A Conversation with Adolfo “Shabba-Doo” Quinones aka “Ozone” from Breakin and Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo

Posted on January 26, 2009

There’s an interview with Adolfo “Shabba-Doo” Quinones (aka “Ozone” from Breakin‘ and Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo) over at Blackpower.com. He talks about how he got into locking, what he’s up to these days and technology’s influence on today’ breakdancers:

We do have some dancers, today, that are doing some pretty spectacular things. You look and think, wow, look at that guy fly. Or, wow, that guy can do 50 head spins as opposed to the little Puerto Rican guy who could only do three back in the day. The big difference is the guy doing 50 head spins lacks the nutritional value. And that nutritional value can only come with time. We’re not allowing the soil time enough to repair itself, organically. If you have people who are viewing dance steps on YouTube so readily and quickly. What you have is people just copying from one another. Just copying, copying, copying. And we never get a sense of your own neighborhood.

That’s what I talked about earlier. Back then, you had east coast going on and you had the west coast going on. We didn’t know what you guys were doing.You’d seen some of the stuff we were doing because we were on TV, we had <i>Soul Train</i>. But we had time to let it settle and sink in. That’s no longer the case now. Now you got YouTube, which is a big problem. True art needs time to reflect. It needs time for these feelings and thoughts to inculcate themselves in our minds and our bodies. With technology, there’s no way for art to grow properly. Arts needs to be allowed to mature and enrich itself. Life can only be reflected in art if it has time to grow.So that’s what you have out there: a lot of junk, a lot of cotton candy. And YouTube is the McDonald’s of art and culture. Anybody with a camera can put anything they want on there, and it doesn’t have to be tested.

It’s like break dancing now. You don’t have break dancing. You have break flying. What made it beautiful back then was that they were bringing their experiences and those frustrations from the boroughs to the dance. Not the high flying stuff. It was organic, rich, my-momma’s-whooping-my-ass- I’mma-go-out-in-the-street-and-let-out-this-frustration kind of dancing. All that other stuff, based on tricks and flips, is Olympic dancing.

This is as interesting as it is ironic. Shabba-Doo starred in 2 movies that were detrimental to the b-boy scene (and doesn’t appear to be bothered by it) in the 80’s yet is dissing technological advancements which have helped spread and maintain a breakdancing scene all over the world. While he does have some valid points on Youtube’s impact on originality, he’s missing the big picture.

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I don’t think i agree with him. Youtube can be seen as a means of bringing the art to the mass and creating more exposure.

Moreover, just because someone views a clip on youtube, goes home and copies doesn’t mean their end product is crap.

Nor does it mean that person doesn’t being their own organic i-might live in-a- sweet house-with very-nice -wooden floors and vintage furniture- and don’t understand- the- notion -of -street. And more importantly doesn’t mean he doesn’t have his/her frustrations to bring to the table.

there is an assumption that the person on the receiving end doesn’t participate and is somehow uber nobby

technology is part of this crazy landscape of life, so homie should get with it. though i understand what he is trying to say.

sure there might be some crappy moves, but not all art in museums is that great either, but people take from it what they can and ish.

Comment by MB — January 27, 2009 #
A lot of older dancers harbor similar views because they came up in a time when originality was, to some extent, more of a big deal. Their style was their reputation and their livelihood. A lot of b-boys today break on the side; it’s part of their life but doesn’t always consume it…

But anyway, I think that’s why when Shabba-Doo and many others see something like Youtube, their first thought is how it kills originality more so than how it spreads the art and culture…

Comment by Ebun — January 28, 2009 #

Celebreak

A Conversation with Adolfo “Shabba-Doo” Quinones aka “Ozone” from Breakin and Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo

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