4.4 • 1.9K Ratings
🗓️ 30 April 2017
⏱️ 111 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Leave a review on iTunes for a chance to win our weekly giveaway!
Richard Colón, better known by his stage name Crazy Legs, is an American b-boy from the Bronx New York City, USA. He featured in the earliest stories on hip hop dancing to appear in mainstream press, and as president of the Rock Steady Crew brought the form to London and Paris in 1983.
WATCH THIS EPISODE FOR FREE: https://londonreal.tv/crazy-legs-rock-steady/
Chapters:
00:00 Trailer.
01:55 Brian’s thoughts on the episode.
04:23 Brian’s introduction.
05:16 First European Hip hop tour in 1982.
08:26 Youthful misappreciation of the opportunity fame offered.
12:35 An emerging talent from his tough, but fun life, growing up in The Bronx.
16:47 Why he went out bombing and writing.
18:19 How the windmill came about.
24:04 Seeking out more people to battle in early 1980s Upper West Side.
26:36 What led to the explosion of hip hop downtown.
32:07 How did the different backgrounds and cultures intermingle?
35:17 Be yourself and respond to the music soulfully.
38:17 Practising hard to be the best and gaining respect by proving it in a battle.
42:28 Frustration at failing to benefit from their talent which was used by others to benefit themselves.
49:59 That’s not B-boying it’s Break Dancing with no funk to it: we’re going to reclaim it.
56:56 Too many hip hop movies are corny.
58:06 Appraisal of Netflix TV film ‘The Get Down’.
1:01:12 The essence of being a Bboy. Founding Puerto Rock Steady to benefit others.
1:06:20 Lack of UK Government support for a sport now going into Youth Olympics.
1:11:51 Why he battled Bboy Storm and the battle with Ken Swift didn’t take place.
1:20:59 Bboy Crazy Legs views on the Bboys who came out of Germany, France and Japan.
1:22:26 What he looks for when he judges Bboy battles.
1:24:36 A visiting scholar at Cornell University.
1:30:59 His hopes for the benefits to the worldwide community in future development of Bboying.
1:35:39 Success secrets.
1:36:35 What Crazy Legs changed his mind about in the last few months.
1:38:20 What we would be surprised to learn about Crazy Legs.
1:38:41 What keeps Crazy Legs awake at night.
1:40:23 What will Crazy Legs’ obituary say?
1:41:02 Phone call to the 20 year old Crazy Legs.
1:42:25 Best advice ever received.
1:43:50 Advice to the young person listening who wants to succeed in hip hop.
1:45:28 Brian’s summing up.
FULL SHOW NOTES: https://londonreal.tv/crazy-legs-rock-steady/
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
0:00.0 | The Bronx in the 70s run down, burned down, fun, dangerous, |
0:09.2 | dangerous, survival, hungry, I witnessed all these things. I saw writers and sees, dejays, and people getting down in the circle. |
0:25.0 | I was blown away. |
0:27.0 | I felt like I came alive that day. |
0:30.0 | I created what's called the whip backspin. day. |
0:33.0 | I created what's called the whip backspin, |
0:35.0 | where you could whip your legs around and then ball up |
0:38.0 | and then spin faster and spin more. |
0:40.0 | A complete accident. |
0:43.0 | You can't become great at anything unless you have competition. |
0:49.0 | I kind of became this mercenary bee boy. |
0:59.3 | You're battling, you take him on and you become bigger. There's something about your dance that is going to cause people to think only of you because that's |
1:07.0 | your style. |
1:08.0 | Are you ever going to stop dancing? |
1:12.0 | How do you quit culture? And the I'm going to do. |
1:33.0 | So, This week on the show we welcome a gentleman from the Bronx New York City crazy Crazy Legs from the Rock Steady Crew. |
2:04.8 | He is the original B-boy, or Break Boy, as it was known back in the 70s. |
2:12.0 | He's the one that originated so many of the moves that you see on the floor and on this show he talks about how he created the backspin and he said he was in the hallway and he almost fell and he had to pull his legs in and he did something like that. |
2:27.0 | And this is the guy that created so many of the moves that I train in every day. |
2:32.0 | He is a legend of the sport. He's in his 50s and he's |
2:34.8 | still competing and it was a huge honor to sit down with crazy legs and find out |
2:39.6 | how he created a move called the windmill that I've spent the last year trying to perfect and how he's been there and done that. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Brian Rose, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Brian Rose and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.