May 21st 1972 happened to be a historical day. It was the day when future rap legend Christopher Wallace, better known as the “Notorious B.I.G.”, was born. Throughout the years, he collected more iconic nicknames, including B.I.G., Biggie or Biggie Smalls.

Photo by: Barron Claiborne

In his early days, he seems destined for greatness with impressive accomplishments in school. But at the age of 13, his mother starts to lose control of her life and Wallace decides to persue a life on the streets, first by kicking rhymes in the neighbourhood, later living the life of a hustler.
Until Biggie drops out of school, his mother thinks he makes his money as cashier in the supermarket. But although she finds out that he was dealing drugs instead, she never looses faith in her son.
Luckily, the music always stays a constant part of his life and ultimately leads him to quit dealing and he makes rapping his priority.

Contacts to Big Daddy Kane’s DJ, Mister Cee, give him his first chance in the music business. A few tracks of B.I.G., passed through the right hands, find their way to ambitious businessman and Uptown Records appointee Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs, who, at this point, is searching for a new artist in the style of LL Cool J. Biggie’s weight and “bouncer”face make Puffy change his plans, but don’t decrease his motivation. He wants to make Christopher the first “ugly sexsymbol”.

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Melissa Arnette “Missy” Elliot is one of the most famous personalities in the music biz today, as a rapper, singer, songwriter, producer and actress. The five-time Grammy Award winner sold over seven million records in the USA is the only female rapper to have six albums certified platinum by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) including one double platinum for her 2002 album “Under Construction”.

In addition, she has worked extensively as a songwriter and producer for other artists, both alone and with her fellow producer and childhood friend Timbaland, with whom she received her first production credit on R&B singer Ginuwine’s 1996′s album “Ginuwine… The Bachelor”.

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Locking (originally Campbellocking) is a style of funk dance, which is also associated with hip hop. The name is based on the concept of locking movements, which basically means freezing from a fast movement and “locking” in a certain position, holding that position for a short while and then continuing in the same speed as before.

It relies on fast and distinct arm and hand movements combined with more relaxed hips and legs. The movements are generally large and exaggerated, and often very rhythmic and tightly synced with the music. Locking is quite performance oriented, often interacting with the audience by smiling or giving them a high five, and some moves are of comical nature. A dancer who performs locking is called a locker. Lockers commonly use a distinctive dress style, such as colorful clothing with stripes and suspenders.

Locking was originally danced to traditional funk music, such as that produced or performed by James Brown. Funk music is still commonly favored by locking dancers, and used in many competitions such as the locking division of “Juste Debout”. Locking movements create a strong contrast towards the many fast moves that are otherwise performed quite continuously, combined with mime style performance and acting towards the audience and other dancers. Locking includes quite a lot of acrobatics and physically demanding moves, such as landing on one’s knees and the split.

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Krumping, also spelled Krumpin, is a street dance popularized in the United States that is characterized by free, expressive, exaggerated, and highly energetic movement involving the arms, head, legs, chest, and feet. The youths who started krumping saw the dance as a way for them to escape gang life and “to release anger, aggression and frustration positively, in a non-violent way.”

The root word “Krump” came from the lyrics of a song in the 90s. It is sometimes spelled K.R.U.M.P., which is a backronym for Kingdom Radically Uplifted Mighty Praise, presenting krumping as a faith-based artform. Krumping was created by two dancers: Ceasare “Tight Eyez” Willis and Jo’Artis “Big Mijo” Ratti in South Central, Los Angeles, California during the early 2000s. Clowning is the less aggressive predecessor to krumping and was created in 1992 by Thomas “Tommy the Clown” Johnson in Compton, CA. In the 1990s, Johnson and his dancers, the Hip Hop Clowns, would paint their faces and perform clowning for children at birthday parties or for the general public at other functions as a form of entertainment.

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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:

Finals hip hop new style 2011:

2011 recap:

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 €