Interview with B-Boy Aby (The Bronx Boys)




                                                                

Aby (The Bronx Boys)

                                      conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders / Germany)

SIR NORIN RAD:"From which part of the Boogie Down Bronx are you?" 

ABY:"We started from...actually...Freeman!  When we first moved from Puerto Rico to the Bronx...the first place that we moved to was Freeman. That's in the South Bronx. Then Bryant Avenue and then from Bryant we moved over to Mohegan Avenue. After Mohegan we moved up to Fordham Road and so on and so forth. I'm in Florida now."

SIR NORIN RAD:"And where did you live at when the TBB Crew started?"

ABY:"At that particular time we lived at 180th & Mohegan Avenue."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What was it like to grow up in the Boogie Down Bronx back then?"

ABY:"Okay, I was born in 1964. My mother was in church..so we would go to church and I was a church kid. So the only time I started hanging out was with Batch (Aby's older brother and legendary Puerto Rican B-Boy) and that was around maybe late 1974, early 1975 and at that time it didn't feel scary 'cause we were born into that. Now that I think of it, it feels quite a little bit more horrifying because everything wasn't...you know, at that time all these abandoned buildings were up there, the President (of the USA) called New York a national catastrophy and all that shit. Basically, we lived in places...in every other street there were abandoned buildings and then also gangs and our gangs were...it wasn't no Bloods and it wasn't no Crips...it was, you know, Savage Skulls, Black Spades, Ching-A-Lings, you know, Seven Immortals, you know, Javelins..that type, you know."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where and when did you witness Breaking for the first time?"

ABY:"It were two guys that taught me how to get down 'cause me back then I was the littlest kid. I had Bosco...rest in peace....and Karate Chino. Karate Chino was more like a outlaw. Boscoe was more like a stick up guy...even though he never stuck up anybody...but he was more the stick up kid type...you know, wearing the Playboys, the Kangols and all that....he dressed fresh. So they taught me..I learnt from to different guys the Top Rock. Remember, when we were dancing back then there were no headspins. Everything was just sporadic moves. So we would take inspiration from anything. Like I would be humping on somebody's leg. You know my Russian Step..I got that from watching Fonzie.....you know Happy Days (sitcom from the 1970s)??? I got that from there and I incorporated it into my dancing. I also did other stuff like Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde...I would mix a formula then drink the formula while I was toprocking and then jump up in the air and then "POW!!" I would land flat on my back and then humped on the floor and then turn around and jump on the floor. We called that stuff Burns. That's what we did...sporadic moves that came out of our heads."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who showed you the ropes in terms of floormoves? Was that also Karate Chino and Boscoe?"

ABY:"No, no. That came from me biting some other people. Floorrocking is different. Being that we did sporadic moves it was no three steps, six steps.....none of that. Batch actually witnessed one of the first cats that went down...I wasn't there unfortunately.....he witnessed that it was a black kid called TT...TT Rock. I adapted that later on and I went into cyphers and I learnt from people I can't even remember. Besides rocking I also got high......drinking  Wild Irish Rose or sniffing glue from a bag. But we was out there doing what we loved...we went to all these different jams at 118, 129....Crotona Park...or to the block parties. DJ Charlie Chase...before he got down with the Cold Crush Brothers... would put on the music. Batch and Bosco and Rubberband and Willie Will from Rockwell Association would help chase bring his system to the school yard and watch him set it up. They would be chilling, play hand ball, smoke cheeba and drink Schaefer beer... not me though, only Batch and them the guys... Batch would have kicked my butt (laughs). We would do the dancing but the funny thing is we used to dance with the girls before that.....when the beats came in like "It's Just Begun"...or anything like that...that's when we go down....but the girls were always there and we would dance with them." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"In which way did your brother Batch influence you?"

ABY:"My brother's influence on me was like a father's influence. I didn't learn much from my brother cause he was always protecting me from running around whenever the whole crew was there. So I would have to sneak behind the crew..like if they found out there was a jam at 129....I would wait for him and Joe and Spec and all them other cats to leave and then I would follow them. And I would go with Cuckoo and a couple other guys...we was small and we would follow my brother and the crew like, you know, a block away and once we got to the jam we would separate and go and mingle with the crowd and start dancing. But Batch's influence on me was like a father's influence."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did he react when he found out that you had picked up floor rocking as well?"

ABY:"Actually, when he saw that I got better and better that's when he started allowing me to come by and to hang out with the crew. That's how I got put down with the TBB Crew."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Could you describe how The Bronx Boys (TBB) Crew started and how it evolved over the years? From what I have heard it actually began as a Writing Crew with Batch, Cash and Shark and then later became a B-Boy Crew, right?"

ABY:"Yeah, exactly what you've just said right now.... We had moved to Mohegan Avenue and  Batch met Cash first I believe and then Shark they were already doing Graffiti (Writing). Batch was struggling with thinking of a name for himself as a Writer....actually, at first I think his name was Bat...his name was Bat or something like that then later on he changed it to Batch but you have to ask him....I'm just coming off the dome right now.  From there Batch changed TBB into a B-Boy Crew ......you know Shark and Cash really wasn't the dancing cats.......they were more into Graffiti and they were hitting the bus barns heavily like boom, boom, boom!! That was their shit!  The crew grew in numbers as time passed  and most of them were B-Boys / Rockers. So Batch ultimately started a dancing crew and Shark and Cash wasn't down with that. You know Shark just died a couple of years ago...we just found out about that. Yeah, so Batch got the concept and the blessings from Shark and Cash and he started TBB as a Rocking Crew in 1975 but it had already been out in 1974 as a Graffiti Crew. The cats from 1975...from the original TBB Rocking Crew were more like Bon 2, Bom 5, Spec.....let me see...L-Mack....at that time he called himself Weebles then in the late 1970ies he called himself L-Mack...that's when he started writing L-Mack. Once we started moving from Mohegan Avenue up to Fordham Road that's when we had....cause over there was the Tremont Chapter which was Bon 2. They were like the warlords...that crew was like our warlords, like the protectors of TBB, you know what I mean?!? They were like crazy but Batch he had the Mohegan Chapter which was right next to Bronx Park South which was close to the Zulu Nation and Afrika Bambaataa and all that.

Bon 2 (The Bronx Boys)

After that we grew up and we moved from Mohegan up to Fordham. That's where they had Godfather who had the Davidson Division of TBB and then there were Jimmy Lee and Jimmy Dee and they had the Burnside Division and Jimmy Lee and Jimmy Dee later on became founders of the Rock Steady Crew. That happened when Batch broke up TBB in 1979, that's when they became Rock Steady BUT Bon 2 and the Tremont Divison they didn't realize that Batch had broken up TBB but you have to talk to Bon about that."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What about your cousin Trace 2 (RIP) though? You haven't mentioned him yet."

ABY:"No, no, I didn't leave him out. Trace 2.....we got down with Trace 2. He used to live in this house...in his old man's house in the South Bronx. The old man lived in the basement ..we used to call him Pops. Trace wasn't dancing at that time though, he started dancing when he moved up to Lorin's (?)...that's more up by Burnside. Back then Batch would go to his house...we would go there...I mean we're cousins, right?  But we were more like brother cousins 'cause we spent so much time with each other. So you know, we would go to the house and Batch would say, "Yo, check this out!" and he would go into one of his floormoves....into one of his corckscrews or whatever. But Trace wasn't into it at that time being that he was fat when was younger and he would still go to church. He got into it when he moved to Lorin's place and got older. That's when we started hanging out with Spy and Mongo Rock and his brother. Then there also was The Mexican Crew..they were lead by a tough girl named Wanda and they had two kids that was nice. I forgot their names.. one of them was Puerto Rican the other one was Black.....they were like unstoppable.Of course you had Shorty Rock...Shorty Rock was nasty...it was Spy and Shorty Rock (The Crazy Commanders Crew).

                              

Mongo Rock & Spy (Legendary Puerto Rican B-Boys)

Back then you know we used to go into the buildings....inside the buildings and dance in the hallwaycause the floor of these hallways were made up of these hard tiles......like a portion tile type."  

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you also write (do "GRAFFITI" as the media would call it)? I'm asking this because your deceased cousin Trace 2 told me that he used to go bombing with Spy who wrote Space back then....he said they were Space & Trace."

ABY:"Hahaha!! Yeah!!!! That's crazy that you mention that Space & Trace thing, bro!!  Yeah, we would always write. Trac 2 (another legendary Puerto Rican B-Boy from Starchild La Rock who is not to be confused with Trace 2 from The Bronx Boys ) his brother was Brat...he used to write Brat One. I looked up to Brat One like he was my uncle.  So he would take me to corners and teach me how to write. So he named me Little Brat and I would to write Little Brat. I loved the shit out him...I loved Danny (Starchild La Rock), Trac 2  (Starchild La Rock) I loved all them ni***s. Me and Trac ain't doing good right now but you know what, man? We got history! We grew up together....we didn't just hang out together we were family, bro! Like a real family! But yeah, Brat One taught me how to write and he took me to the trains and I would write Lil Brat.....Rest in peace, Brat One! Love you! "   

Tag by Trace 2 (TBB)

SIR NORIN RAD:"What were like hang out spots of The Bronx Boys Crew? In 2007 Rip 7 (TBB / RSC ) took me to Poe Park and St. James Park and described them to me as TBB hang out spots. Were there any other notable hang out spots?" 

ABY:"Back then when we lived up in the South Bronx we wasn't hanging out in Poe Park, we wasn't hanging out in St. James 'cause we wasn't up there at Fordham Road yet. That's part of Fordham Road. So we was hanging out in 118 in the school yard. We' hang out in the school yards or the pool. Mapes Pool...we would go to 129,118, Mapes Pool.....we would go to Bronx Park South. Right next to Bronx Park South they had the Bronx Zoo and we would go into Bronx Park South and cut class and we would go in there and that time they was building a rail...now it's a little train that goes around the park...at that time they was building that....Me, Trace 2, Spec, Batch, Bon 2, Trac 2 all these ni***s!! Weebles...all of us! We would go in there and we would cut class and would be just hanging out like young growing  kids did. Listening to music, getting high, drink and just do shit that we liked at that time. We would walk the tracks and that shit was like 20 feet high and being that it was a feeble track it would be waving back and forth. We did a lot of crazy shit back then. We used to ride on top of the busses...the regular busses..the 36...it used to go to Crotona...the 38...we used to go to the bus barns and used to bomb the busses!!!! We would take the Pilots (markers) and fill'em up. We used to take underarm deoderant and we used to take the bottle, right?  And we would go and take the blackboard erasers from school and then go to Modell's or any other store and steal the ink and then make up our own markers!!! (laughs) That was some bad ass shit!!!!" 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Which role did TBB play in the process that lead to the creation of the Rock Steady Crew?"

ABY:"Jimmy Lee and Jimmy Dee..they were president and vice president of the TBB Burnside Division. It all went crazy with TBB, a lot of shit started happening . So Batch and the whole TBB Crew met at St. James Park and he decided to say, "Look, I'm going to break up TBB!" But Jimmy Lee already was thinking about doing another crew. So already by the time Batch was holding the meeting Jimmy Lee and Jimmy Dee came already  with the brown T-shirts with white letters that read, "Rock Steady Crew" and then at the bottom of the "Rock Steady Crew " in the back of the T-Shirt  it read "TBB". So what I have heard from my brother and from Jimmy Dee was that he said to Batch, "I don't wanna break up but I wanna do my own thing and I'mma still use the name TBB." Cause TBB was his crew, it was TBB for life no matter what! So when he came up with the brown T-Shirt and the white letters that read "Rock Steady Crew" Batch asked him, "Why Rock Steady?" and then Jimmy Dee said, "Because TBB was always steady rocking! So that's basically how Rock Steady was born."

                                   

                       Jimmy Lee & Jimmy Dee (original TBB members and founders of the Rock Steady Crew)

                      

SIR NORIN RAD:"In which year did that meeting at St. James Park take place?"

ABY:"1979. That's when Batch broke up TBB. I think it was in July 1979 when TBB broke up and you know it's funny that when TBB broke up Rock Steady was established. So this is why I don't know how these guys came up with the year 1977. That's why I came back out. Cause Trac 2 one day called me and said,"Yo, Aby! I hear these people talking about Rock Steady started in 1977!" Nah, that's crazy! It started in late 1979."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What was the role of ladies such as Ponytail Rosie with regards to TBB?"

ABY:"They was bad ass. So it was Rosie...that's Fordham Road...we had the 183rd Divison... Chikie, Sugar, Black Sugar...it was a lot of them. They was our girls..they had like their own clique but for me I was a shorty so they were like my big sisters. I used to be pissed off cause I had a crush on Rosie. She was fine, bro!!! She was fine! There were a couple of girls that were really fine. But I never could get no ass because I was too young. I would have to settle for a kiss in the cheek and a pad on the head. (laughs) But you know the girls played a big part back then by being our cheerleaders and they used to write, too!! And they used to help stick people up, too! We would go to the bars and hang out on the side and the girls would go to the bars and they would pick out a drunk guy and they would talk to him and offer him all type of shit and then they'd walk him out, take him to the park and once they got to the park we used to go up there and we used to stick him up (rob him)! That's what we did! We did a lot of crazy shit.  They was involved with a lot of dirt that we did. Going to the stores and stealing cheese and ham and we would go to the stores early in the morning and grab some bread because we were poor and hungry and we were hanging out in the street. You know the jams..the jams were the shit! I danced a lot with the girls. That's the only time I got as close to the girls. It was like, you know, family...."

from left to right: Batch (TBB founder), Pony Tail Rosie (TBG), Danny Dan (TBB)

SIR NORIN RAD:"So whenever there was a jam all these girls would show up and cheer for you?"

ABY:"Yeah, yeah!!! Look back in the days they didn't have no judges. WE HAD NO JUDGES!!! A cypher was a cypher and the judges was the people. I would go in there and start dancing and do some of my crazy moves and being that I was little everybody would go, "Whooa!!!" They was laughing. I would hump on somebody's leg...forget about it!! The crowd goes crazy...and that's how you burn somebody. So this dude could be a bad ass B-Boy and he could do a bad ass Floor Rock Session and I would come out of nowhere  and I would hit the floor, then hump on his leg and then turn around and act like I was shitting on his feet and walk away. Everybody would forget how nice this dude was and so I would burn him."

 SIR NORIN RAD:"So you had a style of clowning and humiliating your oponent at the same time?"

ABY:"Yeah, yeah, my stuff was crazy funny ass shit! And you know what? It was somewhat like...you know who reminds me of the way I used to dance as a kid? Frosty Freeze!  Rest In Peace! Cause Frosty Freeze was nice but he would do a lot more mimicking. Like humping on the floor...I would do that shit, too. I mean I had a lot of crazy moves back then. I had a move where I would stick my ear inside my ear and I would put my tongue in mouth and blow and then my ear would pop out. That was a burn right there! So you know you could do every move you want and I would come in with a stupid little move  and forget it! Every move that the dude did..the crowd would not care about that...they would just be screaming for me. It was bad ass! I miss them days, bro!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you get your name from that horror movie "Abby" back then?"

ABY:" No, no. I remember Abby. That was a black girl possessed by the devil. That movie was creepy!! I remember watching that with my brother. But my name I got from my grandmother. When I was born I was real fat and white! So she would call me White Beans..in Spanish it's Habichuela Blanca...so my name was Habichuela and then as I grew it got shorter and I got stuck with Aby."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did that type of Bronx Rock Dancing which cats like Enoch Torres used to do influence the Puerto Rican style of breaking?"

ABY:"Funny you mention that 'cause that style of dancing is called Rock and we are the seeds of that. They called it Rock, we called it Toprock. Their shit was a little earlier than ours. So when Frank and them used to do it their dancing influenced us...they lived a couple of blocks away from us. My mentor Karate Chino was already of that age so he would take from that type of dance and Bosco was dancing that type of Rock. The funny thing about Brooklyn Rock and our Bronx Style Rock is like...Bronx Style Rock evolved. Brooklyn Rock is still the same thing...the same dance, the same moves...nothing changed. So that's the difference! It doesn't take away nothing from Brooklyn Rock as a dance because this dance is a powerful reminder  of what we used to do when we was fighting in the streets...chopping up your head, kneeling down to take a gun from your ankle, hitting your head with a baseball bat.....that was style of dancing referrencing fighting or even killing somebody. It proves that we actually took dancing from fighting. That's a really important thing you have to understand about Rock Dance and remember Uprock is Brooklyn and Toprock is Bronx.My biggest respects to Papo Love Mighty Mike , Ringo and another brother King Uprock , my big bro Brooklyn Joe just to name a few"   

SIR NORIN RAD:"At what kind of parties would you be exposed to this Bronx Style Rock that the older Puerto Ricans would do?"

ABY:"Another great question! You would see that in the parties...you know the Christmas parties that we would have in our house or at birthday parties or we had these celebrations for the girls when they turned fifteen or sixteen....when they turned into a young woman. So you would see that....you would see pops dancing, you would see your uncle dancing...your uncle is twenty, twenty-something and you're over here 10 years old and you would get down with them. So that's where you would get exposed to it. As far as the Puerto Rican style of B-Boying is concerned...you know the Blacks had their own way of doing it...their own dance and from what I remember it was called The Go Off  and we took some of that Go Off and added some of our style to it. You know we are also part of  the African heritage...that's a part of our heritage, too. We come from the Spaniards, we also come from the African slaves that were brought to the Caribean Islands by the Spaniards and we come from the Tainos (the indigenous people of Puerto Rico)....so we got three different people in us.  That's why I got green eyes, my dad is a black latino...my sister Joanna you know is a light skin Afro Rican.  So we definetely got that influence."     

SIR NORIN RAD:"Willie Will (legendary Puerto Rican B-Boy from Rockwell Association) told me about how we was introduced to that original Black B-Boy Style of dancing which you referred to as The Go Off in 1976 by a B-Boy called Chopper that was down with the Zulu Nation. What was the relationship between TBB and the Zulu Nation? Was there any kind of contact at all?" 

ABY:"Again, I was younger. I was too young to even understand the difference between Black and Puerto Rican. But to my brothers...to the older guys there was a barrier....there was a line between Blacks and Latinos. I mean look at the gangs back then...the Black Spades were all black and then you had the Ghetto Brothers which were all Latinos....so there was a division at first. I remember the Zulu Kings only from late 1976/77 that's when we really got involved.  That's also when Batch had his meeting with the Zulu Nation..1977. TBB and members of the Zulu Nation they used to have rumbles.....they would fight against each other. Whatever jam they went to they would rumble. If there was a jam and TBB was chilling there and all of a sudden some one threw hands Batch would summon TBB Joe's division who was known as the warlord division meaning thay handled all the rumbles or one on one fight make sure no one jumped in !! .  One of the first black DJs that I ever met was Lay Lay. He was from Fun PM City Crew and they was all black but they was kool cause they were from the block.We never had problems in 129 Mapes Pool. Lay Lay would get cutting and we would start dancing !! Back then we danced more with the girls than against each other  .. But when we heard "It's Just Begun" or Babe Ruth "Mexican" or "Bongo Rock"... forget about it! Floor rockers hit the flooooorrrrrrr,!!! Cypher set and battles was for respect not money .. You had to be there to truly understand and smell the air and feel the excitement when the cat you was battling burned you the last time and you been practicing all week long for the moment you let it all out on the concrete ... Damn miss em days ." 

DJ Lay Lay & The Fun City Crew rocking with The L-Brothers and  The Mercedes Ladies in 1979  

SIR NORIN RAD:"So you're saying there was a lot of tension between TBB and members the Zulu Nation?"

ABY:"There was! There was a lot of tension out there."

SIR NORIN RAD:"And all that beef was squashed at that meeting?"

ABY:"Batch had his meeting with Bam at the Webster projects on Zulu Nation turf in 1977. After that meeting they squashed it. I don't know how come Bam never spoke of this because it's such an important part of the history. It identifies with unity between Latinos and Blacks. So I don't know why he never acknowledged it."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Nowadays TBB is a global family with members on literally every continent. What did it mean to you back then to be part of The Bronx Boys Rocking Crew?"

ABY:" A crew to me meant to have all these people around me and most of them were older than me. It was like having a bunch of big brothers and a bunch of big sisters. We would literally go to abandoned buildings and make clubs. And we would sleep in there...we would take care of each other. We would go to the roof and fly birds...we would get high...a lot shit!!! We witnessed murders  and we almost got killed...you know there was so much shit. But when I got home I was thinking that I would rather be with them than be in my house.  It doesn't take away how much love I got from my mother but my father was an alcoholic so I would prefer to be with my crew rather than be at home. A family to me is not only blood."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Any shoutouts that you wanna give at the end of this interview." 

ABY:"I wanna give a shout out to all the B-Boys who are keeping it real out there! Pluto!  I gotta give a shout out to Pluto I gotta give a shout out  to you...to my man Norin Rad, you're the man! Without you and people like Pluto the history of our Hiphop Culture and of our dance  would remain in the dark. I wanna shout out my brother Batch, shout out to all my chapters...TBB / TBG global !!  And to all the true Zulus out there that are still repping it beyond all the bullshit that is going on. Shout outs to my wife and my son. Peace!"