ThaFormula.com - Many people ask how come guys like you don't enter battles anymore?

Crazy Legs - Me, I got nothin’ to prove. I'm 36 and when it comes to the flexibility that it requires and just the stamina that it requires, I mean it's a very demanding dance. I've done all I have to do.

ThaFormula.com - Are the B-Boy events different in L.A. then the ones in New York in terms of the vibe?

Crazy Legs - I think the thing out there is that a lot of B-Boy's out there have a hard time accepting defeat, so there has been a lot of beef. Like when other people from other cities go there and beat people from L.A., the locals are expecting to win or have gassed them up to a point where they feel they are unbeatable it becomes an issue. Like recently at Freestyle Sessions this one kid had tried to step to Easy Rock who's in Rocksteady and was trying to give him shit cause Easy Rock didn't pick his crew as a winner. And you know Easy Rock is a veteran. He doesn't have to explain why he chose whoever! I've heard from people on the West Coast that a lot of guys out there have a hard time accepting defeat.

ThaFormula.com - What do you consider the best times were for you?

Crazy Legs - To me the best of times was like when I first got into the dancing in the ‘70's. It was cool on a financial level during the 80's, but at the same time we were getting jerked so that's a bitter sweet type of memory as opposed to say ‘77 to ‘81, when it was just all about the dance and that's it. No media involved then at all.

ThaFormula.com - What do you think is the biggest difference in the B-Boys of back in the day compared to the B-Boy's of today?

Crazy Legs - The biggest difference is that back then you didn't get easy props. You had to earn them. Now you can go out there, do some incredible move, mess up and the crowd will still give you props. It's just too easy to get props these days.

ThaFormula.com - Why do you feel things have changed like this?

Crazy Legs - I guess because a lot of the people are softer in their ways when it comes to like critiquing people's skills, when back then if your shit was wack, somebody would be like, “Yo that shit was hurt, you need to put a band-aid over that,” and then the person wouldn't get offended. He would just be like, "Word" and go work on it. It's like now if you tell somebody your dancin’ off beat, it's like “well that's the way I express myself, who is you to tell me that I'm not dancing?” and the young brothers now do not have the same respect that people like myself had for the people that came before me. They don't have that respect for the people that came before them. When I came up it was just straight up respect for the people that we looked up to and whether we liked them or not.

ThaFormula.com - Do you ever get people steppin’ up to you to battle out of nowhere?

Crazy Legs - Nah, nah. I get a lot of love wherever I go. And if they did I would probably laugh and be like “kid catch one of the younger brothers in Rocksteady.”

ThaFormula.com - What is something that the new kids don't seem to realize about battling?

Crazy Legs - I would have to say, uh, I mean you battle and hope that you win, but going out there and even if you lose to know that you went out there and did your best that's all that really matters. When I came up I lost battles, but it was never an issue for me. It just meant going back into the lab. If someone said I lost, I lost that's it. I never questioned it except for one battle I lost, but then years later I found out that the battle was fixed. So you know the one that I questioned I was right on.

ThaFormula.com - Explain exactly what the Rocksteady Anniversary Is about for the heads out there that might not know?

Crazy Legs - The Rocksteady Anniversary was initially, uh, actually what happened was we threw a jam in ‘91 during the new music seminar and we put this jam together to honor members of Rocksteady that had passed away and the name of the jam was called “Straight from the Heart” and we did it at Rocksteady park. The years following that I just established a Rocksteady Anniversary. It's just like of course to celebrate our anniversary and in doing so we try to focus as much as we can on all the elements of hip-hop and we honor people that have passed away and made contributions in some way but never really got props for doing it, so that's basically it.

ThaFormula.com - How was last year’s man?

Crazy Legs - Last years was dope. It was incredible. I'd say throughout the weekend over 15,000 people showed up. The performances were great, and the battles were incredible. This kid named Dyzee from Canada won. He's in a crew called Supernaturals. He won the B-Boy battle. We just had like a lot of dope performances and our event is not really anything that we fully promoted, a lot of it is word of mouth and basically loyalty and people now. It's like people schedule their vacations around that time of the year to come out from different parts of the world and be a part of it. It is a 4-day event. We have a basketball tournament then we have an indoor jam, outdoor jams, battles, mc contests, performances and all kinds of things.

ThaFormula.com - How many members are there in Rocksteady at the moment?

Crazy Legs - Yeah, it's around 75 actually.

ThaFormula.com - What's required to become a Rocksteady member?

Crazy Legs - It depends on what you wanna do. If you wanna represent as a B-Boy, first you have to make sure that the primary members are feelin’ you, then we gotta check your skills. If you wanna represent as a DJ, we got to check your skills also. It's really about first and foremost how we get along with you. No matter what your skills are like. You can be like the illest B-Boy out there, but if your not vibin’ with us as a crew or you’re just down with Crazy Legs, it's not gonna work cause you got everyone else in the crew that need to get along with you as well. I'm not trying to accept someone in that's a Crazy Legs fan. You really got to be a true supporter of hip-hop.

ThaFormula.com - So what do you have planned for this year?

Crazy Legs - Well this year probably around September, I'm gonna have to call it quits for the dancin’. 25 years this summer is enough. I wanna focus on an independent label that's called Back Spin productions. I want to just continue throwin’ events and keepin’ the vibe alive and keep it going with Rocksteady. Also we got our web site www.Rocksteadycrew.com . We wanna continue to develop that as a source of information for people on B-Boying and hip-hop in general. So I wanna try and make that into a hip-hop library.

ThaFormula.com - So this retirement is pretty much a sure thing?

Crazy Legs - Yeah, definitely. I have some shows that I will be doing throughout the year, but I'm 36 years old and I'm really not trying to abuse my body. I work out, I stay in shape and do what I got to do in terms of taking care of my physical, but there are things that you have to accept as you get older and me trying to compete on the level of a 17 year old or 18 year old is not realistic. The hardcore practicing and all that has pretty much stopped except for today I'm gonna go practice with some of the fellas in my crew up in the Bronx.

ThaFormula.com - What about opening up a school?

Crazy Legs - Oh yeah, that's right that's another thing I'm looking at doing. I have a lot of things I want to do. I'm also planning on droppin’ a few B-Boy videos that people can purchase through www.Rocksteadycrew.com like past anniversaries.

ThaFormula.com - Where did you guys first start performing at?

Crazy Legs - When we first started doing shows in Manhattan, we were performing for the punk rock scene, so no one can say were sellin’ out cause when it comes down to it when we first started performing our own people were never the ones to invite us to perform.

ThaFormula.com - Now there has been a lot of arguments on who hip-hop was started by. In your opinion was hip hop started by Africans or Africans and Latinos?

Crazy Legs - Oh man! You got to understand the community in the Bronx was a mixed community. The only communities that were pretty much segregated it was like Black and Latinos then you had white neighborhoods. It's not like on the West Coast where you might have an extremely dominant Latino neighborhood. The projects over here have Black and Latinos so your talkin’ about something that developed. It’s like one big flower pot you know and everyone is in there sharing that same flower pot.

ThaFormula.com - Sometimes I will get upset because I have always felt that the Latino had some involvement in the creation of hip-hop especially when it came to the B-Boyin’ part of it, but I notice that the media never seems to mention that?

Crazy Legs - Yeah, of course. Hell yeah! Charlie Chase, Disco Mario who passed away who was one of the main key players back in the days. If you interview Bambaataa he will tell you that yeah, Latinos had a big part in it as well. When I was going to jams in 1977 it was black and Latinos and that's like only 2 or 3 years after the scene started.

ThaFormula.com - So where does the Latino fit in how it started?

Crazy Legs - We were in those first jams in the park. We were the B-Boys. Look at Whipper Whip, he was an MC. Charlie Chase was a DJ. Disco Mario was a DJ. We were all in the same neighborhoods doing the same things. I remember hearing Latinos MC's back then as well. All you have to do is look at the demographics of the neighborhood and you will say “well how could this be going on and this person not know?” People have this ridiculous idea that all it was, was like a bunch of Puerto Ricans wearing pointy shoes. Hell No!! We were up there with the British walkers, Pumas and all that shit as well. I think a lot of people that say we weren't a part of starting it are in straight denial and that's because the media has always portrayed it as only a Black thing, but in reality the music is about the urban experience. Also, Bambaataa used to play Spanish music too at his jams. He played Willie Colon, Tito Santana, and all that shit. It's just some people don't know their history.

ThaFormula.com - Has the Rocksteady shows and name been good to you financially?

Crazy Legs - Yeah, definitely. But it's not like there’s a lot of shows out there to do in the first place, but it's really about your hustle. You gotta get your hustle on. You gotta do your work shops, lectures, and things like that as well. If the shows aren't out there then you just got to get a job and treat it for what it is. An art form, and most people don't get paid for their art. If I was someone just getting into this, I would definitely finish college instead of thinking that I'm gonna make a life out of B-Boying ‘cause you never know what's gonna happen. I'm one of the fortunate ones.

ThaFormula.com - Did you face a lot of racism when you guys were comin’ up and doing these big shows?

Crazy Legs - Hell Yeah! (Laughs). After we came off of our first tour in like 1981 me and Frosty Freeze, we got robbed by some white kids getting off the bus.

ThaFormula.com - What would you say is the worst thing that happened to you guys as far as racism wise?

Crazy Legs - The most blatant thing that has happened that was in our face was when we were doing this small Broadway show. You have all these people working on the set, but there are no people of color. We said we would like to see more people of color on the set and they were all Jewish and they were like “well basically, uh, our thinking is if we drink grape juice, we like to have people around us that drink grape juice” and we were like what the hell is that man!! So we had to fight to make sure that there was some people of color on the set. They get the big dildo award!!

ThaFormula.com - So Be sure to check out the web site www.rocksteadycrew.com for more info.

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