INTERVIEW WITH THE ORIGINAL B-BOY TRIXIE

                                     INTERVIEW WITH THE ORIGINAL B-BOY TRIXIE


                                                           

Trixie

NORIN RAD:"Where did you  live  at when you first started going to  Kool Herc's parties?"

TRIXIE: "I lived at 57 West 175th Street. That's Macombs, Nelson, University, all that it is in that area. Kool Herc lived in the Valley and we lived up on top."

NORIN RAD:"And that's the West Side Of The Bronx?"

TRIXIE:" Yes, that's the Westside."

NORIN RAD: "Do you recall what made you pick up that name "Trixie"?

TRIXIE: " Coke La Rock gave me "Trixie" 'cause I, you know, did tricks! Coke La Rock gave me that name and it just stuck. Everybody started calling me Trixie. That was it! That was my name! Wherever I went at they called me Trixie."

NORIN RAD: "Do you remember where and when he gave you that name?"

TRIXIE: "Very early at a Kool Herc party."

NORIN RAD: "So you were there at his first parties in that recreation room at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue?"

TRIXIE:"Yes, we were the ones that started Kool Herc!"

NORIN RAD:"So I guess you also knew Herc's CINDY?"

TRIXIE:"I know Cindy, I know his mother, his father, I know his fam!  But I was there on the Westside of the Bronx before all of them. We all grew up together.. me and Herc met when we were teenagers and most of us were graduating going to high school. We played basketball together all the time, we did a lot of things together. We went to the same schools! We went from house party to houseparty....stuff like that! One day Herc invited us to his parties and we was all thinking about it..either we wasn't gonna go or we was gonna go because it is cold down the valley. The valley was Sedgewick Ave..Sedgewick is coooooold at the winter time and you gotta go down these stairs and all this junk. Man!!!  But.... winter started and we'd go to his party and it was 50 cent...yeah, it was 50 cent."

NORIN RAD: "When did you start breaking and who inspired you to start breaking?"

TRIXIE: "I'm gonna say it like this....Did nobody inspire me to start breaking 'cause I already knew how to dance. I started breakdancing in 1971, then 72,73...yeah, and I stopped dancing in 1974/75. When we did go to Herc's parties that's when I took it to another level. All my friends could tell you I already knew how to dance so it wasn't like I didn't know how to dance. Nobody did..I put it to you like this. My Mother was a dancer so I gotta say my mother kind of inspired me to dance."

NORIN RAD: "Is it true that breaking at that time was done mainly on top?"

TRIXIE:"Yeah,you would get into the move of it, you know?! Then once you see an opening then you come down to the ground and do your rolls, your spins, all of that....but you see there is a timing for that. A lot of people the way they are breaking right now all they do is the floormoves, they are not actually dancing. No! We didn't do it like that.You danced first then you break ..."Oh Boy, you now break Boy!" Then you come back up and you dance again.It was a dance. That's what it was. It was dance breaking."

Norin Rad:"And back then B-Boys used to dance to the whole song, right? Not just the break part?"

TRIXIE: "Yeah, yeah, yeah!!! From beginning to end! Whoever gets tired or whatever (against you)...you're the winner. Back in my time I could dance a whole album. A whole album by myself!"

NORIN RAD:"Over here many B-Boys have this misconception that back then it was all about breakbeats all night BUT Kool Herc did not only play beats for the B-Boys to get down to but also Hustle joints and slow joints, right?"

TRIXIE:" Yeah we used to do slow dancing.Listen, Breakdancing started a lot of stuff. The Hustle is a Latin dance but we turned it into a Soul Dance. To mingle with the other half, the girls, we had to dance slow. But if you were breakdancing she was not gonna dance with you. Most girls couldn't breakdance. So you had to mix it all up! For me as a dancer I had to do all of those. Not just breakdancing I had to dance to every type of song..so I could get a date. You had to know how to mingle, how to talk to a girl, how to do the hustle.... or you could dance regular 'cause we used to do dance regular, too. So if  you danced regular you could make her smile and move her body. All that plays into breakdancing."

NORIN RAD:"Thank you very much!! There is another question directly attached to this one. I heard Coke La Rock saying that he was also playing kool joints. What was he referring to?"

TRIXIE:"Everybody is dancing, everybody is having a good time...you gotta slow it down once in while. Kool joints that's how you slow it down where everybody can hold on to each other, talk to a girl in her ear.  You know real smooth, real ooooh....So all of that played into breakdancing. All that stuff that we did!!! We didn't dance to rap music. It wasn't NO RAPPERS when we were coming up. You gotta have style, you gotta have class.....and we dressed up!"

NORIN RAD:"Did Kool Herc use special lights at his parties? Like you once told me that at those early house parties they would put on red light when slow joints were played?"

TRIXIE:"He put on a strobe light when he went to the Hevalo and those other places. All that stuff came later 'cause in the beginning he didn't really have no space to put it. For slow jams he just cut the light off.You ain't got no green light, you ain't got no red light or any of those colors. He just cut the light off. Everybody just doing their doing cause nobody could see nobody in the dark."

NORIN RAD:"That must have been really intense slow dancing with the girl that you like in the dark." 

TRIXIE:" Because guys are shy. Most Guys are afraid to talk to a girl. Girls are not shy. Most girls are faster than men. If you got a little little heart  you go up there and grab her by the hand and say, "Come on!" She might say, "No!" You say, "Alright" and move on to the next one. But yeah, it was intense for everybody even for me."

NORIN RAD: "What about drinks? Did they serve Kool Aid lemonade?"

TRIXIE: "Kool Aid??? Did nobody drink no Kool Aid at no party. You know what we drank? Colt 45!!!!! Old English 800. And to be honest with you we smoked a lot of weed. And you had your Kool smokers and your Newport smokers cause Kool was like the biggest cigarette brand back then."

Norin Rad: "Could you describe how battles were initiated at those early Kool Herc's parties at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue or Cedar Park? How would a battle start? Was it a non-verbal thing like someone would go in after you? Or would they come up to you and challenge you verbally? "

Trixie: "I put it to you like this. A dude would come to me and say, "Yo Trixie! I wanna battle you!" Then everybody would say, "Uuuuuh!!!" So I would be like, "You really wanna do that?" Then he would say, "Yeah!" So then they would make a circle..They would make the circle big enough so that we could dance. You gotta dance first! Next thing you know..I done lost my mind (chuckles)!!!! I  just started dancing and I forget about everybody and I just do my thing, man!!!! I wish you could have been there back in those days..just see for yourself....because I was REALLY dancing !!!! So imagine everybody makin a circle and watching me and watching the other guy dance! And girls!!!!! A lotta Girls is watching me DANCE too now..not just the guys...but the girls is there too!! So that would mean more guys would come at me...you know the guys would get jealous and wanna dance!"


Norin Rad:"Okay, and how was the winner of that battle determined? Was it like somebody said, "He's the winner right there!" or was it rather like you burnt your opponent so bad that he already knew that he was done?"

TRIXIE: "Yeah, like that!! Just like that (laughs)!!  He just knew he got served! Cause I didn't play.. I did not play. When I got on the floor and you challenged me..I did not play!  I took dancing..I took that very, very serious. I mean I had fun but I took it  serious. I felt like...sheeesh...once I got one the floor I felt like nobody could stop me from dancing...that's how I felt. You know...next thing you know I take your head of!"

NORIN RAD:"Who was your fiercest competitor back then?"

TRIXIE:"That was Dancing Doug from Harlem. He always gave me a hard time."

NORIN RAD: "What effect did the music have on you at those parties back then?"

TRIXIE:"You mean the beat?"

NORIN RAD:"Yes, the beat.."

TRIXIE: "The beat was like a wire into my body.I would just feel the beat of the music and I just made up a dance. Boom! Autonatically, I was all in it. I make up a dance..  Next week everybody is doing my dance! Then I do another style and everybody would do that dance.  I was known as the guy that made up dance styles, too. I was the guy that started the party. As soon as I walked in everybody was happy, "Trixie here!" I'd be like, "God damn, ain't nobody dancing? Alright, let me do my thang!" and I started dancing and that's it!!  Next thing you know the party is on! And I'd find one guy..maybe one guy from somewhere else..he would come and say, "I wanna challenge you!" Next thing you know the battle is on. Coke would say, "Trixie!!!!!!" And that would be it, man!!! They'd say, "Trixie!" and put on the music. It's on!"

NORIN RAD: "So Coke La Rock would shout you out on the mic, right? Getting the battle started?"

TRIXIE:"Yeah, yeah, yeah (excited)!! He'd say, "Trixie!!!" You know?!! "What you wanna do?!!!!" And there would be some times nobody would wanna dance against me because I done beat mostly everybody for so long.. You had to be really good to get on the floor with me at that time."  

Norin Rad: "So is it fair to say that during the very first era of Kool DJ Herc's parties...from 1973 to 1974...nobody could touch you, right?"  

Trixie:"Could nobody touch me. I'm not bragging. There's another story behind that, too. I don't think anybody could touch me. I be honest. That's the way I felt 'cause guys would practise their moves and then they would think they could do them on me. I'm telling you the truth...I never ever ever ever practised my moves! You know how the kids are practising their moves now? I never did that..never..ever. It just came natural!"

NORIN RAD:"You just made up your moves spontaneously reacting to the music, right?"

TRIXIE:"Straight to the music, the beat....the dance....everything I just made up."

NORIN RAD:"How was biting another person's moves looked upon? Did that bother you?"

TRIXIE: "You had a lot of people who were trying your moves, you know? It ain't bad. All it would do was make me change my moves. So if you think you got my move pad down I would come up with something totally different. You gotta come up with something different and that's why they called me Trixie! I didn't do the same moves over and over again. Cause you see me doing one move and the next week I come and you think I do the same move again?? It didn't work like that cause then it gets corny. You gotta come up with something new everytime! Dancing is so differently...it's like a singer. You can't have the same song over and over again. You gotta come up with another hit!"

NORIN RAD:"So you weren't offended when you saw somebody copying your style?"

TRIXIE:"That was kool, man! I loved it...it made me feel good cause I can say,"You got MY move." I didn't get upset or nothing, I loved it. That means I started a trend...that means everybody is dancing like me. Matter of fact cats are still doing my moves today." 

NORIN RAD:"What were some of the moves that you were famous for back then?"

TRIXIE:"The Trixie Shake!!!! If I shake...it was over...my whole body vibrated.From my legs.. to my chest to my head to my hair..cause I had an afro..I wore an afro at that time. So my body would be like....uuuh...Could nobody copy that!"

NORIN RAD: "Nowadays you got people calling themselves B-Boys who totally disregard the music but back then in your era the music was the key, right? You had to dance to the beat, right?"

TRIXIE: " You had to dance to the beat! Yes!!! You couldn't be offbeat cause your moves would look whack. I always danced TO THE BEAT even now when I dance I dance to the beat.They're breaking now but they are not on the beat. It looks fine, it looks cute but I don't look right to me."

NORIN RAD:"Yeah, how can you say that you are dancing when you're not feeling the music and your moves don't match the beat?"

TRIXIE:"Right! That's not dancing! Nah! You dance to the music to make it like...It's like a flow....It's like a bird flying in the air. It's like diving of the board landing in the water correct..It's like playing basketball...Dr. J doin'a dunk but he is like a swan going to the basket. I mean it's all a flow. It's like Chi, you know in martial arts, it's like Chi. You gotta feel it and once you feel it....aaaah man, aaah man I wish I could have met you years ago just to show you what that means. It should be in your heart and your ear. You got to let your ears send you the music. You gotta hear the music.  If you don't hear the music you're not gonna feel it. Mind you I play congas, too so I always know the beat."

 NORIN RAD: "When did you start playing congas?"

TRIXIE:"Yeah, I started when I was 10 years old. Did you star at an early age?"

NORIN RAD:"So you always had that feeling for the rhythm, right?"

TRIXIE:"Now you understand. Rhythm, the beat..everything falls in place." 

NORIN RAD: "Which songs would you get you down to when you were at Kool Herc's parties?"

TRIXIE: "James Brown! The Ohio Players, Earth, Wind & Fire..oh man, I could dance to all of the songs he played but really James Brown! If you danced against me and it was a contest....'cause I used to do contests, too. That's how you make a few dollars, or win a prize or get a trophy or whatever. James Brown!!!! Sheesh...It was on!!! Put James Brown on and I could dance to a whole album. Sex Machine, Give It Up or Turn It Lose..I could dance to all of his songs, all of his fast songs. But I gotta say in my mind I was not a B-Boy at that time! I WAS NOT a B-Boy when I was breakdancing. Kool Herc did come up with that after I had stopped dancing.So I wasn't no B-Boy I was just Trixie. All the other guys he made them, you know, B-Boys and Herculoids. I wasn't around when he did that though. Nah, I wasn't with that. We gonna straighten that out right now! But now B-Boy that's what it is."

NORIN RAD: "Ok just so that I understand you properly...the term of a B-Boy was something that Kool Herc came up with but you were alreay breaking before that and did not consider yourself to be a B-Boy?"

TRIXIE:"Right! No, I was just Trixie. They didn't call me Trixie the B-Boy. It was Trixie, Trixie, Trixie!! That's what I want everybody to understand."

NORIN RAD:"How would you dress and how important was it back then to dress fly?"

TRIXIE:"You had to be fly! You had to dress up.  We were doing it even before we went to Kool Herc's parties. We always knew how to dress fly. We wore Playboys...Playboys is before British Walkers...so we wore Playboys, we wore leather suits, we wore tailor made pants, Italian knits, we wore leather fronts, gators... stuff like that...If you felt like it you could wear sneakers, Lees, nice sweaters, jewelry you know stuff like that...Guys had to dress up, you couldn't go there stinking."

NORIN RAD:"Which cologne was popular among you back then?"

TRIXIE: "Champagne!!! Champagne was the top cologne at that time. All the guys wore Champagne."
                                       

Champagne Cologne (SIr Norin Rad's Stash)

               

                                                  END OF PART ONE