Crazy Legs: A 5-Minute History

Here's very simply the one and only Crazy Legs, interviewed during the week of Rock Steady Crew's 30th anniversary, which found these true cultural pioneers receiving red carpet treatment all over the world and a Beatlemania-style bum rush of their plane in Russia! In this truncated history, he speaks about growing up in the South Bronx (also my hometown), the earliest days of what became THE world music and culture at the end of one century and the beginning of another, and his own family and friends, some of which are gone.

I interviewed Crazy Legs the same week I taped Morrissey at the Borgata. Both men spoke of the poverty of their childhood, Morrissey described himself, as he pondered his fate aloud to the audience as a "welfare child", and Crazy Legs told me his welfare family's cycles of joy and migration though many different neighborhoods in The Bronx. They both spoke with the wizened, benign tones of gratitude and acceptance that befits a hard-earned peace of mind. And both are stone cold legends.

During the interview, he describes his mindstate when performing and just as he says the word "showtime" someone's phone goes off magically, punctuating this man's passion for The Dance. Crazy Legs hosts workshops at various dance centers and regularly lectures at colleges around the world, and his dedication to the preservation of dance history alongside his stature as a pioneering artist in a generation rich with pioneering artists make him a fascinating subject for a much longer interview.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Crazy
• Legs
• Rock
• Steady
• Crew
• Michael
• Vazquez
• URB
• Magazine

[markesco]

didnt crazy legs invent the windmill?

[77musica]

He is HIP HOP! Not these shitheads in these retarded music videos.

[mekosilvar]

this (he) is how you age..dude out of the whole crew aged the best..

[maytas19079]

i have heard that, While crazy legs was doing backspin and try to flip up to head freeze.

He was spinning and flipped up too fast and accidentally overspin that moves into windmills. aint that right?

[skeletokyo]

@MarcusDarling4026 then DON'T effin say that windmill is a Capoera move cz some people might actually believe u, windmill is NOT a capoeira move, Capoeira Martial artists DO NOT windmill... so just be quiet... since u "Don't know that much"...

[MarcusDarling4026]

GHERE's what I said, when & to whom:

"@markesco

Windmill is a Capoera martial arts move. Crazy Legs didn't "invent" it but he did "re- present" it to modern / urban dance.

MarcusDarling4026 4 months ago "

I never said that Crazy Legs "SAW THE WINDMILL FROM CAPOERA" (I speak from what I KNOW & not what I don't).

Instead, zealots need to calm down a bit & not let their pride of their OWN limited knowledge make them deaf, dumb & blind. Do you misread bc you WANT to disagree & seem superior?

[MarcusDarling4026]

@bboyjaggij

I never said that Crazy Legs "SAW THE WINDMILL FROM CAPOERA" (I don't profess to know THAT MUCH about where people DEFINITELY did or did NOT get things from, in arenas where I'm not a 'head' or well- acquainted). That'd be like my giving my novice opinion of a football game as fact, in the midst of a bunch of fans & officianados. Much more likely that the fanatics may've misinterpreted a blanket statement which stands for the art of creation as a whole, not CLegz in particular.

[MarcusDarling4026]

@skeletokyo

I never said that Crazy Legs "SAW THE WINDMILL FROM CAPOERA" (I don't profess to know THAT MUCH about where people DEFINITELY did or did NOT get things from, in arenas where I'm not a 'head' or well- acquainted). That'd be like my giving my novice opinion of a football game as fact, in the midst of a bunch of fans & officianados. Much more likely that the fanatics may've misinterpreted a blanket statement which stands for the art of creation as a whole, not CLegz in particular.

[skeletokyo]

@MarcusDarling4026 don't misinform people if u don't know ur facts idiot.. he made the windmill by accident he did not see it from capoera and I dnt think capoera uses windmills... he was trying to do a transition from a sixstep to a chairfreeze and he slipped into a backspin like movement and then by accident he made the windmill.. that's why is also known as a continuous backspin...

[bboyjaggij]

@MarcusDarling4026 Bboys and oder public in general were xposed 2 capoera long after breakin started............so pls do ur research b4 commentin

[bboyjaggij]

@MarcusDarling4026 Bboys n oder public in general were xposed 2 Capoera long after breakin started.......so please research n comment