Cambridge Hip Hop Week 2006 Review

Over the Easter Holidays from April 10th - April 14th 2006 SIN Cru in association with The Centre At St Pauls and Cambridge City Council, ran it's sixth annual Hip Hop week. Five days of intensive dance, art & music courses: essentially Hip Hop school for kids... and adults!

Courses in all the Hip Hop elements were on offer again to the absolute beginner up to the more advanced Hip Hop head. On the dance side the ever popular Breakin', Locking, Poppin' & Hip Hop Dance were available along side workshops designed to help physical well being: Body Conditioning and Physio For Dancers. The Breakin’ masterclasses were taught by some of Londons first generation of B-Boy’s: Drew & Skam from well respected Foundationz crew, Ill Boogs as well as Edinburgh’s BGirl Remady. Working with the groups they gave battle advice and training with the Fridays Urban Sinfonie battle in mind.

Graffiti Art and Graffiti Customisation represented the visual side. Participants worked on lettering styles and technique in the Art workshop before taking to the boards and spraying them in the forecourt, which were later displayed at US06. The Customisation workshop enabled the kids to work on t-shirt designs & graphics which were then spray painted on to the tees using stencils, and later modelled at the US06 fashion show

MCing, DJ Skills & Beatboxing represented the audio elements. Zebra Traffic Recording artist and renowned freestyle battle MC Life from acclaimed UK crew Phi Life Cypher ran the MC workshop. The budding mc’s learnt how to write rhymes, feel the beat and battle it out verbally 8Mile style. DJ Prone & Ill Boogs showed beginning & improving turntablists how to get busy on the wheels of steel and local UK beatbox champs finalist Gummy returned to show how to make music with your mouth.

The wednesday saw an entertaining evening of activities including Hip Hop Karaoke, the Hip Hop Quiz & a Hip Hop relevant film screening. Karaoke was classic, with an allstar line up of SIN Cru accountant Sam as Rebel MC, Kilo as Vanilla Ice, TrubL Roc & Polly as Whistle, Curious George & Sam as Eminem & Elton John, Soul Baby & Leigh as Outcast, Isla & Chi Boogie as Salt ‘n’ Peppa, Lauren & Leo as the Black Eyed Peas and last but not least winners Bgirls Rude, Sarah and the all singing all dancing 4True doing Outcast’s “Hey Ya!”

The pub style Hip Hop Quiz saw heads dropping knowledge to submitted questions being asked by special Hip Hop quizmaster: Baloo from The Nextmen’s dad! - Mr Ellis. The evening ended with a showing of Mad Monkey Kung Fu, one of the original films that inspired Ken Swift and Rock Steady Crew to take elements of Kung Fu and incorporate them into Breakin’.

Once again Urban Sinfonie brought CHHW06 to a close on the Friday night. The DJ workshop kids kicked off the event with their individual sets followed by performances by participants from the various CHHW06 courses - showcasing the skills they picked up over the five days. For the local B-Boys & B-Girls who are too young to go to clubs or travel to other events Urban Sinfonie is the highlight of their dance year. It gives them the chance to battle older more experienced dancers who otherwise they would only see on videos. The Beginners Breakin’ workshop circle warmed things up nicely for the proceeding battles.

The St. Mathews vs St.Pauls kids crew battle was first up, the hyped up kids brought battle attitude, routines & a new energy to the floor. Winners for the second year in a row: home team - St.Pauls. Dancers from all over the UK came through to represent in the battles: Edinburgh, Northampton, Coventry, Brighton, Norwich, London & even France were in the house. DJ's Prone (globalfunkradio.com/Dedbeat/Battle Jam) Ben Swift (The Essence/Nonsinthetik) & Credit One (Tuff Stuff Crew) rocked the turntables. Judges were Ufoe from Tuff Stuff Crew (London), Pervez from Live to Break (London) & SIN Cru's own TrubL Roc.

The individuals winner was Chico who battled his way through beginner BGirl Jade & the non-stopping Swifty ending up facing the mysterious Mystery Man in the final. The 2on2's winner for the second year in a row was Ill Boogs (Born 2 Rock/Sinstars) & Ben Jammin' (Sinstars) who took on new generation rockers Nate & Rich (Born 2 Rock/Sinstars), the celtic styles of B-Girls 4True (JNR Sinstars) & Remady (Mean Feet/Sinstars/ Edinburgh) and meeting the new to the scene flavour of Brothers Grim in the final.

The Poppin' battle had grown since last year with a crew of poppers & funk style dancers on the London scene making the effort to travel up and represent their dance form. The first round was a showcase with Alpa, local Sarah, Lil Budda, Carlos, Dickson, Alpas younger brother, and the unstoppable Swifty. Alpa & his brother, Carlos & Dickson went through with the final being Carlos vs Dickson with Carlos taking it. Judges: Cambridge’s own Mach1 and Zia (Born 2 Rock / London)

CHHW06 Courses in order of popularity and numbers attended:
23 Poppin
23 Breakin' Beginners
19 Hip Hop Dance
17 Graffiti Customisation
15 Locking
14 Body Conditioning
14 Graffiti
11 Breakin' Improvers
9 MC
9 Physio for Dancers
5 DJ Beginners
4 DJ Improvers
2 Beatbox

We had 174 people in attendance at US06 taking £487.50 on the door. Again post event feedback has been very positive with participants and punters alike recognising our efforts to keep real Hip Hop alive, from the flyer design through to the event itself...

"Wicked flyer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ...nice to be on it "

"That flyer is pure style!"

"Props to the SIN Cru for putting US06 on, was a good fun jam without any of the politics crap. Also good to see what you’ve been putting back into the scene, some of those kids are gonna be dope in a couple of years."

"Thanks for a good evening... worth the 272 mile rounds trip! P.S. All of the next generation live in Cambridge!"

"An enjoyable event! Nice to see alot of young talent! mad props to everyone! "

Respect and thanks to all the dancers who came through and everyone who ripped up the open circles.

Thanks go to John Quysner at Centre at St. Pauls, Elaine Shortt, Alice @ Redbull for giving our footwork wings! Our continually supportive friends at Addict, Puma, LRG Clothing, Mecca USA, Supreme Being Clothing, Eastpak, Jelly Belly, Sport Beans & Zebra Traffic Records for believing in us and of course their super fresh prizes!!! Additional sponsors this year sourced both locally and internationally were Echo Unlimited, Power House Books NYC with help from Nika @ We B-Girlz in Germany & Claire at Turnaround Books, funk & soul music specialist Unisex Records & Harmless Records and the only local company that helped out Dogfish clothing store.

Thanks also to Jonzi D & Sadler’s Wells who donated tickets to Breakin' Convention as well as The British Film Institute & The National Film Theatre who gave tickets to a screening of “The Freshest Kids” and “Redder than Red” to the winning dancers.

A new angle on sponsorship was to approach companies not associated with Hip Hop culture, Pixar & The Science Museum liked the educational angle we have and happily gave us passes to Pixars incredible exhibition “20 years of animation”. Untill CHHW07...