a circle of performers. The word cypher (also spelled as Regardless of the debate, all of the intricacies of cipher) derives from the Five Percent Nation (FPN), a breakdancing are integral to its competitive spirit. Break- movement founded in 1964 by Clarence 13X (1928– dancing has even influenced other essential elements of 1969), who was known as “Father Allah” to FPN hip hop. For example, while the DJs do not breakdance, devotees. According to Joseph Schloss in Foundation: they nonetheless incorporate flamboyant movements and B-Boys, B-Girls, and Hip-Hop Culture in New York, the tricks into their record spins and scratches. As Mark Katz FPN used the term cypher to denote “the circle of onlookers describes in Capturing Sound: How Technology Has “ in which the dance is performed” (2009, 13). Changed Music (2004), DJs often employ what are called ‘body tricks.’ These moves do not—or should not—affect The circle formation is a performative feature of the sound of the routine, but add to its visual appeal or many black and African American practices, and break- level of difficulty” (126). dancing is no exception. As Halifu Osumari writes in a 2002 essay in the Dance Research Journal, the “improvisa- tional circle [allows] each soloist to demonstrate his or her A WORLDWIDE PHENOMENON skills while encoding gestural messages into the executed Breakdancing has become so popular that it has inspired ” movement phrases (33).

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