photo by Jack CusumanoUCF’s very own hip hop culture club Elements, held it down on Friday night with the hottest b-boy, mc, and black book battles brought together in one room. The first round of battles kicked off at about 8:30 with beats provided by DJ Basic (Little Green Apples), and DJ Luminous (Two Hand Collective).
We felt an undeniable energy pumping through the room, only encouraged by the free Rockstar energy drinks being handed out at the entrance. The middle of the room was speckled with circles of people watching the b-boys getting warmed up for the big battle. Host Madd Illz (Full Impact Allstars) then coaxed anxious onlookers into a giant circle by the stage, giving various b-boys a chance to break like they never had before. (My personal favorite was an 8-10 year old b-boy, known as “Ketchup”). Some even drew members of the audience away from the freestyling going on up front with some impressive headspins.
Behind all the commotion, artists were hard at work scribbling down their best tags for black book battle. I was a little disappointed that there were no larger scale works except for an old tagged piece of plywood outside of the auditorium, but I guess with the event being at UCF and all, there were some unfortunate restrictions. Even the mc battle became censored halfway through, possibly due to “Ketchup’s” presence.
We then migrated over to the booths lining the wall of the auditorium. Custom clothing crew Diversitile lined one side of the auditorium with a table full of brightly colored kicks. I definitely suggest you check these guys out to sharpen up your favorite pair. Elements topped the night off with a performance by Superiority Complex and Midaz. My vote: a huge success. Well done Elements. Hopefully they will host these battles more frequently; they tend to be few.
Story by Alisha Torrealba
MORE INFO: Elements, Diversitile