Originally published in Fashion Wire Daily on December 31, 2003
For those who think hip-hop style is limited to bling-bling, Phat Farm or Sean Jean, take an express train (the No. 4 or the D train will do) to the L. Pac Center in the South Bronx on the night of a B-boy or a B-girl breakin’ battle, and you’ll find that the styles of hip-hop’s genesis are alive and well. Old-school Pumas, three-stripe Adidas, sweatbands, wristbands, afros, cornrows are intermixed with current popular looks such as the trucker hat—not at all “over” amongst hip-hop teens, but instead customized with grafitti tags or worn simply unadorned—and the side-tipped newsboy cap.
But at Universal Breakin’s Battlezone Championship, it’s not just about the hip-hop “look” – as Ivan “URBAN ACTION FIGURE” Manriquez points out. “Anybody can go to Ross or Wal-Mart and come out looking ‘hip-hop,’ you know what I’m saying, but for those who thought hip-hop was only a dress code, it’s not only that. It’s individuality. It’s who you are, what you’re about. It’s how you urbanize yourself.”
And Ivan should know – he’s been on the scene since the early days and is highly respected by both new and veteran b-boys and b-girls alike. “You ask anybody, in any country, or any state, who is the monster b-boy of the world, and they will say, this crazy guy right here,” says Honey Rockwell, pointing to Ivan. Originally from Mexico, but raised in California, Ivan comes from the movement Universoul B-Boyz, which is not a crew, but a movement of artists based on the West Coast, that incorporates all the urban arts – from writing, to coordinating, to dance, to music.
Today, it is precisely that fusion of individual style and art that characterizes underground hip-hop. It is about constantly re-interpreting the original forms that make up the core of hip-hop culture—known to practicioners as the four elements of hip-hop: b-boying, grafitti, emceeing, and DJ-ing.
