2003 (Full)

Bboy Bgirl Summit ~ Strictly Bboy Bgirl Business was incredible! Truly the best one in years, probably I dare say 2012. Maybe I’m tripin, and I probably am since you really can’t match the years that people stormed into the Summit in droves, all styles together in solidarity, it was like a symphony of styles, flavas, all mixed up in the pot dished up fresh and hot.. that is Summit, so tasty you just want more! The theme this year was Pros 2 Proteges, in ode to 2012’s theme that included panel and battle series delving into mentorship, and how the artforms of Hip-Hop, in this case, breakin, gets passed along through the generations. It was cool having Ken Swift + Flomaster, and Alien Ness + Tyquan + Moose, and Ervin + Lily Breeze as examples of this theme. We must credit and give thanks to the United Hip-Hop Vanguard for the major support for this panel which is in line with the UHHV mission of supporting regrowth of Hip-Hop through education, music, and leadership of Black and Brown people. The Strictly Business theme ripped from EPMD (thanks Big Jeff), our star guests, brought everything together lovely. We topped it off with Prince Paul (thanks to Illijahbeats for the rec), his featured career keynote, and the ultimate Bboy Breaks DJ Jazzy Jay! Doesn’t get much juicer than that but add that West Coast funk with Jungle Fire (thank you Ervin), and Dezzy Hollow (thanks to Dyno for the rec) and now we got a partay! I do believe the crowd this year was almost doubled of last year, probably with 2,000 Sunday at Grand Park this year, and a larger turnout Saturday too for the mix sets by Ervin Arana, Shortkut, Jazzy Jay, Prince Paul, XL Middleton. We mixed in the battles, the Bgirl 7 to Smoke kicked it all off, and the Bgirls went hard, it was a fight to the finish but Kate hit 7 and took the W. The Poppin 2v2 was funky fresh and the talent was exceptionally high level! The requirement of having a routine seemed to really up the ante as well. Armani and Smurfzation repping AZ took it, and all da smoke too. The 3v3 was super hype without a doubt! It could have been anyone’s day, the Bboy trios were outstanding, I thought maybe Middle Beast was going to take it, but the all-star team of Illson, Samo, and Victor was too diverse and flavorful to beat that day. The real stars were all the DJs! Super shout out to XL Middleton who brought the funk to new levels that night and DJ Shortkut who was cutting and scratching all night long! It was cool seeing the crowd enjoying bugging out to Prince Paul’s party rock set too.

Lets get to the main course…EPMD. what more can I say, they are now officially my fave Hip-Hop group. Total package, official NY creed, production, lyrics, delivery, content.. sold and I’m buying! But leading up to all that was so much goodness, starting out with the opening ceremony traditional Chinese Lion Dance by East Wind Lion Dancers. Being that we are right by Chinatown we wanted to pay homage and bring culture forward. The visual demo was so playfully colorful again our Strictly Business banner artwork, the kids in the audience were mesmerized and overjoyed! We started the kids battle right after and the energy was lit!! We had plenty of kid competitors that wanted to showcase their budding bboy skills. We picked just four of the best to battle and Gokito took it, upsetting the reigning champ Flowskills. The future looks bright and shout out to the great teachers out there including We Break, Little Rock, and Venom bringing up the next generation. We wanted to light up the stage with lots of great dancing this year with a showcase of all the styles including Locking (thanks to Adobolock for coordination) with LA Locking Lab and Funktionpoint along with Flomaster, Khi, D Rock, and Kleen, they brought the social dance element and took the stage over! Love eternal to the creator of Locking Don Campbellock. LA Boppin Crew had to represent of course their Poplock and Bop hit style. We performed our current show as No Easy Props, and got busy breakin and locking, while Zulu Gremz, and his family, Sophia and Izzy finish out the showcase with a Struttin routine. I think thats one of the things that makes the Summit so special is the multiple generations involved, our kids, the elders, we are all together in Hip-Hop community and both the performers and crowd really reflected that! Big shout out to our Fortify Our Rebel Youth teen tent (thank you Koko and Monica), full of comfy blow-up furniture, phone charging stations, games, and snacks, it was the hip spot for teens to connect and chill. Meanwhile the Graff heads were getting up on the panels with Nasa crew repping along with King Cre8, Gaso and Dewy. It’s not the Summit if there is no graffiti, remember that. The music was paramount, breaks by Jazzy Jay followed by live set by Jungle Fire with Bboys and Bgirls on stage catching wreck, and an illmatic sexy NYC inspired party rock set by Prince Paul before the ultraheavyweight performance by EPMD!! The crowd was bugging and we were all in Hip-Hop force together. It felt magical, God blessed us undoubtably, as we asked Him to bring the people to hear His word, the gospel of Jesus Christ. When we are obedient and faithful there is nothing God won’t do to bring His glory forward. Amen!

The Summit Reborn theme proved to be prophecy. Based on so much feedback people really felt the Summit was back! The feeling & balance of a well-produced and orchestrated jam still with the spontaneity and the freestyle fun and consciousness of Hip-Hop was Summit this year!

But it does all really start with intention we don’t believe in doing anything randomly and just for the sake of doing it but to keep showing up in new in relevant ways to keep raising the bar in the standards of excellence in hip-hop culture and to always do better than we did last year and never repeat ourselves is the goal. Saturday started off with a bang at a new location that we hope to have a semi-permanent home at which is West Hollywood‘s Plumber Park Fiesta hall. We initially had a partnership that did not move forward and since we had already announced the battle categories we needed to continue without the financial support of the sponsorship. This proved challenging for us but through the goodwill of a lot of people and some companies coming along side of us towards the last moments we were able to follow through on everything that we intended for the community. The battles were dope because of the high level of talent and everybody’s good-natured vibes even if some of judging calls were of course subjective. Why? Because judging art and dance is always going to be subjective LOL! Olympics try to figure that one out nudge nudge. This was our 10th anniversary of The Color Wars Crew Battle, the Alien Ness curated concept. This year we didn’t have TC Islam (rest in peace) to host he was definitely an amazing MC host, but Funky Maya from Mexico did a great job! Good call on that LoRock! Got to give credit where credit is due this isn’t a one woman show there are several people that you see at the Summit running things that contribute greatly to this event, shoutouts to Yaya! The beauty of Summit is there’s so many people that care about it that cut their teeth on it that just love it for all that it was and still is and they want to contribute to it so it is because of these people that we can continue moving this event forward into a new time with new faces. I will say on Saturday that I feel we did a disservice to the poppers and to the Funk Freaks. The Funk Freaks our incredible band of DJs and entrepreneurs that really curate funk extraordinarily. We intended on having this really super fresh popping patio that’s pretty spacious and just have it just going off the whole day. But due to unforeseen circumstances and requirements last minute by the venue we weren’t able to use the whole patio and we had to squish everything in a small space. On top of that the tent we originally had didn’t fit and so we had to make do and it looked a little bit poorly executed. It made me realize that I think it’s important to return to bringing everybody back into one room and even if there are multiple rooms kind of rotating what’s going on in different rooms so everybody gets the main stage the big room and we all integrate together because that’s really what Hip-Hop is so we can connect with one another and learn more about the different artforms that we don’t practice. Poppers we’re gonna do you better next year although you are a fickle bunch lol! And you really need to listen to the OG‘s ha ha! We already got the idea to cook up a really beautiful show for next year so get ready for that.

Sunday was epic truly it really was the Summit, and everybody knows that they have to bear the heat of Grand Park everybody knows it’s always hot the weekend of Summit and we just enjoy it we enjoy the rosy cheeks brown people in the sun Black people glass with melon all that good stuff! The talent was extraordinary! But it’s Hip-Hop so what else would you expect?! One of the cherries this year was Grand Wizard Theodore a very cool man and expert artist and an all-around community around the way brother. And I say that because he loves hip-hop, he is hip-hop, and he knows hip-hop when he hears it, he was really excited by Skeme Richards and what Skeme was playing and couldn’t wait to connect with him. That’s love right there! Battlecat was a big win for us this year and we really wanna express our thanks to him for getting on board with us of course he brought the heat everybody was so excited that he was going to be at Summit he plays no games he’s all business in raw skills. He definitely threw down a heavy set for everyone to appreciate. Gaslamp killer and the funky geometrics I’ll leave that one for you to decide lol Gaslamp Killer is an innovator and an expressional is abstract in every way shape and form. The highlight of course is Farside yes spelled differently I got tired of hearing all the people clown on me on social media thinking I didn’t know how to spell their name. I didn’t even ever bother responding because “I’m a lady” in my best Martin voice. I gots to say watching those brothers work that stage they were so happy with the vibe of the Summit it was definitely their cup of tea as they said, and we are just all parlay together doing hip-hop like we know how. I even started liking those little roundhouse kicks that Imani does LOL! Some of the finest emcees, we take our hats off to them and honor them on their 30-year anniversary of the bizarre ride to The Far side. I can’t front that ultimate circle for Grand Wizard Theodore‘s set was really on some BBoy Bgirl-ish. We got to remember what the Summit is all about, bringing all the other elements together to pay respect to the Bboy and Bgirls and the original dance of Hip-Hop called breaking! We got some really good time with the crowd to talk to discuss issues going on in our communities and world. I really believe based on a lot of feedback again that we felt everyone was on one accord. In a strange world we live in Hip-Hop is our saving grace given to us by none other than the creator magnificent magnifico himself our Lord! Shoutouts to the kids from the kids battle and shout outs to Zulu Gremlin and Ken Swift with the Bonnie and Clyde presentation this year that was a lot of
No Easy Props P.O. Box 741060 LA, CA 90004 P: 310.402.4519 Web: www.noeasyprops.org
fun and we’re happy to see such a great concept back on the map. Led by two extraordinary hip-hop gents. What more can I say the young folks are coming up! They’re getting better and that doesn’t mean we’re irrelevant it just means that we need to keep teaching them showing up for them providing cultural experiences so that they know that they are not alone. It’s not all about them and we are a community strong and intact moving together forward so thank you to all of you out there all you Summit aficionados we’re gonna keep doing the best we can for a community God willing will see you in 2023 peace!

No Easy Props, Inc.
PO Box 741060
Los Angeles, CA. 90004
info@noeasyprops.org

Bboy Bgirl Summit 2021
Back to Basix
July 17-18

We are bringing back the Summit basics and keeping things fresh and no frills for the summer. Relying on community connection through great music with headliner DJs, live funk n soul band, dance cyphers, breakin battles, poppin battles, live graffiti by top LA writers/crews, BayLA Showcase, West Coast 2000’s breakin panel, NY Hip-Hop Breakin history panel, special workshops by NY + WC finests!
This is a family friendly all ages event, $5 donation per day.

Highlights include:
DJ Hollywood, Hip-Hop’s 1st DJ, Rapper, Entertainer from NYC Spinning + Keynote Talk in
Dancin Doug Original 1st Generation Bboy of Kool Herc’s Herculoids Keynote Talk in
Alien Ness Bronx Style Bboy Wreckshop Bboy/Bgirl Workshop and Breakin Battle Judge
DJ Soulrane Breaking Battle DJ
Bopn Dre Originator of the Boppin Style, Judging the Popping Battle
DJ LuMan Afterparty DJ and Party Motivator
DJ Silky D LA’s First Female Hip-Hop DJ Spinning that WC Poplocking Music for the Female Robot Contest + LABay Strutting and Popping Showcase
Ervin Arana Cypher DJ + Battle Prelims
Fayzo Original member of Demons of the Mind & Leader of Medea Sirkas Popping Judge
Boogie Frantick member of MZK Popping Judge
Funk Freaks Santa Ana’s own Holding Down the Funk for SoCal!
Medusa Legendary LA Rapper Artist Feline Science Leader and Female Robot Contest Judge
Robot Prince First Funky Robot Special Guest Judge for the Female Robot Contest
Zulu Gremlin Hip-Hop Icon and Artist Host of Bboy Summit
Tiff Starr cofounder of Meeting in the Ladies Room Spinning the Kids Break Battle and Cyphers
Mike The Cure KHCA Innovator of Bboying in the 2000s Breakin Battle Judge and Panelist
Reveal Rock Force Innovator Bboy Breakin Battle Judge Naytron HeadHunters Crew/Renegades Innovator Bboy West Coast’s 2000’s Breakin Panel
Vietnam Rock Force Innovator Bboy West Coast 2000’s Breakin Panel
Live Graffiti by Markski, Cre8, Trixter, Mark 7, Maos, Ladie, Abomb, Fearo, Honor, Ghastly Dgonz, Ailaone, Ezra, Cache, Teal, Mosh, Size, Este, Thus and Kaliko

Day 1: 1-8pm The Graff Lab 1038 Venice Blvd 90015 SAT. AFTER PARTY @Escala 3451 W 6th St. 9pm- 12 DJ LuMan Free

Day 2: 1-8pm Chucos Justice Center 7625 S Central Ave 90001

www.bboysummit.com FB page: https://tinyurl.com/458xwhrr
Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/161405713835

This event is made possible in part by support from the Department of Cultural Affairs Los Angeles.