How a Hip-Hop Pioneer Turned Breaking Into a Business
With breaking about to make its Olympic debut, Richard Colón, an early member of the 1980s group Rock Steady Crew, shares what he’s learned as an artist and entrepreneur.
Richard “Crazy Legs” Colón in New York.
Photographer: Janette Beckman for Bloomberg BusinessweekThis summer in Paris, breaking will be an Olympic event for the first time. Richard “Crazy Legs” Colón, an original member and president of the pioneering 1980s breaking and hip-hop group Rock Steady Crew, tells Businessweek how he built up the art form and his brand.
Rock Steady was about being different by presenting ourselves differently onstage. The way we showed up to a show was in our street clothes, but no one ever knew how we were going to be onstage. We made sure that each person in the group wasn’t just a duplicate of the person standing next to them. OK, we’ll do the moves and we’ll do the choreography, but please make sure your personal flavor of character and style exudes as you’re doing those things. You can see someone doing something amazing and visibly dynamic, but that’s not what you’re going to feel walking away.