Talk about a retro fad that won't go away (or, rather, goes away, but then keeps coming back, then goes away again, etc.), break dancing returns to Union Square Park in New York City and--hold onto your seats--The New York Times recently looked into the matter! It's enough to make us put in an order for the "Breakin'" DVD next time we rent from NetFlix.

Break dancing, kiddies, as of course you already know, was one of the three pillars of old-school hip-hop culture, the other two being rappin' and writin' (as in graffiti writing), naturally.

Breakin', or B-boying (from the street term "B-Boy" for "break dancer"), was covered by the media shortly after the trend emerged back in the late 70's and during the early 80's just as rap music started getting mainstream attention.

B-boying was often described as a new way for rival gangs in the South Bronx, where hip-hop was born, to face off against each other without resorting to violence.

But the media usually missed the larger story, which was that the break dancing battle was often the precursor to full-on street warfare outside the club.

But hey, out of such chaos of the streets emerged a forceful cultural phenomenon. What matters now is how break dancing lives on nearly 25 years later in TV commercials, such as the recent one for Starburst candy, in which a racial mix of clean-cut Black, Asian and White pseudo-hipster kidz are breakin' with giant boombox in tow. The Starburst commercial gives us a nice socially inclusive and politically correct Gen Y portrait of break dancing as run-of-the-mill after-school hobby in suburban middle America.

But such commercialization/exploitation in the name of target-marketing to the Generation Y demographic is a far cry from the days of early B-Boy culture in the South Bronx and the likes of hip-hop godfathers like Afrika Bambaataa and early break dance troupes like the Zulu Nation and , later, Rock Steady Crew.

Not that Bambaataa, the Nation and hundreds of other inner city youth weren't interested in exploiting the commerical possibilities of the nascent dance genre to get ahead, get out of the ghetto and make a buck or two or a few hundred.

But Zulu Nation was also part of a genuine grass roots community effort to deal with gang violence and a roiling population of poor, disenfranchised minority (mostly) male youths trapped in the urban nightmare of what was then (and in some ways still is) America's worst slum.

What's cool about the Times' article is that it dwells less on the faddish retro-hipster appropriatation of break dancing and more on the true story of inspired ghetto kids struggling to actually earn a semi-living from the B-Boy life, right here, right now in 2004, for real money on real streets, complete with real hassles by real police. That's what's really returned: break dancing to break out of the ghetto and open up the road to a better life.

Here's the permanent archive link (that means NO registration required) to the New York Times story.

--A. to the T.

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