Interview with Popin' Pete & Mr. Wiggles Monsters of Hip Hop - July 7-9, 2006, Orlando, Fl
Popin' Pete and Mr. Wiggles are widely recognized and revered the fathers of what is referred to today as Hip Hop. Popin' Pete grew up in black community of Los Angeles while Mr. Wiggles came from the tough streets of Hispanic Bronx in New York. As ambassadors for change, both have helped transform what was once strictly "street" dance into what is now widely recognized as one of dance's most popular art forms. Both have appeared in numerous videos, movies TV and stage worldwide. We caught up with Pete and Wiggles in Orlando where they were judging and teaching with Andy Funk's Monsters of Hip Hop.
Question by Alan Klopman: Why is hip hop so popular today?
Answer by Mr. Wiggles: The "hip hop dance" that you see on TV and music videos are being made to be attractive commercially because they borrow from so many different styles. To be real about it, a lot of the choreography intertwines a lot of street jazz and a lot of other techniques outside of hip hop. And it's made to look attractive. It's made for kids to look and enjoy it at it, and parents look at it and say "That's kinda cool". I also think we have started moving away from the booty-shaking era. We are getting a lot more into some serious dancing.
Q: OK...then what exactly is "hip hop dance"?
A: Let me break this down real quick. That way we will be right. Right off the bat. In Hip hop dance: there are certain styles of dance that evolved from the DNA. On the East Coast you have "Breakin' Up Rockin'" and "Freestyle". In the West Coast you have "Popin'", "Lockin'" and a lot of other sub-styles. The reason I mention all this is because the term "Hip Hop" was coined in the East Coast by Afrika Bambaataa, he was one of the biggest leaders in the hip hop community. Good luck with the spelling of that (laughs)! Afrika Bambaataa is a good friend of ours who started a giant organization called "The Universal Zulu Nation". He coined the term "hip hop" in the early 80s, but you have to remember that " Poppin'" and " Lackin'" has been going on since the 60s. And "Breakin'" started in 72'" and "Up Rockin'" came in the late 60s. My point is the culture existed before the name. After Afrika Bambaataa used the term "hip hop" in a magazine article in 1982, any dance that originated in the street in L.A. or NY came under the name "hip hop". A lot of roots and tradition (of dance) got lost.
Freestyle means "draw from anything", draw from African, from native American, from jazz, ballet, whatever you feel. Freestyle is a party dance, social dancing when you go to a club: they know the latest dances, they do it together and then people freestyle off the top of their heads. Lots of styles come from it. Freestyle is the key to what you see in a lot of music videos. Then good choreographers got a hold of it and added technique. What you see on TV a lot today is a mishmash of studio-style dancing mixed with street-style dancing.
Hip hop evolved in the black and Hispanic communities of both coasts.
An important thing to clarify is that the term " Break dancing" is wrong, I read that in many magazines but that is a media term. The correct term is "Breakin'", people who do it are B-Boys and B-Girls. The term " Break dancing" has to be thrown out of the dance vocabulary.
Q: Is there a feeling related to hip hop?
A: I am from the West Coast, for me it's about getting into the music, it's this attitude, it's this street cool. We didn't learn in studios. We learned in the back alleys, in the parks, we used to dance in my mom's garage, or on the corner.
Q: How long have you been into this?
A: I have been dancing professionally since I was a teenager. I have been doing this for 28 years. I have been teaching for 20 years, but performing for 28 years. I was one of the guys of the movie "Breakin'" which I did when I was 23. I was doing TV stuff way before that though, I performed with Dean Martin, Bobby Goldsboro, I did the Vegas thing even before hip hop became popular.
Q: How young were you when you really started dancing?
A: Since I was out of the embryo (laughs). It was part of the culture. My mother and my father were club-heads, they would go to clubs and when they had parties at home we looked to learn the latest dances, I was 5 or 6. It was part of our culture to understand what dance is.
Q: What does dance do for you?
A: Liberates, freedom, it's a sharing, giving, love...
Q: Are you a different person when you perform than when you are sitting here giving an interview?
A: Pretty much. When I was in high school I was one of those fortunate or unfortunate kids from the hood that got bussed to a white school. We used to go to a sock-hop thing they had, but when we danced the kids would watch us. When I was in the 9th grade I was voted as the best dancer in school and the person most likely to become a dancer. At the time it wasn't in my mind to become a dancer, but I guess I was that good.
Q: What do you look for when you judge hip hop?
A: The first thing I look for is rhythm. Is it rhythm or is it just a bunch of tricks? And we like to separate that because in the 80s a lot of the big moves like the head spin, and the windmills, all that got more popular than the dance itself. There is a lot more to it than spinning and tricks and flipping.
Answer by M.W.: We look for the deep rooted essence,... the foundation first.
Q: Sometimes it looks like there are a lot of quick, jerky moves in the dance, do I see that wrong?
A: Yes. A lot of what you see today is what I call "act dancing" because it is done to lyrics. So a lot of people don't listen to the beat and get into the music like we did in the original hip hop. Street dancing was never ever ever to do to a count. You do not count a 1,a 2,a 3,a 4, a 5, a 6 to hip hop. It should be a feeling by making noise like "ou" "ah" "aw" "tsi", that's how we count, right there. When Michael Jackson does that all "aw aw",... Michael Jackson got all that for me. He asked me when I was teaching him "Pete, why do you make all that noise?". I said "I make that noise to keep time". It's to keep the feeling, even without the music I can still go, I am still with the music. So that's why he started doing that back in 83'.
Q: Mr. Wiggles you are from the NY Hispanic community, right? Tell me how you got into dance.
Answer by M. W.: Yes, I grew up on the streets, I am from South Bronx. My whole family were dancers. In the house there was always dancing and in NY there was the jams. People would bring their equipment down to the street and play music loud, and that would be kind of a gathering, it was the birth of hip hop. We'd bring some equipment to the park and hook it up to the lamp post electricity, and play music in the park and people would come around and jam.
Q: Did you think when you were doing that you had some future in dance?
Answer by M. W.: No, we did it like an activity, similar to what parents in the suburbs that put their kids into baseball. Except we didn't have money for baseball or soccer or football. It what was happenin' in the street, and unfortunately a lot of things that go down in the street are not all positive. So dancing was a good outlet. We grew up in that environment and got to see a lot of things we wish we hadn't seen. Dancing was a way to get out of it. If you grow up in the ghetto environment people need to celebrate because you have so much sorrow at home,.. no food, bills, the lights go off, you don't know if you are going to be in the street the next day. So that jammin' in the park, man, sounded kinda right. You go to a party in the park you kinda forget about all that stuff and you just get down, and the music just takes you places.
Q: What about the social factor of dance?
Answer by M. W.: Well I am from Longwood Ave., and kids from Brook Ave., we didn't like each other, but we had jams right in the middle, and they know that from my block they would be bringing Wiggles so they would bring their kids from their avenue. While the blocks didn't get along, dancing was a good way to break the ice and keep it from getting crazy. We had battles of best dancers instead of rumbling. It was all about competing, neighborhood against neighborhood, dancing against dancing. Sometimes when you go to other neighborhoods you get chased out, sometimes you don't make out (laughs). That was the activity in the Bronx ( laughs).
Q: When did it changed for you from street dancing to your professional career?
Answer by M. W.: Honestly I never intended to be a dancer, I was one of those hopeless ones. It was weird that the media started swooping down into hood to see what was going on with this culture in the Bronx and it happened also in the West Coast. They would invite us downtown (to perform) in these galleries and clubs. I mean I was a 14, 15 year old kid hanging out in Studio 54, in the early 80's. They would bring us in and put us on stage and tell us to " Do that thing you do in the hood".
Q: How did a place like Studio 54 discovered you?
Answer by M. W.: There was an artist called Antonio Lopez, he was a very famous fashion artist, he was Puerto Rican so he already knew what was going on down. He frequented Studio 54 and had his parties there and he brought us in there to perform. Henry Chevant who was an artist in the Village put on the first hip hop show, and that set it off. Then it became this thing, this hip thing to do, for the whole Village to see these young kids dancing.
Q: Over and above your success as performers, what did hip hop do when you were growing up?
A: Well, I was shy, I was a borderline nerd, I mean I could play sports but I was this skinny 96 pounds kid at 16 years old, and when I started dancing I became one of the most popular kids at school.
Q: Where do you think hip hop is headed?
A: We always hope it will get even better and better. It is international now. I just came from France, we've been traveling and teaching and performing overseas off and on for the last 10 years, and it's huge. I hope it is accepted as a legitimate art form. I had discussion when I was in London. We were on a panel and we were discussing dance and someone said " The difference between what we do ( like modern dance) is that modern is an art form". And I replied "What makes you think that what we do is not as cultural or an art form?" Hip hop is still in embryo, I mean, I have been doing this for 30 years but it is still a baby compared with other dance forms.
Answer by M. W.: Sometimes people who refuse to admit hip hop is an art form, say to me, well if this fades out you can always dance in the street and I say to them " Look here, I have done three Broadway shows" and I ask them how many Broadway shows have they done. That's part of the whole stigma that is put on hip hop, some people think it is only good in the streets. I think movies and videos are cool, but when hip hop started making into the big stages ( on Broadway) where we performed in our own shows that we helped put together, that's helps legitimize hip hop. The important future of hip hop to make it accepted as a legitimate dance form will be the theatrical production.... Not videos and movies where we perform behind some rapper. A lot of the kids that learn hip hop in studios never experienced the "street experience". I think it would also be good that some of them go into some of these clubs and see some real street dancing. I also have to give credit to guys like Andy from Monsters of Hip Hop who brings guys like me and Pete here to these event and they let us tell the kids everything we are telling you now. And the parents appreciate it too because they get a real sense of history.
Q: As a judge in hip hop, what do you not like to see?
A: People dancing off beat. If you call yourself a dancer that is a relationship with music, if you are dancing off beat then you are not a dancer.