Uni Champs, Newcastle

*written by Mar-Shki, Curious George, Elle Roc, Soul Baby & AirOne

Our old crew mate, Tristie Mittens The Amazing, graduated from the JNRs last summer. As he left to start his degree at Birmingham University, he promised to rep for SIN Cru at the Uni Champs. 6 months away from Mole and the SIN Cru regime, mixed with the new carefree student life, had taken its toll on the one they now call Prince Albert. Supportive as his thermal cycling shorts and Soul Baby’s ballet box, we went to Warwick Uni to train with Task at Art of War’s practise. Art of War who work with Ill Boogs, were practising hard as they were entering the Uni Champs in the crew battle.

Before we go any further, Red fox is the code name for Tristan the nutter in the picture below.

Nutter Tristan pointing out the music block at Warwick Uni.

The University B-Boy Champs are held in Newcastle so on the morning of the battles, we met at the train station around 7:10… AM!! And jumped on the train to Stevenage, nearly all awake and rearing to go.

"...ere we go, ere we go, ere we go!"

And can I just say Red Fox doesn’t have a clue. About the pom-poms, foghorn, giant hand, banner and customized tee’s. Not to mention the chants, as he was making his own way to Newcastle. After about 20 minutes of comparing phones (oh by the way Curious does like to follow in Soul Baby’s foot steps. Same phone. Same theme on the phone), anyway Soul Baby decided to take a picture of his crew, to send to the shaking Red Fox

On the train on the way to Newcastle look at all those beautiful faces.

We arrived in Stevenage and made our way to the waiting room. After annoying many people with the foghorn, we went out onto the platform getting ready for our long journey to Newcastle. Standing on the platform a train approached. But didn’t appear to be slowing down. It just went straight past sucking us in, causing Soul Baby to duck for cover and rather strange faces to be pulled, especially by Curious. Now that was funny!

Soul Baby’s beautiful home made foghorn.

The train finally came. We got on only to find no seats available. TrubL, Ben Jammin, Curious, Mar-Shki and AirOne found seats, but Soul Baby and Elle Roc got stuck next to the toilets. They eventually got seats for the remainder of the journey. We practised our chants and arrived in Newcastle. Go T Go T

Like Speedy Gonzales, we walked straight to the Newcastle university. On the way we passed a statue of a man in an elbow freeze. This was obviously a photo opportunity. So what did we do? We took a wicked photo.

"alrighhhhhhht...freshhhhhhh!"

We reached the university and found Red Fox preparing for his battle. Little did he know what was yet to come. We each threw down many times on the checked, polished lino. Many other crews and competitors were there preparing as well. Shortly after our next few throwdowns the judges arrived, Mouse, M-Phatic and P . M-Phatic and P are both Sinstars. Also there was another Sinstar there called D-Rock running a dope B-Boy stall, selling merchandise from his shop: Trackside.

NCKiller D-Rock

Then the crew battles began. I know it sounds a bit selfish to Red Fox but we started to get nervous about our cheer leading chants. After many impressive crew battles the singles started.

A few battles went and before we knew it Red Fox was in a three way battle. We got our banner, pom-poms and chants ready. Unfortunately our encouragement didn’t pay off as Red Fox didn’t make it through to the second round. But I am telling you, honestly he deserved it.

Task aka Red Fox in action

Soon the jam began to finish and we all had one last throw down each with the camera (taking unsuccessful pictures for the SIN Cru website.)

Curious & Soul Baby catching air

Then we left the University and went to look around town. After buying crew spin jackets from JD and hiphop costumes from Primark we went to meet Soul Baby’s uncle Luke who lives in Newcastle. He showed us a really nice Chinese Buffet all you can eat.

"hhhm, not bad!!!"

We got a bit suspicious after Soul Baby’s uncles appetite got full (not normal) and we started to speculate that there was drugs in the food and in the Chocolate fountain . Anyway we rushed back to the train station and said our goodbyes before our long trek home.

Soul Baby & Uncle Luke

To finish off a very inspiring day TrubL decided to break the news to the boys that they were all going to get their hair cut off. At this point Soul Baby became suicidal.

L2R: Elle Roc, Mar-shki, Task, TrubL Roc, Ben Jammin

Front: AirOne, Curious & Soul Baby