UPDATED!!!!! - I happened to find some pix from Paturn's event!!! Check them out below!!!!
Rolls Royce with DJ Carbon and Paturn in the background
Busting some of my Bboy moves!!!
Time to hear some great stories from someone who has been deep in the Wichita Hip-Hip scene... Bboy Paturn! Enjoy ~ @RoyceOnTheRadio
Around 2002, I had spent most of
the previous 2 years travelling to B-Boy events between Lawrence, Oklahoma and
Texas. I really wanted to have the same kind of love here in Wichita that I
seen many of my peers experience in these cities. Often times phone calls were
ended due to “crews here we gotta go practice” In Wichita around that time you
could count on one hand how many “B-Boys” there were as compared to the cats
who learned how to windmill and that’s all they did. There was myself, Kid Nouveau, Kawshin (and a
hand full of the Floormasters crews specifically Tony among a few others) who
would get down and every Tuesday and Thursday at Evergreen Rec up North. This
was right after our friend Austin (who was one of the ILLEST b-boys in Wichita)
started to concentrate on MC’ing and formed the group Supreme Unaltered w/
MaineOne, DJ’s DVST8 and Smallhead and guitarist Sable. Kawshin and I were also
members of the group.
I met up with a cat named Diego who
wanted to host MC battles. We had mutual friends (namely Antimosity) and he
sounded like he had plan so we ran with it. The battles were initially held at
Indigo Lounge (years before the Stevens Brothers took over) and were actually
quite a sight. MaineOne if memory serves held out on top. His style has always
been contemplated but very ferocious in nature. We held one more battle after
as they were cancelled due to a large fight (Wichita just keepin it real
AMIRITE) but that second battle IMO was more memorable to me as cats came out
of nowhere killing. I first met Nathan Slimm that night. Bloody Hands came out
did what Bloody Hands does. One of my favorite battles (and lines) came from a
person who would turn out to be my best friend in Carbon. Carbon was unknown to
many people largely due him being pretty focused on the Jungle scene at that
time. He MC’d with his crew “Jungle Recon” with Crave on production and Dj’ng
along with Gaia. They were there promoting there event and Carbon hopped on the
mic and surprised I think pretty much everyone in the building that night.
Carbon told Maine that he would “rip his heart out like he was Kano” which
Maine triumphantly let him know if Carbon was Kano then he was Liu Kang.
Fast
forward about 2 weeks later I and the rest of the Supreme Unaltered Crew were
hanging out at the Sig Ep house at a party. Our buddy Clockwork (Aaron Cathy)
was a huge supporter and asked us to come out and rip some stuff for them. The
party was huge. We ended up leaving momentarily to head out to this Rave we
heard about from Carbon and crew. They advertised a breaking battle with cash
price so of course we entered. I remember Crave spinning a jungled out version
of the JB’s “Blow Your Head” while we got down and we were all shown a lot of
love.
Around this time Diego and I
decided we wanted to have a B-boy battle as we had made some money and of
course had some connections to make it happen. The biggest piece to ANYTHING
you do that involves hip hop has to come from the DJ. We already had DVST8 and
Smallhead on deck (as they were crew) but Diego really pushed me towards booking
Carbon. Honestly I was uneasy as he was a rave kid and the bboying at raves
shit was cool back in the 90’s and we wanted nothing but funk and rap. At this
point in time he was starting up the MC battles at Harry and Ollies so he told
me to come check it out. I walked in full expecting the bar to precede its
reputation. What I wasn’t expecting was to walk in and be blasted by Babe
Ruth’s “The Mexican”. Just on the strength of that alone Kawshin and I set up a
time to meet with him where we literally spent about 3-4 hours going through
records going GO-rilla in his room. (More on this another time but suffice to say
we’ve been inseparable ever since)
We named the battle B-sides. The
reason is simple and most of all my music aficionados know… The ‘B-side” of the
record usually contained a gem that was on par if not better than the actual
single itself. Wichita has always been big on rap. Graff is really
underground and it’s only been the past 5-6 years has DJ’ng gotten really big.
So this was our B-Side. This was our gem. We had 1-1 b-boy battles and an emcee
contest as well. Friends came from all over Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. We even
had someone from Japan attend. Denise Neil wrote up an article on the event and
we had somewhere around 200-250 attend outside of just the competitors.
Highlight battle of the night belonged out Bezerk (from Wichita) and this kid
from OKC E-Dub (S/O to the Playground Bulliez crew!) While they danced to the
Jackson Sisters “I Believe In Miracles” they put on a full aerial onslaught
most of us have seen but weren’t quite prepared for. E-Dub came out victorious
but the overall winner of the jam was Bamm from Lawrence, KS (Buggin Out/Zulu
Kingz). Participants included Ruk (Dallas, TX Rock Solid Foundation Crew), Boogi (Tulsa, OK Rock Solid Foundation
Crew), Kawshin (Wichita, KS Infinite Wreck), Hiro (Japan/Lawrence Buggin Out)
JamesStilla and Huck Finn (Lawrence KS Buggin Out) Battles were judged by
myself and Efre from Buggin Out Kansas City.
This was my first time throwing an
event and I would definitely call it a success. Money wise we broke even but
most importantly we started to get contacted about our sessions on Tues/Thurs.
We started to see more kids come out wanting to break. It didn’t last long
unfortunately. And maybe we’re to blame. As breaking in Wichita just never
really took off. But for at least one day we got to do everything in Wichita
that we had to travel to do in Austin or Oklahoma City. And I could not have
been more proud.
Paturn1
Ferrigno Fresh/Buggin Out
