San Francisco’s Silicon Valley becomes more indispensable with each passing year technology gains ground on ruling the galaxy. That said, nothing can eclipse the Bay Area’s burgeoning stronghold within Hip Hop culture. Just ask any of its numerous stars – especially a reinvigorated E-40 — on how the city’s #1 basketball team, nationwide trendsetting ways and overall presence is helping define a new generation.
That’s exactly the sense of euphoria I was blitzed upon stepping to meet with select members from the Flying Steps who are currently embarking on the Red Bull Flying Bach initiative. Hip Hop music doesn’t have a rich history of sampling classical music (word to Ennio Morricone’s “The Ecstasy of Gold” still clearing checks to this day) but the World Champion b-boy crew are currently touring the globe with a new set that revives Johann Sebastian Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier for, you guessed it, a new generation, that propels b-boying back to the forefront at a time when posturing is deemed much cooler, unfortunately.
I was able to sit down with veteran talent scout and choreographer Benny Kimoto, Dany Grimah a.k.a. Nono, Anna Holmström and Gengis Ademoski about their worldly experiences and how classical music has injected itself into new media.
This is their story. Live from San Francisco to kick off their US leg of their tour.
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Photo: Carlo Cruz/Red Bull Content Pool
HipHopDX: So, how often do you guys come to the United States? Tell me while introducing yourselves.
Nono: My name is Nono, I’m from France, I’ve been in Flying Bach for three years now, doing Red Bull Flying Bach, going all over the world. Sharing some dance and some smiles, everywhere, USA, second time for me, we went to Chicago last year. One and a half year ago, and the other guys went to Houston so it’s the first time for us to play in California, enjoying the sun.
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Benny: My name is Benny Moto, I’m from Flying Bach since almost the beginning, so for me, I’ve been in America since I don’t know, ten times? Something like that, already. We love to be here really thankful, for everybody who help us, working with us, you know Red Bull, every agency, just they make our dream come true. So we just work hard and give the best.
Anna: My name is Anna, and I joined the Flying Bach at the same time as Moto, three years ago. And I just agreed with the guys before me, it’s been an amazing opportunity to, see the world, and to share really nice moments both with the people you meet, and the group.
Genghis: My name is Genghis. I’m 24-years-old, and it’s been more than eight years in now in Flying Bach.
DX: So you were basically growing up in it?
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Genghis: Yeah, it was like an inspiration; they inspired me a lot. Benny was a hero to the b-boy scene. It was nice to be in the group, and to do this project with Red Bull. You know everything he said when he was a child, it was like a dream to come to the USA and now everything is fixed together. We are now so happy, the people are so nice.
DX: Where you from originally?
Genghis: Germany.
DX: I must say you know your guys’ English is really good.
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All: Thank you.
DX: You’re well traveled, well studied, and well focused, your goals have been ahead. The pillars of Hip Hop, I don’t think they’re ever going to change, but nowadays b-boying is kinda the least one talked about. People might not be tagging graffiti, but you can see it in their clothes. There’s graffiti in Hip Hop clothes. But there’s not a lot of direct b-boying.
All: That’s right!
DX: Do you guys feel like, you’re one of the torchbearers? Like you’re the ones leading the charge?
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Benny: Exactly, that’s why we’ve been doing it for 20 years. Also in Europe, the Hip Hop image [is there] but not that good. We always try to make another picture because we… of course we also have some people that come from like pretty rough neighborhoods and have faced a lot of bullshit before. What we always try to do is to represent Hip Hop in a positive way. Because there is already, enough bad things going on in the world. There is war going on everywhere so we really just try to present Hip Hop and b-boying in a positive way and show how Hip Hop changed our life. And just to feel good. Seeing people smile when we on stage is what we want to do. Carlito! Because in Europe we work very hard to make b-boying and Hip Hop more respected. The b-boys from the streets have no education. They have hip-hop and b-boying but there’s no basics, there’s no nothing. We teach them different, it’s a real art form. Everybody has been here for a long time, everybody from the crew has been practicing, maybe twenty years every day for 5, 6…7 hours. The whole level of b-boying in the world, is on such a high level. People just have to start to respect it. And now we get it. Europe, everybody; they know now. All the big venues, the people, the old people come, grandfathers, grandmothers, the parents with the kids, all the families come to see a show. It’s getting better and I think, we work for all the b-boys. We want to make it big! We want to show you can make a lot of money and everything.
DX: Absolutely. Explain to me what it means to be to be a b-girl, in your eyes, Anna?
Anna: I’m a ballet girl because I’m actually in this project and I’m coming from the classical and contemporary lens. I think the nice thing what we were talking about before, this project with Red Bull Flying Bach, is really bringing two different cultures together. And you can see the grandparents for example, may have been listening to Bach for their whole lives, so they might even come for the classical music. And this is also what they want to see from the show. They are thinking b-boy what is this? The music is still good so we will go and see. But then maybe their grandkids say, ‘this is really cool!’ I want to go just to see this. And this is also nice because it’s bringing both the b-boying to the older generations but also for the kids it’s also nice I think to get into what classical music is as well. It’s a really nice project.
DX: Coming from you being a Hip Hop fan and your classical training, was it easy to incorporate more funky moves since you already got the nimbleness down pact?
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Anna: I mean I think that the thing for me that dancing before was kind of trying to find perfection. And this is what I really enjoy with ballet is that there is already a set structure that you cannot change because it’s been here. It’s been in the world for so long.
DX: That’s how you do a move.
Anna: Exactly so if the arm is there, it’s supposed to be there. Nothing can change about this. But then you see the freedom that the b-boys have in creating their own moves and creating original things and this is something that’s inspiring me a lot. Now I’m starting to use some of my gymnastic background to use the flexibility and find moves in my own ways. This is something that’s really inspiring for me.
DX: That’s fucking dope. Really dope. Now, where’d the idea of, Nono, mixing the classical music and Hip Hop together? Hip Hop samples a lot of music but not really classical music. I can only think of a handful of songs off the top of my head. Jay Z and Capone and Noreaga. So where’d the idea come from? When you guys first heard this is what you’re rocking with? How did you react to it?
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Nono: Well, I don’t think it has been done before. When the pioneers of the crew decided to make this, it was a good opportunity which is what I think because I was not here in the begging when they started to make this production. But my feeling I think is the feeling of most of the dancers of this team of Flying Bach is that b-boying is very powerful, and the classical music is very let’s say beautiful. There’s a sense of softness and that it’s very linked to the b-boy moves if you take out the Hip Hop music. So it makes our moves look much more beautiful and elegant. So it’s really fitting. If you see a ballerina she is spinning on her foot, and it’s looking very nice. In b-boying, you spin on your head and it looks very nice also.
The difference in between the music, it’s not making a big deal. The idea came, they started to work on it, and they add more and more, and it’s just fitting perfectly. So when you look at b-boying with classical music behind, it can make the b-boy look much more elegant in his dance will look much more soft. And still the power of b-boying is there so it was fitting perfectly and then it starts to work, and work more and people get to trust it. And like Benny said it was a good opportunity for the b-boy scene to show that it’s not only hip-hop, not only ghetto, and large baggy, and talking loud, stuff like this. Or from the black neighborhood. It can also be an art, a specific art. Like he said, a lot of old people are coming mostly for the classical music, but in the end it’s the first ones who stand up to clap and they realize wow. So if you take out the Hip Hop music and you just look at the movements, it’s beautiful. It’s artistic and almost like a science of moving. And the freedom is much more clear when you put classical music to it will make you look at b-boying in a different way. Here we are after many years.
Genghis: Sometimes people say the classic music is fixed better to b-boying or breakdance then the Hip Hop music sometimes because when they play the music fast and we do the movement on it, then they say it’s perfect. The music is fixed so perfect to what you’re doing so when the old people say this, I mean the classical people, then we did our job good.
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Nono: It’s because we use a lot of original tracks from Bach. We really really worked with the music director and he explained to us how he, composed the music.
DX: What’s his name?
Nono: Christoph Hagel. So we really choreographed how he composed the music. So we make the music visible with our dance so that’s why even the people from the classic scene could say ‘Oh shit, they know the songs?’ They can hear the structure of the songs. They see life with the movements. So that’s why they say ‘Oh shit, this fits better than almost Hip Hop.’ They never saw us dancing to the Hip Hop music. That’s maybe the same or maybe in a different style. That’s why people realize oh shit, you can breakdance to the Bach music. You kill the beat! You take the beat and you show it. Normally they expect we go crazy with the acrobatic stuff but then they see ok they are really with the music, they are the music. We try to be the music.
DX: What’s the creation process when you guys are creating routines? How much of it is freestyled and how much of it is you guys sit down and like you’re gonna pop it and you’re going to drop it?
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Anna: I mean the whole show is choreographed.
DX: But when it gets put together, do you guys work with a choreographer or do you guys…
Benny: No, we all choreograph ourselves.
DX: So when a song is at like say 2:13 you guys know exactly what to do?
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Benny: First we listen to a song or all the songs, or the storyline, of course the concept and what we want to tell. Most of the time we want to tell a story and then we take each song and we count. There’s the count, this is the concept this is how he composes, then we start to choreograph. On every single note we put some stamps.
Anna: And this is the thing with the music from Bach is that there are different voices and this is exactly what Benny’s saying. And the Christoph Hagel is telling this is one voice so I will give this voice to Jenkis and he’s only dancing to this one. Then Benny is coming in and taking the second voice, so then Nono is taking the third one. And then they are going overlapping each other. It’s really fascinating because the music of Bach is so complex from when he started to compose, it was really groundbreaking and I think this is something b-boying does as well. It’s so many hundreds of years later, it’s still the same even though it’s two different art forms.
Genghis: And when we dance on the music, everybody understands it even better because then when we dance on it you will hear the melody like he takes this part of the music and he takes this part of the music. Even the classical people say what we do is really brilliant.
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Photo: Carlo Cruz/Red Bull Content Pool
DX: Nice you guys are getting props from orchestras and conductors and maestros?
Genghis: Exactly from these people because they understand the most.
Anna: Yeah, and I mean of course there have been some kind of crossover projects I think before us between Hip Hop or classical then you can say it’s a remix maybe but you don’t really take the time to understand what’s actually in the composition from the beginning.
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Benny: It’s like if somebody comes from outside of Hip Hop and he wants to learn Hip Hop you know, you don’t have to really understand the whole thing. The history, where it comes from, how Hip Hop was built, it started with sampling, evolution. If you really want to work in Hip Hop, you really want to present something, you have to know the rules. How everything grows, you have to feel comfortable, you have to know the world and where you are then you can really talk.
DX: Of course. Going down the line, what’s your earliest memory of Hip Hop? When you really became a fan? What made you want to be a part of it?
Nono: Every time I like to different music. Wu-Tang Clan. I don’t even know what it was! I used to see Flying Steps in the TV too. You know it was crazy that it was my first experience with Hip Hop. Tupac and Biggie were on my TV. It was my first touch with Hip Hop and then the second touch was the b-boying.
Anna: Actually I’m from the forest in Sweden and my brother was practicing b-boying when I was a kid. I remember him putting on the ski helmet and making me do head spins and my mom would come in and say ‘What are you doing?!!?’
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DX: Did you talk to her about that?
Anna: Yes, and she was working with spine damages so she was screaming [Laughs].
Benny: Don’t break your neck!
Anna: She’s starting to notice me practicing more. I would say I was not so much really into the Hip Hop scene in general before I started this project. Of course I’ve been working with other dancers. Both Hip Hop dancers and house dancers and some b-boys as well but I was still not really going into the Hip Hop scene or getting more interested. This is something nice that I’m feeling with this project as well and now I’m starting to research more like Swedish Hip Hop.
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DX: Now that you’ve gotten a crash course, with the Flying Bach and everything, do you understand why people love Hip Hop so much? Or can you see it?
Anna: Yes, it’s actually just about sharing but in a good way; it’s not that the thing you’re seeing on TV and this other stuff being Hip Hop. But I mean if you look at a bunch of music videos today it’s changing into this thing you’re seeing.
DX: We were talking earlier Benny about Mobb Deep, Snoop Dogg, Wu-Tang. What are your earliest memories of really early Hip Hop?
Benny: For me, it was ’94. I think the first CD was when I was young. And one of the first CD’s was Tupac All Eyez on Me. That was the CD that came out in ’96.
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This was the first music. Nas’s first album I also had and Mobb Deep. And Wu-Tang you know. Those were the first. That’s the music we started to practice. When I started b-boying I would listen for five hours to the same CD’S. At this time there was no Internet you couldn’t download, we were kids nobody had money, so you had CD’s.
DX: Nice. Genghis did you use CD’s to?
Genghis: Yes, but for me it was ’96, ’97 I was really young and my brother was waking me up at 1 in the morning to watch best of Groove. And the first time I saw ODB, Ol’ Dirty Bastard I was in shock. I come from France, and in France, it’s very structured in the way you are speaking and your are living your life you know what I mean structured.
DX: Absolutely.
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Genghis: So everybody in a certain way has to be decent, and I was coming from a neighborhood that was not fitting what I got to see at school. ODB was more fitting with the way I was seeing myself and my brother it was the same. So the first time we saw this we were like ‘woah,’ people are actually doing what they want! While here we are not really allowed to dress how we want or to do what we want. We have to follow a certain line and that’s the first thing I really liked with hip-hop. So after I bought the CD 36 Chambers by Wu-Tang, you could feel like they were really honest with what they were doing. And it was more fitting with where we were growing up. And after I saw some video clips in ’97 with some b-boys in it. I don’t remember what it was… Don’t stop the body rock. And then I got to see some windmills and some head spins and then the music was fitting the moves we like both so I started with my brother. That was the first contact I had. I liked it when I was young.
DX: Shout out to big brothers everywhere. I’m a big brother and I did the same with my little brother. That’s how it’s supposed to be done. Pass it down. Lastly, you guys are becoming internationally known and locally known, from our perspective, HipHopDX’s perspective; we had the privilege of growing up around Hip Hop. You guys had to see it second hand or when artists come to Europe. But at the same time, you guys are holding down a pillar in hip-hop with the b-boying. What do you want people…what’s the best case scenario for what you guys are doing? What do you want this legacy to carve out? 2016, you guys are on the up right now. What do you want your legacy to be carved out as? From an American standpoint?
Benny: We just want to show them the best we can, and of course we hope the people like us here. In the future we want to do more stuff here more projects. We have good friends here of many years. Supercrew, Jabbawockeez, we’ve known them since the beginning. I knew some of their original members in ’99.
Ronnie from Super Cr3w; I met him just a week ago. And we talk about it. 2010, we met at the competition, we talked about their shows in Vegas before it was happening now. And we told them we’re in Europe and about our new project. Four years later, we met Jabbawockeez in Vegas. We’re in Europe touring around the world. We’re both doing crazy things now. We also would love to connect with US artists and not only b-boys it doesn’t matter. Just connecting and making something new connecting Europe and America and maybe get to a new level. We talked to Ronnie for an example because we’re European and we love America and America loves Europeans. So why haven’t we collaborated and made something crazy. We are open we have big regiments all the time and we always have a big vision. After 20 years we are here, everything is possible we are open we just keep working hard to do our thing and be positive and open and we meet people at the same level who appreciate what we do. No hate, no jealousy because we come from Europe to. Americans get business here to for example, some people get jealous and say why don’t they stay in Europe? Why are they taking our jobs? I don’t know! People here in the business are always open and good. Our mentality…
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DX: Like Red Bull?
Benny: Yes like Red Bull of course. We have been working with Red Bull since 2000. People don’t know that. Jabbawockeez and Super Cr3w could say why are you coming here this is our market. No, they’re happy, they see and respect us. So it’s better to collaborate and to something bigger. Stronger people make others even more strong. Sometimes our experience we want to share with other people. Everything gets bigger it grows some other crews were on the same level as us. They never brought new members, we are already famous, we will not share. We never thought like that, we brought the generation forward. But we share all and everything gets bigger.
Visit Red Bull’s event page to see when the Flying Bach will be in a country near you!
