This group wants Vizag to hip hop away

With the aim of making dance popular among Vizagites, a group of music-loving youngsters from the city are tapping their way into a genre of music and dance – the hip hop or rap music — which has the least number of takers.
The seven-member team called Destiny Breakers Crew or DB Crew is the first such hip hop group in the city. The members are either students or working in a dance academy.“We found that in Vizag there are very few takers for this kind of music and dance – pop, rock, hip hop, beat boxing and B-boying unlike in the metro cities. Awareness about this genre of music is also limited and people are more interested in Bollywood and DJ music and dance. So, we are trying to make it popular by conducting free workshops, social media and shows,” said Sohail Singh Gill, the founder-member of DB Crew. The other team members are Vijay Jagadale, Nayan Krishna, M Rituraj, M Vamsi, V Avinash and K Avinash.
The genre of hip hop or rap music music was conceived in the United States in the 1970s. It includes a stylised rhythmic music accompanied by rapping. Innovations to this genre was also introduced in the 1980s and 90s. It developed as part of hip hop culture, a sub-culture defined by four key stylistic elements: Rapping, DJ-ing, B-boying or break-dancing, beat boxing and graffiti writing. Beat boxing is a form of vocal percussion that comprises the art of mimicking drum machines and other musical instruments using one’s mouth, lips, tongue, and voice. B-boying or break-dancing, on the other hand, is a style of street dance that originated mainly among Puerto Rican and African American youth in the 1970s.
Speaking about how he came to pick up hip hop culture, Sohail said, “Inspired by the movie Step Up 2, I wanted to pick up this challenging form of dance that involves unique floor moves and spin moves. Through Facebook, I contacted a Mumbai-based break-dancer Sailesh Agre. He came down to Vizag for a week-long workshop and helped us with the moves. We kept practising, attending and conducting workshops and participating in national-level competitions in Hyderabad, Bangalore and Mumbai. We also organised Break-Free Sundays — an open workshop on Beach Road to promote the dance form and slowly started getting some response.”
DB crew has also earned some recognition. They were awarded in group category competitions held in Mumbai and Sohail had been the runner up for a solo top rock competition held in Hyderabad.
Recently, at TOI’s Sunday fun and fitness event – Happy Streets, the hip hop team performed in collaboration with Slum Gods, another Mumbai-based hip hop team, which turned out quite a hit and attracted many viewers on Beach Road.