Bboy Amjad, member of the mighty 7$brotherz, organiser of CIRCLEKINGZ, Write RYOS one the walls and MC in bboy Jams. Here is a selection of my favourite daily bboy videos and news. You can also follow me on INSTAGRAM "bboyamjad"
Seven Dollars Crew 7$ at Sarnen Jam back in the days from bboy Amjad on Vimeo.
When the background is done time to fill in the pieces with colour, inventing new paterns and new style....the goal is to do a different graff all the time
Little bboys theories while chilling in the plane …
BREAKING THE SPIRAL :
Globalisation has touched the world market as we all know, but during my 7 months trip i could witness that globalisation has affected more areas than big companies.
Musicwise : In every club of the world now they play the same kind of music (basiquely Rihnana/ladygaga/i dont even know their names techno remixes and that kind of stuff that anyway sounds the same)
Shopping wise : shopping malls over the whole planet have the same shops (Zara, H & M, etc..) and people dress the same allmost in every city
And in many other areas it s the same.
I can see that bboywise, we suffer from the same problem right now. Internet has changed the game in the way that people from everywhere can see bboys from all over the planet by clicking on their mouse.
I was recently in many countries…etc and i can see that one form(or let s call it style) of breakin is taking over.
In my bboys theories that i shared with Dj Renegade long long time ago, bboys were supposed to be now in the golden age of Breaking. (platinium age were the era from the real bboys that we try to imitate right now)
Golden age of breaking for me was the era where bboys finally are themselves with their unique style, far from the classic but respecting the foundation (music,style,forms,attitude,knowledge…).
So this is my joking version of bboy history :
In the late ninties and early 2000 during the tricks era, the majority of the bboys finally started listening to the beat, about 2004 then they listened to the music, about 2006 then they finally cared about their style (clothing and breaking) so they had to go back to the roots of breaking (the whole « fundation » of moves to get the bboy blueprint)-a lot of them changed add ROCK after their name or Rockers after their crew name hehehe and like a BIG BANG after getting back to the roots, bboys were supposed to go (according to me about 2009/2010) as far as possible from the roots, beeing themselves like in the dark era but mastering music, styles and foundations of this dance.
What i can see right now is that one style have taking over. This style is a mix of many fashion things, influenced by about 50 bboys (maybe less) and everywhere i have been 90% of the bboys have this style. I allmost can’t defined anymore the style of the country or the style of the personality of the person through his dance.
This globalisation of style is maybe because bboys look at each other too often (thanks to youtube, vimeo, facebook videos etc) that it looks that bboys are trapped in a style influenced by each other. This is what i call « The infernal Spiral »
We all know that we are influenced by what we see even if we don t want. By looking at each other so often it s hard to go on our own way. The more bboys look at each other breaking the more they gonna look alike without even noticing it. That’s why before crew member had the same kind of style because they were pacticing together all the time so they got all influenced by each other.
But with the number of videos online right now, it s not only crews that look alike but allmost the whole scene… What people should do is get out of the spiral.
The more bboys put videos of them ...the more they are gonna influenced the other bboys, even if thoses bboys don t byte…they can flip moves, flip flows and finally look a bit like you.
A dream would be to go in a lonley moutain bootcamping, practicing without any contact with other bboys. Developping the own style influenced by no one. And when this style is really defined and matured, show it to the world. Or do like a shadow to protect your style, never dance when there is cameras…just impressed people that see you live and continue your quest to be alone in your path.
What i just wrote on the plane is a bit of a joke and not THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH but i m just sharing Funny theories that i have inside.
Since I started Circlekingz in 2005, I always wanted to bring something real that was connected to the bboy culture, focusing on the vibe and atmosphere more than on any other stuff as big price money, big stage, paying guest to enter the jam, sleeping in bling bling hotel, etc.
Circlekingz was a jam made for the bboys and not for what I called the “civilians” (mainstream people who come to see a breakdance competition). That’s maybe the reason why I never had any big sponsors and also why I still keep on struggling to make it every year…
Moreover, I have always tried to bring CKZ from a point A to a point B, and that’s why Circlekingz has always kept on evolving through the years. Indeed, initially, CKZ was a normal competition that aimed to give a lot of time to the bboys to enjoy dancing in the cyphers; it then became a jam where they had to cipher in order to be qualified for the battles because too many bboys where focusing on the battles and the funny “cypher part” was disappearing little by little. Over the years of the Cypher qualifications era, I saw that the bboys were improving their understanding of the Cypher philosophy and I think 2010 was quite the perfect jam (a perfect balance between competition and Cypher). Nonetheless, there is now another aspect of the scene that I need to focus on….
A lot of people are trying to turn our Art into a sport, making up some counting system points for judges etc….and the number of bboy competitions has significantly increased, resulting in almost every country of the world having competitions almost every week. This fact has pros and cons…but it’s high time I honoured the word JAM within the bboy scene. I have chosen to use the word “Jam” along with “Circlekingz” because that’s how I pictured the perfect event…and CKZ was indeed a competition with the vibe of a jam. I was dreaming that one day CKZ would become a real jam…And it’s time for it to happen. CKZ is about to reach point B.
There are already a lot of competitions and I want to offer something a bit different in the bboy scene.
CIRCLEKINGZ 2011 aka « The Revolution », because there are going to be no more judges.
As I said, the scene is taking the wrong direction (becoming a sport because of the increasing number of jams, while trying to have a common judging point system for everyone, and even creating a bboy league to try to rank crews etc..) Would you be able to decide whether Picasso or Van Gogh was a better painter? When you reach a certain level of excellence in any artform, it all comes to personal taste and opinion…that’s why I will let people decide for themselves who is their winner of the battle and that’s why no judges are going to make it official.
The system is going to be the same as before: cypher qualification for 2-3 hours, then some people are going to make match up battles with the best crews of the cipher qualification. There is going to be around 10-12 big battles with no time limit, no round limit, and no judges. At the end of the day, 7$ are going to give the CIRCLEKINGZ title to the crew that has been the KING of the weekend according to us, representing every aspect of bboying (style, attitude, freshness and skills). A CirclePrinz Award might be given to the most upcoming crew too.
I hope this new perspective will open some minds and bring to our scene something different as a classic competition.
See you on the 6th of November in Switzerland!
Peace
Amjad,7$
