Here's very simply the one and only Crazy Legs, interviewed during the week of Rock Steady Crew's 30th anniversary, which found these true cultural pioneers receiving red carpet treatment all over the world and a Beatlemania-style bum rush of their plane in Russia! In this truncated history, he speaks about growing up in the South Bronx (also my hometown), the earliest days of what became THE world music and culture at the end of one century and the beginning of another, and his own family and friends, some of which are gone.
I interviewed Crazy Legs the same week I taped Morrissey at the Borgata. Both men spoke of the poverty of their childhood, Morrissey described himself, as he pondered his fate aloud to the audience as a "welfare child", and Crazy Legs told me his welfare family's cycles of joy and migration though many different neighborhoods in The Bronx. They both spoke with the wizened, benign tones of gratitude and acceptance that befits a hard-earned peace of mind. And both are stone cold legends.
During the interview, he describes his mindstate when performing and just as he says the word "showtime" someone's phone goes off magically, punctuating this man's passion for The Dance. Crazy Legs hosts workshops at various dance centers and regularly lectures at colleges around the world, and his dedication to the preservation of dance history alongside his stature as a pioneering artist in a generation rich with pioneering artists make him a fascinating subject for a much longer interview.
Tags: Crazy Legs Rock Steady Crew Michael Vazquez URB Magazine
