LISTEN To The Rock Steady Crew, 28yr Anniversary line up Str8 from Crazy Legs Himself HERE

Give it a minute to load, best in dsl...



CRAZY LEGS: ROCKSTEADY LEGEND

Interview by S-1

What can we say??The name speaks for itself! Crazylegs the baddest B-Boy on da planet a Rocksteady Crew legend for over 20 years!!! S-1 caught up with Crazy right before the 28th Rocksteady Annivesary Blockparty and this is what he had to say:



S-1: Yeah, yeah, yeah was goin on my peoples!!! It’ s S-1 da mutha fuckin man, Legacy Magazine, Legacy Radio and today man, da hats take em off, we got a little bit of honoring to do. I got my nigga Crazy Legs from the Rocksteady Crew. We got them going on their 28th anniversary this week, What’s poppin baby? It’s your platform, talk to me my nigga?

CL: It?s all good bro, we just working hard over here putting the anniversary together, little bumps and bruises along the way but that comes with the territory, so I just gotta keep it movin. As long as the crowd has fun that’ s all that matter?

S-1: Bring us back to the early days, how it was organizing, getting the peoples together, how the idea was manifested, all that good juicy stuff? CL: You talkin about the Rocksteady anniversary or you talkin about the beginning of Rocksteady?

S-1: The beginning of Rocksteady. I’m talking about the whole movement in itself, cause it’s a movement my nigga?

CL: Ohhhh Yeahhh! You know Rocksteady was formed by Jimmy Lee and Jimmy Dee, Jo Jo, Easy Mike and a couple of other brothers back in the days in the South Bronx in 77??I got down in 1979 I had to battle my way with my cousin Lenny Len to be a part of the squad and we battled Jimmy Lee and Jimmy Dee and we lost the battle but we proved that we were up in coming and that’s all that mattered back then, they wanted to see how we handled pressure. I moved out of the Bronx for a few years and kind of lost contact with Jimmy Dee and in the winter of 81? I bumped into to him, told him I started another crew called Rockwell Association but my heart was with Rocksteady and I told him what I wanted to do and he said start a chapter in Manhattan and I flipped everyone from Rockwell Association and it was the first time that all a lot people didn’t have to battle to get into Rocksteady because they were pretty much down with me as part of another crew, so I kind of broke tradition there?.

S-1: But you knew where they were coming from, you knew their skills?

CL: Yeah definitely man. We put that tradition back into effect in the 90?s we put it back into effect, so anyway 6 months later, we catch up to each other he saw that I had 500 members deep in Rocksteady and he just said your doing a great job, just keep the name alive and keep it moving so that’s what I did, and I haven’ t stopped since, Well I kinda took a break but you know force of habit sucked me back in?

S-1: That’s all good, ay man thats on the love, love… It was meant like that trust me yo. Needless to say it’s tough not to say that you are the baddest B-Boy on the planet… Well know, well respected , undisputed I can’t find anyone giving me an argument, but from your perspective?... you’ re the living legend!!! talk to us… trials, tribulations, what you have to do, working 8, 12 hours a day, what up? Niggas wanna know?.

CL: Well when it comes to what I do, I think the most important thing, I think what my legacy will be about is that I stayed true to the culture on both levels, you know, I was able to stay in contact with the underground as well as being successful on the commercial level too without compromising. There is always a little give and take and understanding how things work when it comes to being in the industry, But I definitely know that in order to protect your reputation on a real level in hip hop you have to put that reputation on the line and that means that Rocksteady has to continuously go out there and put their names on the line and battle ?Mean Red Alert where talking and we both agree that we gonna be paying dues for the rest of our lives ..That’s just how it is, you know when your like self-employed man you got to get your own hustle on?.

S-1: That deep dawg. How do you come up with your choreography, you know as a B-Boy a lot of that shit you learned you learned yourself obviously you weren?t taught that, but you know as you evolved I know that you started mentoring other individuals, you know it’s an art form. Tell us how you learned it, how you inherited it and how you pasted it on to the new and younger generation dawg ?

CL: The way I learned it and the way it’s pasted on these days is way different because I grew up in a time where it was a bunch of stick up kids for the most part that were B-Boys and I came from a much more rougher time. So if your shit was whack and you was a B-Boy or whatever, one of them B-Boys that was older then you or mentoring you like whether it be B-Boy Spy, Track 2, Willie Will all these like pioneer B-Boys that basically represented before any commercial situation came about, you know if they stepped to you and said your shit is whack you need to go work on it, you know, or your shit looked hurt, you actually didn’t take offense to it. You listened to them because yo they were the ones they were the shit, they were the ones that held it down, they the people that you strive to be like and you came back the following week and show how you improved and then you either got a pat on the back or you got sent back to the lab. Right know a lot of people are mad soft out there and can’t take criticisms like that and that’s because they come from a different time you know, it’s not so much of an expression for them as it is a hobby so they take offense to it. I’m hard on the B-Boys that I work with I try and tell them straight up yo that looks hurt or that shit was whack you know? but its all with love and I think the end result shows that there is progress?

S-1: Alright, alright, couple of quick questions...I know that you got alotta shit. You personally, what was the battle that sticks out in your mind dawg?

CL: Out of all the battles? Well you know what? Right now I would have to say one of the most exciting battles for us was a battle that just happened a few days ago ?Yo let me tell you, I have plenty of battles to talk about from back in the days. Right now my whole thing is, even with theme of the Rocksteady anniversary being stay legendary. It’s really about me telling the crew “:yo keep the name going and keep it strong” and we had a battle out in Los Angeles as part of the Crazies Commandos event at the Avalon and that’s something that we put together with Scion and the way the crew came together ?cause we’ve been going thru some growing pains with the new generation of Rocksteady and it’s takin a minute to get that chemistry, but to see them reach that point like okay yo were here. The new Rocksteady is here with a little help from the O.G members? I was so impressed to see how they got down and did their thing it completely blew my mind and it’s like one of those things when there is a new baseball player coming to your team and then there’s that one player that one homerun, that when you need it in the bottom of the ninth and you say yo that dude is a New York Yankee, So now I’m looking at them like yeah now you Rocksteady?

S-1: That leads right into my next question, talk to us about some of the events that are going on ?

CL: Well first of all the event is being produced with the help of Red Bull, which is a company that I’m actually signed to as an athlete and we have a lot of things going on with them and it’s supported by Tribal Street Wear as well got to give them shouts. We have the new York regional on Wed the 27th at the Cherry Lounge up in Harlem and that is going to be the regional competition for the Crazies Commandos battle that we’ve been doing as a tour thru Chicago, Orlando, Houston, Los Angeles to now New York and the following day we have the underground celebrity basketball game benefiting the Greenwich Village youth counsel which is an organization that helps young brothers and sisters out there be on basketball teams and things like that. We are also going to be having the Concrete Classic the going against the grain battle which is B-Boys and B-girls battling straight up on concrete taking it back to the streets back to where it started, no cardboard straight concrete, only the strong survive on that one. One of the dope things that we have going on is a party called for the Funk of It. Its more locking and poppin based party with like funk and soul be played. The legendary Electric Bugaloo is performing and that’s at Crowbar on the 28th?and the 29th we got the finals for the Crazies Commando battle as well as Rocksteady crew and other crew are having a battle with a crew by the name of X Scenes. We usually have a free concert outdoors but this year we will be taking it in doors at the Cherry Lounge from 1-7 and that still going to be a free event, We got Keith Murray, Eric Sermon, Killa Priest, Blackmoon, Pumpkinhead, Jin we got like underground and alotta surprises coming thru I don’t want to give it away cause it will be a mobb scene over there?

S-1: That’ s a hell of a line up and it’s free, We will definitely have a couple of our people there, last but Not least, Crazy Legs how it you get the name?

CL: I got the name in junior high school I was in the 7th grade and I was practicing my B-Boying in the cafeteria and this girl by the name of Arlene Rosario was walking down the aisle, she was the captain of the cheerleaders and had a whole squad with her and she goes : ILLLL HE GOT SOME CRAZY LEGS!!!!, and it stuck?.

S-1: Alright that’s phat as hell. Ay man it’s your week, do what you do best , go out there and show the world that we can all unite thru music and dance, it?s a positive thing you feel me? Again this S-1 Legacy Magazine, Legacy Radio, My nigga Crazylegs from the Rocksteady Crew holding it down?Any last words?

CL: I just want to shout out the members of my crew man Mr. Wiggles, Pop master Fable, Mr. Freeze, Slice, Q-Unique, Tony Touch, Sugar Pops, Sweet Pea, Cool Ski, Easy Rock, Charlie Rock, Jerome-Ski, Flea, Rock, Technique, Tough and Twist, Irvin Servin, DJ Presto, Renegade, Quiet Riot, Double T, and Wine I?

S-1: You got that off dawg, Last but not least how ever you wanna put it, give Legacy a shout out!!

CL: Ay Yo was sup everybody back up off the ropes man, back up .I said back up Legacy Magazine is in da house, Rocksteady Crew is in full effect, get behind the ropes no one invited you back here?

Legacymag.Net Exclusive
Interviewed by S1 for LegacyMag.Net
LEGACY Exclusivez

LegacyMag.Net Nothing But the Best!!!! That'z our WERD!!!!!