Entering The Karma Sessions
by maehem
Reviews of break & enter, Freestyle Session Seattle, Future Classic/Boston

1. break & enter – July 19. Our forth battle was yet another success.
Highlights include:

o The Cleo and Trinity showcase. Love seeing girls taking it beyond people’s expectations a.k.a. ‘real b-girling’. Awesome.

o The Supernatz vs. Funk Fanatics battle. Should’ve been the final but oh, well. Man, that battle rocked. Want to see it over and over again…

o The Bonnie & Clyde final – Piecez vs. Pete Nasty was…well, nasty. The Fenix & Piecez pair routine took it for me. That shit was crazy. I don’t know the girl from Rochester but I’ve seen her around and she’s improved a lot which was great to see.

o The continuing support from Rochester, Detroit and Windsor. Thnx guys, keep on coming down. But also, PowerSerge from the Bay Area and Estairia from Calgary – love seeing the new faces.

o Blood Sport Crew driving in from NYC. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

o True Essentials feeding my energy drink habit. Warning: I’m going to keep coming back.
Lowlights mostly pertain to the Megas and Dyzee battle that never happened. break & enter is to highlight the positivity within hip hop culture, not drunk or high b-boys and fighting. As event organizers we have to take steps to keep the battle exactly just that, and hope to not have to deal with a similar situation again.

2. Freestyle Session Seattle (Bumbershoot Festival) – Labour Day Weekend
This is by far the best battle I’ve ever been to. I know that the fact that it was ultra organized and ran smooth was partly because it was a part of the Bumbershoot Festival but man, the vibe was great. Everyone there was there for one reason – to battle. Kids were hungry and even people who had beef with each other behaved mature about it. Highlights: the after party. I hadn’t ‘just danced’ in a long time and was great to just let go; seeing Supernatz advance that far (I think they could’ve gone further but oh, well); Havikoro, Skillz Method and Massive Monkees – way better in real life than on tapes; the Japanese crews – crazy good; Super Crew vs. Ground Zero – Ben flipping off of Boo Rock’s butt. Funniest shit ever!! shebang advancing one round, yay us. Lowlights: didn’t see Crumbs dance. Grrr.

3. Future Classic, Boston – Sept. 20
I MET KOOL HERC!!!!! We danced to Kool Herc DJ-ing!! Can’t believe that. K, maybe I should start from the start.

Karmaloop.com is an online clothing store that have given us fly gear to rock. They throw hip hop art events once in a while and this year they wanted us to be a part of it. Naturally, we were all over the idea, however, once we saw the line up we got all nervous. Get this, shebang! was on the same flyer as names like Kool Herc, Seen, Tats Crew etc. K, no pressure. Right!!!

We get to Boston and immediately fall in love with the city. I advise everyone check it out – it’s beautiful there. So far Chicago was my fave US city but I think Boston now takes the prize. So Karmaloop, continues to treat us like stars and puts us up at a fancy boutique hotel with Norwegian spring water in glass bottles in the minibar. Do I need to say more?

On Friday night we went to dinner at a place called Peking Tom where the star treatment did not end. The chef personally came out and served us the BEST gourmet sushi I’ve ever had. (My dream to date a chef is now renewed. This food was heavenly!) Saturday saw us mostly getting fitted in our new Puma gear for the show – we were a part of a little fashion show after which we were supposed to throw down. We had a chance to see a little of the city, but not as much as I wanted. We did get a chance to see Tats Crew and the other writers from the show tag a construction wall near the event. In about 5min the wall went from pure white to a graf exhibit. Never seen anyone do that this fast! (maybe that’s my graf ignorance who knows?)

When we came back at nine, there was a line up outside and art was on the walls everywhere inside. The fashion show was a bit of a disastrous story. But let’s not talk about that. Our show went fine until the sound system decided to stop working and the music went silent. Kool Herc could still hear it but no one else did. The problem was fixed and we opened the circle to the local breakers. Kamel was there with some b-boys from NYC; some b-boys from Problems crew and of course the Floorlords. The rest of the night was just plain fun: the bboys and bgirls kept the circle going; I got a wicked graf meshback hat with my name on it; Seen tagged my book; Kool Herc posed for ‘a million’ pictures with us – we were kinda star struck – LOL.

The next day, Karmaloop took Herc and us for brunch. Unfortunately, this lasted only a few hours. I could’ve sat there and listened to Herc talk about the state of hip hop for a few more hours. Things I learned from Herc: having 12 people in a crew is too much and hip hop is perpetuating the violence and gansta mentality instead of being a role model – well, it’s being a bad role model.

This trip goes down as the highlight of my b-girl career this far. Don’t know if anything else can top it, though. One always wants to think of bigger and better but this was quite big and definitely the best!

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