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I’m so happy. Even more happy than this guy:

I achieved it. One of the goals of my life was to meet the man who invented the Locking style of dance.

That’s right, I met the man who invented Locking. Not one of the first dancers of the locking style , not one of the people who began to lock in Japan and are given over-rated props, but actually the original  - old school - original generation Locker himself, Don Campbell.

It was a rainy Saturday afternoon and I had just finished work at 4.30pm and Ali calls me up and asks

Ali: "Chris, are you going to Campbellock’s class?!"

Me: "Hunh? What you talking about man?"

Ali: "Boogaloo Sam and Don Campbell are having a class in Seolleung today."

Me: "WTF? I didn’t know, shizz man, kapshidah yo~ (yes, let us go)"

by the way, here is what Ali looks like. He entered a 1-1 Locking Battle competition at W Studio in Yeoksam.

Not only had I the chance to meet Don Campbell and Boogaloo Sam. Now who is Boogaloo Sam you ask?  Straight up, the man INVENTED Popping.

That’s right, there you have it. BAM, just minding my own business, about to go to practice at Song Pa studio after work as usual when my man Freestyle Ali calls me up to meet the man who invented Locking and the man who invented Popping.

Boogaloo Sam invented the Popping style of dance in Fresno, California in the 1970s. He passed on the style to hios brother Popping Pete and the two started the first funkstyle crew to what was to be known as the Electronic Boogaloo Lockers, later shortened to Electric Boogaloos because their manager said that Electronic Boogaloo Lockers was too long to fit on a billing board for a theatre. True~! ^^

Left: Boogaloo Sam  Right: Don Campbell

Seeing the Original Style of Popping and Locking was…….i don’t know, how can i describe it?

It was . That’s how I can best describe it. Their flow, their actions, their character, it brought us back to how Locking and Popping really was expressed back in the 70s. Don is 56 years old, Sam is 49. These dudes are not young, but man, they can move.

Fresh, funky, flava…all these words are used so often these days to describe so many people, but when you see the roots, the real essence of Lock and Pop in the Funkstyle Cultre, you can see exactly the meaning that Campbell put behind "the point" and why Sam does a "walkout."

This is me sweating it meeting Boogaloo Sam.

Sam: "I am the King of Popping! You better recognize!"

Song Pa Family and Don Campbell, the original locker!

Sam had a question and answer time at the end of his workshop. Always the eager beaver for new knowledge I asked him straight up "What is the one thing that you think new dancers to popping need to know?"

And Sam said "Music! Straight up, LISTEN TO THE MUSIC!" He went on to explain what he meant in that, one shouldn’t get lost in the movements and try to perfect the executions without doing it to the music.

It’s pretty fundamental actually, but you would be surprised at how many people actually don’t have an ear for music. To prove his point, Sam freestyled one of  the best popping freestyle sets I have seen in my life, right there, not even 2 metres from my face.

Everyone in the crowd was like this:

Perfect musicality. He didn’t miss anything in the music.

I had the chance to speak with Don as well. He put a lot of emphasis on Character and being Spontaneous. Just make it up as you go along! He said that we should learn the movements and learn to be ‘funky’ with it. It sounds really ambiguous ‘to be funky’ when I write it here in this blog, but be assured, when Don Campbell looks you in the eye and says "be funky," you know exactly what he is talking about.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 9th, 2007 at 12:12 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.