Crash Kid by Ben Matundu, Paperback | Indigo Chapters

It is impossible to tell the story of street dance without telling in the stories of people. And 'Crash Kid: A Hip-Hop Legacy,' is the book which tells the story of street dance by telling the story of its kids; the story of one kid in particular.'Crash Kid,' Massimo Colonna, was a young man who became synonymous with the breakdance movement and all aspects of the inauguration of American street culture into the lives of young Romans. This was the kid who was a master at that pivotal move of the genre, the head spin, and who with that move became one of the most pivotal players in this scene. The city of Rome had never seen anything like this. A form of dance where the dancehalls were the streets, a form which was so underground, that it was almost a dark art. And yet it was Massimo's dedication towards the form which was making this art form the new way to party. And it was through an organic and exponential growth of the party, that this new form of dance and culture was beginning to thrive. To make its way towards the mainstream. 'Crash Kid: A Hip-Hop Legacy,' is a book which brings it all together. A book which is about the street, the party, the dance, the lives of one special kid in particular, who circa 1980, was inaugurating this new form of dance into the street culture of Rome. And this exponential growth of a genre is seen across more than400images of the party and the dance scene, at this particular time in history. Massimo and his friends used breakdance and street art as a way of breaking a symphony into parts, out over the city streets. The 'Zulu' parties, the 'Bambaataa' parties, the 'Fast Breaking Crew,' of Rome. Massimo, always there, a kid who was an oxymoron to his own name, for he did not crash, was famous for not crashing, but for staying perfectly balanced on his head. And spinning on and on. The book proves that when you try to piece together the story of Roman breakdance, you discover that what you are in fact piecing together are the lives of all those kids who were dancing and breaking on the streets of Rome around the time, during the mid-1980s. And these are the kids who remember Massimo, many of them now key figures themselves in the Roman and Hip-Hop scene. We learn about who Massimo was through the stories of key players such as MC Shark, Amir Issaa and the joint creators of the book itself, Ben Matundu and Napal. Massimo and his friends used breakdance and street art as a way of breaking a symphony over the city streets. | Crash Kid by Ben Matundu, Paperback | Indigo Chapters