The Freshest Kids Essay

The film I choose to do my first film critique on is The Freshest Kids, directed by Israel starring Afrika Bambaataa, Kool Herc, Frosty Freeze, Fab 5 Freddy, and more. The Freshest Kids is a documentary about the story of b-boys. B-boying is more commonly known as breakdancing, which roots were founded in the Bronx of New York. The Freshest Kids portrays b-boys history of how B-boying started, ended, and made a comeback, all surrounding the aspects of break culture. This movie has strength including the many credible sources it referenced and showing how b-boying became a positive outlet for younger kids in low-income regions, but also had some weaknesses such as how there was never an incisive definition of b-boying.
The director of The Freshest Kids, brought in a number of credible sources to talk about b-boying, which strengthens the reliably of information in the movie. For example, the father of hip-hop, DJ Kool Herc, talked about how he founded hip-hop and more importantly how he discovered breaking. Herc described how he threw parties that everyone wanted to attend, as he would play music he gained cliental and that’s how the birth of hip-hop came about. GrandMaster Caz went on to talk about

how Herc would play records with breaks in them, everyone would wait for the break in the record to dance, he created a sound that no one else was doing, it was new. Another strength of The Freshest Kids was the history of how b-boying started and morphed into what is has become today. The film talked about how b-boying started in the Bronx, as different crews would come out and have a dance battle. The manger of Mr. Freeze found out that the movie producers of Flashdance were impressed with his skills and wanted him to dance in their movie. Once the movie was released b-boying gained nationwide attention. B-boying became popular quickly but then faded out once it’s people who were intricate to its success began to get more involved with crime and would get arrested. In the film, many people expressed how kids from low-income regions would expend so much their inspired energy during the day because b-boying was a positive channel to express themselves. They found a positive side effect of their behavior was that after a full day of dancing the kids would be too tired to fight, rob, or steal from the other crews.
In the movie there was no incisive definition or origin of where the word b-boy came from.

Mr. Freeze, Crazy Legs, Mr. Wiggles all had the same definition and origin that the word b-boy started because b-boys would dance when there was a break in the record meaning the “b” stands for breaking. While another person, who was not named, thought the origin came from the street terminology “why are you breakin’ on me,” and Grand Mixer DXT believed the “b” stood for the Bronx due to the fact they were discovered in the Bronx. Later in the film, DJ Herc goes on to tell that the original meaning did not come from breaking records, it came from a mans breaking point meaning “this man broke” and he created an exaggeration of that term to the dancing creating the break

boys.
Overall I thought this was an interesting film. It was fascinating to learn about the roots of how hip-hop started and about the original origins of break dancing, how and where it came from. I believe breakdancing is continuing to evolve and gain momentum with popular culture in this day and age. It is becoming a substantial form of dance due to the fact that there are television shows dedicated to this style and showcase breakdancing like So You Think You Can Dance, America’s Best Dance Crew, and music videos. Hip-hop and breakdancing are here to stay and getting strong as more outlets are provided for this art form.