Historicist: "The city that nobody loves"
Elsewhere in the Ist-a-Verse
The Daily Photoist: November 23, 2009
Urban Planner: November 23, 2009
Yeah, OK, so the sponsor’s name precedes the name of the event, the website is klunky, there’s a disheartening absence of b-girls in the lineup of dancers, and the strict no-photos rule screams cheesy-DVD-release-TBA, but where else in Toronto, besides the (Red Bull) King Of The Ring, are you going to see this much b-boying this Sunday?
It’s a one-on-one battle-- 20 pan-Canadian b-boys and 20 American b-boys compete for a dorky WWE-style championship belt in a boxing ring gimmickally set up in the Sony BMG parking lot at Dufferin & Liberty.
Once you get past all the fake theatrics, you can anticipate some genuine b-boy theatrics and serious moves as you root for the little guy from Hull or Winnipeg to overtake legends from the Rock Steady Crew or Floor Lords.
DJs Serious and Jazzy Jay provide beats. MC’s Querock and K-Mel likely rap about Red Bull. Zulu Gremlin, Ken Swift & Kwikstep judge. $10 general admission, $15 ringside. Starts at 6pm. Probably worth it just to stand near Ken Swift.
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wow....randomly harsh comment there! i'm hoping joe is actually one of jill's close friends and is just playfully teasing, la-dee-da. otherwise, wtf?
Thanks Chris. I actually deleted Joe's comment because we don't allow comments that contain personal attacks.
Your comment was not attacking, so i can't delete it, so now I feel compelled to explain all this to keep the comment thread productive.
To paraphrase Joe, he felt that I have no appreciation for hip hop culture and was insulting its millions of supporters.
Perhaps it wasn't clear enough above, but I have an enormous appreciation for hip hop culture, its participants and the events the b-boy/b-girl community presents from within. It's the energy-drink co-opting of breaking and the falsification of hip hop culture that gets me a little twitchy. I was at that battle screaming as hard as the next girl, and breaking is something I practice hard and support along with the enthusiastic millions.
If I think certain aspects of the presentation sounded cheesy (which they did prove to be, if fun) that's a commercial issue, not a hip hop one.