Pop that Funk

Ashes 2 Ashes organizer/host Huy Pham, AKA Knuckles, at the battle: “Someone stole this dude’s wallet… that’s not cool, this is hip-hop… this is supposed to be a positive thing, you don’t come to a jam and steal someone’s wallet, turn yourself in! This is hiphop!… also, I got DVDs of the last jam for sale, make sure you get one.”
For now, I’m giving up on the digital photos; they aren’t super hot, as I was borrowing my soon-to-be-ex housemate Joe Faustin Kelly’s piece, which has a 9-second lagtime between pressing the button and actually taking the photo, plus when I put the CD of jpgs he gave me in my computer, it essentially contains a giant flashing middle finger. I’ll post them later if I can figure it out. There were a couple OK shots of the Circle of Fire vs. Massive Monkees standoff.
Yep: Massive Monkees swept Ashes to Ashes. To date, I have never seen them lose a battle. They were busting out old skool full-crew routines like you wouldn’t believe, and this one time, Lil Lazy somehow flipped up and landed UPSIDE DOWN, on ONE of Twixx’s shoulders. I have never yelled the words, “Oh, shit!” more in my whole life. By the end, I had no control over my lips; the “oh, shit!”s were just drooling out my mouth like I was Jazzbo screwing and chopping a handful of Ambien.
But Massive Monkees are the World B-Boy Champions. Thee best in the world, straight certified. You feel as though watching them is a sacred blessing from the b-god in the cypher above. Of course they won. But the fact they were allowed to compete in a Portland jam consisting mostly of up & coming local crews and a handful of extra-hot folks from Seattle, Tacoma, Sacramento, Las Vegas–what’s up with that? They should have been exhibition battling, not battle-battling. So when they took the final round, swiped it from a Sacramento crew who would’ve otherwise woodchipped all those other dudes into $2.99 papyrus econo-pac, it was anticlimactic. The round itself was 50 kinds of nutzoid; you should totally buy the DVD when it’s ready. But the Sacramento dudes should have won.
I am sorry I do not know the Sacto crew’s name. If you are reading this and know, please fill out the comment form below.
Also: ZERO B-GIRLS. What?! My fave local b-girl, Melissa, had to babysit her 2 yr old cousin. Where my ladies at?!
(Melissa, by the way, is my total dance idol. She’s a little green in the battles, but is, stylistically, Ford Prefect on some Mars Rover shite. She has no beef with hip-hop moves (perhaps more acceptable for b-girls than b-boys?), nor limber acrobatics/backbends, a la Sarah Jessica Parker in “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.)
One More Thing, and it’s a complaint, but I swear Huy did a fabulous job of organizing and it was thee best jam ever:
Was DJ MAgneto at the Blazers vs. Nuggets game, or what? Huy, repeatedly: “Manny, this is the FINAL ROUND, we need yr HARDEST BREAKS, the ones you’ve been SAVING FOR THE VERY END.”
He played NU SHOOZ, “I CAN’T WAIT.”
It inspired some nice parody moves, at least–as in, “Massive is making fun of yr selection on some Janet Jackson Pleasure Principal shit, oh quick someone get a folding chair for a prop, dude, somebody’s doing the running man!” shit.
Complaints aside, there are few ways I’d rather spend a Fri nite. Bless all the b-boys in the entire world, except the mean ones, and the a-hole who stole that kid’s wallet. And the homophobes.