Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Nicholas Sapp (00:00):
What's going on
with y'all good people, man.
Welcome back to PoplockParables. Yes, sir. You know,
where I talk about my storiesand adventures, tales, the
lessons, all that good stuff instreet dance. This is Episode
Two. Today we're gonna betalking about my very first
street dance battle, you alreadyknow. I want to thank y'all, you
(00:21):
know what I'm sayin, for tuningin. This episode, you can find
it transcribed onpoplockparables.buzzsprout.com.
We're also now available onlistening platforms such as
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, GooglePodcasts, so on and so forth. So
yeah, we bout to get startedreal soon. You can just sit
tight, you know what I'm saying,and let's get to it.
(01:04):
Yes, sir. You already know, yeahy'all said "oh, man, you can't
leave us on a cliffhanger, man.
Come on, man. I want to hearabout the rest of the battle."
Well, now is that time. So justto recap, end of my first year
of college, right? I was in alittle dance crew, PhiNix dance
crew, that's the local collegedance crew. And you know, our
leader James was like, Hey, youknow, it's a battle going on.
(01:25):
Y'all should go check it out. SoI was like aight coo, hit my
best friend up, Terrell. I saidcome on man, let's ride out. He
says, Sure. So, you know, I'llsay let's say it's a Saturday,
we pick a Saturday. And we sayokay, let's roll out, hop on the
train headed up to the northside. So, the battle, I don't
remember the specific location,but I'm gonna just say it was in
(01:45):
like Logan Square. If you everbeen to Chicago, Logan Square.
It's kind of like, well it'sreally gentrified now.
So now it's like a littlehipstery area, right? But the
spot we went to, like, you know,it's an industrial spot like old
warehouse turned into a studio,you know, with red brick,
(02:05):
exposed lighting, things likethat. Right? So we walk up in
there. And we you know, we justsee a lot of stuff going on,
right? So you got, you know,people
selling art, people sittingaround chillin, got some cyphers
going on, selling apparel, allthese things. And we've learned
that it's being hosted by thisgroup called Kuumba Lynx, right?
(02:28):
K-U-U-M-B-A. And Lynx, L-Y-N-X,like the cat, right? And so
Kuumba Lynx, it was arts orgthat provided urban arts
education and youth development.
So they had kids, and they werereally teens. Not so much like
little kids. They're really, youknow, teenagers,
(02:50):
you know, integrating them,getting them involved in, you
know, rapping and singing anddancing and graffiti, all that,
right. And so I'm like, Okay,cool. And then he had a couple
people emceeing. So you had hisguy named Elgin, that was, you
know, helping with the morelike, Kuumba Lynx side, and you
had this guy named Roldare who'shosting the battle, right? And
(03:14):
then the DJ, I want to say thisdude named Virgil7, I wanna say
he was DJ. So you know, so he wejust sitting there chillin,
looking around, it's not muchgoing on, right? At least
initially. So I'm hop in thecyphers a bit but you know, it's
just chillin. So this is how thebattle was set up. So you had
two battles going onconcurrently. You had a breaking
(03:36):
battle. And you had All-Stylesbattle. Both of these were One
v. One format. So sometimes youhave 1v1, you have 2v2, most
battles are 1v1. Sometimesyou'll have two v two, or crew
battles, which would be like4v4, or 5v5, but majority of
them are 1v1. And many of themare tournament format. So some
(03:58):
battles have tournament stylewith loser's bracket, meaning
even if you even if you lose,you might end up having to
battle for like third place orfourth place, right? Like if you
win that battle, you end upmaking a third place, if you
lose that battle, you make it tofourth place. A lot of that is
dependent on the prizestructure, right. But the vast
(04:21):
majority of them are tournamentstyle, where you just go
straight into top 16, top eight,you know, top 4, and then
finals, right. And sopreliminary rounds. In Europe,
they call it the "prslection",you know, the pre-selection,
right, prelims are cypher style,which is if you think about
(04:47):
cyphers, like you up in the cluband people form a circle, and
it's like, Okay, oh, and theyjust everybody go in a circle
one at a time, that's cypherstyle. So cypher style. It'll
be, you know, 30 seconds. 45seconds.
Rarely Is it a minute. Sometimesit'll be a minute, but a minute
is usually really, really long.
So 30 seconds, 45 seconds, DJwill be playing music. You just
go in and do your thing. Andjudges judge you, right? And
(05:10):
then you either make it pastprelims or you don't, right? Or
you can have Battle-styleprelims where you battle
somebody for prelims in order tomake it past prelims, right.
Now, with battle style prelimssometimes it varies. So
sometimes it's the case thatwhoever wins the battle prelims
(05:32):
is who gets slotted into likethe top 16, or top eight or
whatever, right? Sometimes it'sjust used for seeding purposes,
though, so you can battle andthere's a potential for either
both dancers to make it throughprelims, or neither dancers to
make it through prelims. It justall depends on how that
particular organizer is, isorganizing the battle or how the
(05:57):
judges have decided to, youknow, score things, all that. So
that's that's the that's thefirst explanation. Second
explanation is All-Styles..
Right. So breaking battle is,you know, obviously, you think
about bboyin, right, how Iexplained last episode, well
breakin battle is just asingular style battle. So it's
(06:18):
just breaking, you have to breakin order to compete, and only
breaking is allowed. Withall-style battles, right,
All-styles mean, all-styles isone of those terms that has
different meanings in the dance,street dance scene. Some people
think it means you should beable to do a variety of styles
well. Some people think it meansany and all styles are welcome
(06:40):
to participate. In thisparticular case, and many times,
it ends up being the latter,where any and all styles are
welcome to participate. So thesetwo battles going on, you had a
breaking battle going on, andyou had all-style battle.
And so the event, how the howthe function was was working, it
(07:03):
was they would have a battle ortwo, generally, they will have
one all-style battle go on, oneround, right or two rounds
depending on the battle. Andthen they will have a breaking
battle go on. And then theywould do a showcase. Right. So
the dancers would battle. Andthen one of the you know, the
the people in the community, thearts folks would, somebody would
(07:26):
do a rap or somebody would dosome poetry, or somebody would
sing something or whatever,right? So you'd have a battle,
and then you would have ashowcase. And then you would
have a battle. And then wouldhave another showcase. Right?
And then that would repeat onand on and on and on until you
know you finish you save thebest for last so the final
battles, right, the best forlast and then the biggest
(07:47):
showcases, either the big namepeople or the most hype moments,
you know, whatever stuff likethat. So that's how the, that's
how the function was going. Sowe in there. You know my best
friend, he goes to sit down, hechillin and you know, I hop in
the cyphers a couple timesbecause I, you know my
confidence is high. I'm like "ohI'm bout to kill em. Yeah, y'all
(08:08):
not ready." you know I'm sayingso I'm hopping in and out the
cyphers. You know showing off mystuff and then you know and
then finally the battles kickoff right. Now I'm gonna
introduce a little break for alittle bit right so that it
doesn't get too monotonous. Andthen I'm gonna introduce you
know how the battles played out.
So I'm gonna hit y'all realquick check this out.
(08:40):
So I want to take this time toshout out my homegirl Honey Gold
Jasmine. Man that's a dope nameright there, Honey Gold Jasmine.
She got a song called Right Nowwith AjGod on the beat. Man it's
dope man, Imma play a littlesnippet for y'all and we'll get
back to the action you know whatI'm saying? So yeah, man hope
y'all enjoy Honey Gold Jasmine.
The song is called Right Nowproduced by AjGod you already
know.
Unknown (09:28):
[MUSIC BREAK]
Aight, y'all, welcome back. hope
(10:45):
y'all enjoy the lil break. Nowwe back to get into it, about to
tell about the battles, man. So,first battle I have is this dude
named Myron. Right? I want tosay he does art now in Chicago.
I don't really remember, but I'mpretty sure he does. But I
battle Myron. I beat him fairlyeasily. I don't remember what I
(11:06):
did. I don't remember what hedid. Just know, I won the battle
fairly handily. You know, sayingmy confidence was high. I was
like, oh, man, I got to be abreeze. However, that set me up
wrong for these next twobattles. So the second battle,
right second battle. I had tobattle this dude named Critical,
(11:30):
right? And Critical was like awhite Latino dude. And I was
thinking, Oh, man, I got this,right. Because I'm coming from
Atlanta. And the only dancers Ipersonally happened to know, at
the time, mind you, And last,you know, mind you, like I said
last time, I ain't go to noevents in high school. So all I
(11:50):
saw was people on TV, right?
And then all the people that Isaw on YouTube that happened to
be based in Atlanta, right, wereeither Black, or they was
Vietnamese. So that was it. Allright.
Nicholas Sapp (12:06):
So yeah, that was
my perception at the time. So I
see Critical, I'm like, oh, man,it's easy. And so he comes out.
And on the mic. They sayElectric Funketeers. And he
throws up a little, you know,hand symbol, it looks like if
you make an F with your hand.
And I'm like, Oh, okay. I don'tknow what that is. But All
right, cool. I'm just repping mycollege. University of Chicago.
So yeah, it's just man, it'sjust me, Nick Sapp, I don't have
(12:28):
a name. So there you go. Well, Ihave a name but don't have a
stage name. Right. So like,Alright, cool. So first round
goes. And you know, I'm hittingmy, like, you know, pseudo
poppin, whatever. Where I'm justkinda, doing this, that and the
third, like. Okay, you know,whatever I picked up from
people, learned from people,watching people mind you, not in
(12:50):
person, watching people on theinternet. I was doing that. I'm
like aight cool? So then, Ifinished my round. It's two
rounds, I finished my firstround. Critical's first round,
he comes out, he comes out,coming hard, boom, crack, boom,
crack. And I'm like, oh, whoa,what's he doing? And I realized,
well, I didn't realize this atthe time. But that was my first
(13:14):
in-person introduction to peoplethat, you know, are really
trained and have a foundation inPopping. Right. So again, I've
seen it on TV and you know, onthe internet and stuff. And I
realized we were doing similarthings, but he looked way better
than me.
Unknown (13:34):
Right? So he come out
boom, crack. And when I say
that, you know, boom, crack.
That's to emphasize the music.
So Poppin, to put it simply, isthe style that comes out of
California, primarily the BayArea, but then also Los Angeles;
it has a history in Los Angelesas well. Primarily dance, you
(13:55):
dance to funk. And what you dois, the style is based on this
rhythmic contraction of themuscles to the beat of the
music. So if you dancing tofunk, and the funk song goes dun
dun crack, dun dun dun crack,right and the crack being the
snare, right? And then the dundun part might be like the bass
or another part of the drum oryou know, other things like
(14:18):
that. Right. So you most peopletend to emphasize the muscle
contraction on that snare thatboom crack that crack part. So
and so Critical is coming out.
He's popping hard. We call it ahit. So he comes out hitting
hard, right so he comes out,boom,
crack and I'm like, oh, whoa,hold on, hold on. I was not
(14:39):
ready for this. So he comes outhitting real hard on me. And
then you know, he finished hisround and everybody's going Oh,
snap. Oh, snap. And I'm thinkingWell, hold on. They wouldn't
they wouldn't doing that for me.
Hold on. I gotta. I gotta breaksomething out. You know, I got
it. Okay, I gotta I gotta getthe crowd too. So I start I'm
coming out with the breaking.
(15:00):
Okay, I'm Uh, I'm not you know,I'm not super trained in
breaking but I'm gonna come outwith some stuff you know I'm
saying. sS I come up with stufftrying to one one-up him, come
out with some breaking.
Finish my second round boom Iokay, you know, let's see. Let's
see if he got something forthat.
Turns out he did. It turns outhe did Critical comes out,
(15:20):
started breaking. But he comesout with some power moves so he
comes out with, you know, thestuff where you're in the air,
right and it's spinning around.
I'm like, Oh man, I can't Ican't do that man.
Okay, well, well that was fun,so much for that. So I lose,
lose pretty handily to Critical,right? He showed me up in each
(15:41):
and every way. I'm like,Alright, so then, you know, they
do some showcases or whatever.
They do you know, some breakingbattles. And then it's time for
another battle. So then I havemy third battle that day.
Against this dude named Sid.
Right? NSiDS (insidious). Thatwas his his stage name was
NSiDS. So Sid comes out, Blackdude, okay, cool. MC also says
(16:04):
Electric Funketeers and Sidthrows up his sign. And I'm
like, Well, hold on, hold on,hold on. Y'all both part of the,
I don't know, what ElectricFunketeers is, but y'all both
part of this? Okay, so turnsout, they was part of the same
crew. Right? And that's why theyboth had, you know, the same
hand signs and they was bothokay. And everybody knew that
(16:25):
they was part of the same crew,except for me, because I'm brand
new to the scene. So I'm like,okay, that. Alright, cool. So,
first round, again, two rounds.
First round against Sid, I'mlike,
I don't know if that, uh, Idon't know what the fake, you
know, kind of sort of popping isgonna work again. So I'm gonna
(16:48):
try something different. So Icome out with some footwork on
Sid. And now when I sayfootwork, I need to explain that
because I'm in Chicago. Becausein Chicago, if you say footwork,
footwork refers to a specificstyle of dance known as Chicago
Footwork that's, you know, bornout of their house music and
house dance movement, right.
Ghetto house, particularly, andjuke movement as well, right.
(17:11):
Or if I if I'm like in Detroit,for example, if I say footwork,
they might think I'm talkingabout a particular dance there
known as the Jitterbug, orJittin' depending on who you're
talking to.
Nicholas Sapp (17:23):
But this was not
either though, this was just
generic footwork. I justhappened to know, just pieced
together. I'm moving my feetaround, right? So I'm doing some
some foot footwork stuff. OnSid. And I'm like, okay, boom,
first round. Sid come out. Boom,crack, boom, crack. I'm like,
oh, okay, he doing the samething Critical doing okay, but
(17:45):
he I mean, he not, Sid wasn'thitting as hard but he was
clean. He was boom, crack tingting thing ting ting boom,
bang.. I'm like oooh this dudegood too.
Unknown (17:57):
Oh, what uh, what am I
going to do? What am I going to
do? You know at this point I'mreally at a loss. And I'm about
to lose, right? I don't knowwhat to do. And of course the
crowd is going Oh,
Nicholas Sapp (18:10):
and I'm like, oh,
man, what do I do so I said
okay, well, like last resortlike last time I'mma breakout
the last resort again so I hitsome breaking on Sid? I'm like
okay you know he okay he Poppingtoo. The chances of him being
able to break too, I'm guessingis minimal right. It would be
some wild stuff for both of themto be rooted, to be some some
(18:34):
strong oppers and some strongbreakers. So I come out with the
breaking. Do do do do. You knowhit my top rock, hit my floor
work, hit my freezes. Boomfreeze at the end. Okay, boom
good. Yes sir.
Alright, check that out. Thatwas second round. Sid's second
round. Sid come out. He startstop-rocking. I'm like man Come
(18:55):
on, don't tell me you bout tobreak too. Sid starts toprocking
and he hits the floor work. Hehit power moves. I'm like, dawg,
both of y'all could, both y'allboth y'all can pop and break at
the same time, well not at thesame time, but you know I'm
saying both y'all can do that.
And at a decent level, man. Sooh, man, I was a it was um, it
wasn't an embarrassing defeat.
But oh, it was definitely Idefinitely solidly lost both of
(19:19):
them battles right. Definitelylost them junts. I wasn't mad. I
was like, Okay, I just I did notknow what to expect at all. So
that happened. Then after that,they do the judges showcase.
Right now the judges showcase isa way for judges to show to I
(19:41):
don't want to say showcase butI'mma say it anyway. The reason
for the judge showcase is a wayfor the judge to showcase why
they are the judge or why arethey they are the judges, if
there are multiple right. So youknow if they have a high skill
level, great connection to themusic, or they extremely
knowledgeable, longstandingcommitment to the art. Any
(20:01):
number of things, you know, manyof these being traits that
judges have all at the sametime.
Now, that's not always the case.
Sometimes you do have some sorryjudges. Right? And you realize,
oh, okay, you the judge becauseyou the friend of the person
that organized it. Or, okay, youthe judge, because you in the
(20:22):
same crew, okay. And then theyget up on stage and start, you
know, grooving and it's like,you not that good, bro. But most
of the time, it's the case that,you know, the judges are fairly
qualified to be judges. So theyhad three judges, three judges.
You had two bboys and this dudenamed Poppin Chuck, right. I
(20:45):
don't remember the bboys namesat this moment, which is why I
haven't said them. But PoppinChuck. So, you know, bboy number
one do his rounds. Okay, cool.
Bboy number two do his rounds.
Okay, cool. Cool. That was dope.
And then Poppin Chuck come up.
And on the mic. They weresaying, Oh, you know, this
Poppin Chuck. He'd been in thegame for you know, 35+ years. He
(21:06):
a legend in the scene, etc. I'mlike, Okay, cool. I didn't know
people danced that long, right?
So he comes out doing hisrounds.
And I'm like, oh, he doing? Hedoing that old school stuff.
Little did I know he was alsoPopping too, it's that he you
(21:29):
know, he was a master at it. Soit might have looked way
different. And he was probablydoing stuff from back in the day
that I didn't realize wasPoppin. And saw him like, oh you
doing an old school stuff. Okay,COO, coo coo. So you know, he do
his round. And then, you know,they have the final battle. And
I want to say it was Sid versusCritical. I don't remember who
(21:51):
won. Because, you know, at thatpoint, I was like, well, you
know. I'm pretty sure Criticalwon, because at the time
Critical was on a hot streak. Hewas just winning everything. So
I'm pretty sure Critical won.
And Sid got second place. And solet's go Okay, coo coo coo. So
then you know, and then they hada final showcase. I don't
remember what the final showcasewas. Because my mind was on the
battle. And this was Ooh, as faras battle was five years ago,
(22:15):
six years ago. So it's been awhile. And six years ago,
definitely. So it's been aminute has definitely been a
minute.
Unknown (22:25):
So that happens, and
then afterwards, I'm like,
Alright, well, you know, it'stime to head out. And before I
head out, you know, I run up toPoppin Chuck. And I'm like, oh,
man, you know, I was kind ofstarstruck because they say he
was a legend, so I was like letme go talk to the legend, man.
So I was like, "Oh, you know, Iappreciate you OG" you know,
blah, blah, blah. I didn'treally know I was saying, I was
(22:46):
just saying whatever came tomind. "I know I appreciate you
OG man, you know dedication tothe art form. But, man, it's
cool. I dig it, man." And he'slike, "oh, man, you know, thank
you. I appreciate it. Oh, yeah,you not too bad man. You know,
if I work with you know, wecould clean this that that up,
but you know, you got some goodstuff." And I was like, Okay,
cool. So you know, you're justexchanging pleasantries, and
(23:09):
whatnot. So then, after that, Igo up to Sid and Critical. And
I'm like, Hey, man. Y'alldestroyed me, bro. I ain't even
mad. Well, y'all, y'all messedme bad. So they laugh. And then
I say, Oh, you know what, youknow, take my L and try to turn
my L into into a lesson. Iwanted to rhyme that but I can't
(23:32):
think of something right now. SoI'm gonna take my L and turn it
into a lesson, you know? And Isay, Oh, hey, you know, where do
y'all practice that cuz I wantto learn what you all were
doing. You know, I really likedit. So they tell me, okay, we
practice at this place calledLatin Street, we practice at
this place called Latin Streeton Sundays. You know, it's a
(23:52):
function called Sunday Funkday,I'll send you the you know, the
Facebook invites. Okay, cool.
So, I get that information.
Right. And I lock it into mycalendar. Okay, Sunday Funkday.
I'm gonna have to come out tothat. Okay, cool. So then, you
know, I hit my friends Terrellup. I'm like, are you ready to
go? And I'm like, Yes. So webout to head out. And you know,
(24:13):
one of the MCs, dude namedElgin, he was like, "Oh, you
know, thank you for coming out,man. I appreciate it." And I'm
like, Okay, this was cool. Ireally liked it. He said, Oh,
you know, can I can I you know,get you some before you go on.
Okay, cool. So he gave me aginger beer. That's how I knew I
made the right choice. Because Ihad ginger beer before but the
last time I had ginger beer waslike fifth grade or something.
(24:34):
So he gave me some ginger beerand it was nice. It was
delicious. So he gave me some gnger beer and I was like oh okay
coo coo coo. So then, you know,me and Terrell, we head out
you know, we hopped backn the train. And then the bus or
whatever, you know, back homeo campus. You know, and I got so
e got some L's in my pockt. But you know, I had som
(24:56):
some new adventures to be ha. So I couldn't I couldn't real
So yeah, so that's that's aboutit, man. You know next time I'll
cover something else. ThankI just want to thank y'all again
(25:24):
for listening to PoplockParables. You can find m
, Nicholas, on Twitter or Instagam at @PoplockParables. You can
lso email me at popockparables@gmail.com. You kno
if you enjoyed the podcast so fr you enjoyed the episode, y
u know, make sure, you know,subscribe, leave a review w
(25:45):
erever you happen to be lisening from right. If you got an
questions, you know random,r otherwise, got any suggestions
things you just want to hear metalk about? You know anythin
"Hey, man, you might want totry this. Try that. I don't re
lly like this or, you know, I rally love when you do tha
." Anything along that nature,ight? Again, make sure
you reach out to me on Instagramor Twitter at @PoplockParables
(26:08):
or email me at PplockParables@gmail.com Thank yo
for listening. Hope y'all hve a good day. P