Breaking
Breaking
DJ Fleg and DJ Lean Rock open up about finding the right music for breaking
Find out how DJs Fleg and Lean Rock approach the search for the right music and why they think dancers should really start digging for themselves.
If you know the history of breaking you'll know that it started with the DJs, the turntable masters who filled parties with their ability to spin music that kept everyone dancing all night. Breaking has since grown into a worldwide, competitive, art form and scene where B-Boys and B-Girls go head-to-head in high level battles, but it's still all fuelled by the musical skills of the DJs.
3 min
Dance Orchestra
DJ Fleg gets inspiration for samples while producing a track by watching different breaking styles.
Boston born DJ, Lean Rock, representing Floor Lords and Squadron crew, and Baltimore's DJ Fleg, representing Lionz of Zion crew, are two of the most respected and booked DJs on the breaking scene. Their ability to consistently find, play and produce music that fuels B-Boys and B-Girls going off on the dance floor has built them both worldwide reputations. They're both constant faces behind the decks at many of the biggest events on the breaking scene, including Red Bull BC One, Outbreak, Freestyle Session and the Notorious IBE.
We spoke to them about how they got started and their mentality to finding good music. Also, what advice they have for breakers looking to expand the music they listen and practice to, and more.
How long have you been DJing and how did you start?
Lean Rock: I've been DJing since 2005 and started pretty much just from collecting records. I always loved music as a kid and my dad used to take me digging (going to record stores and searching for records). I got old enough where I started making a little bit of money, and would sometimes win a breaking competition, and I would literally use the money that I won to buy records. I built up a collection and my dad was like 'you should get into this DJ thing, you're collecting all these records and should do something with it.' That's basically how I got started.
Fleg: I've been DJing for about 18 years and playing out for about 10 years. I started because I just wanted to learn how to scratch, grew up listening to hip-hop and thought scratching was super cool in the songs that I heard, so at a certain point it was just like 'I have to learn how to do that'. Over time, that focus morphed into digging for records, discovering new music and producing music myself.
Lean Rock serving the beats at the Red Bull BC One Camp USA
© Karlo X Ramos/Red Bull Content Pool
Is there any particular genre of music that inspires you to go digging for the music you play for the breaking scene?
LR: At the beginning I definitely used to love rock and jazz breaks but I think over time you find out that most of the songs we break to come from different genres of music so now I just love to dig for music in general. If there is something that pops up that might be cool to break to then cool, but I don't really force this anymore, I just play and find music that inspires me.
F: As far as digging for music for breaking battles, I'm always looking for psychedelic funk and jazz funk. There's a lot of really incredible music in there and I enjoy playing songs that aren't just straight funk but that have some other orchestral elements, synths or heavy effects (as psychedelic funk often has). To me, much of this stuff was produced the way hip-hop records are produced but without samplers, so heavy drums, lots of effects, and a focus on unique, signature sounds. Good examples of this would be David Axelrod, the Mizell brothers and anything Charles Stepney produced.
How important do you think it is for breakers to go out and discover new music on their own?
LR: I think it's very important because new music is new inspiration. If you're practicing to the same thing over and over I feel you can kind of get stale with your movement. You need to change up your routine in order for you to do something different and I think new music helps with that a lot.
F: I think breakers should be very musically oriented in general. It seems obvious but it's not. I see a lot of breakers just look up music 'for breaking' on YouTube or Soundcloud, as opposed to discovering what music they themselves like. When I was breaking, before I was a DJ and thought of DJing breaking events, I would look super hard for songs I heard on big battles and would end up finding some really dope tracks that I had heard, plus a bunch that I hadn't. That is the beauty of looking for music, the discovery part. A pattern I've seen over 20-plus years of dancing is that if you don't love the music you're not going to stick with the dance.
DJ Fleg on the wheels of steel
© Ulrich Aydt/Red Bull Content Pool
What advice would you give to breakers looking to find good music to dance to?
LR: The more you look the better. It's pretty simple but obviously it takes a lot of time. You just got to put in the work if you want to really go deeper with your dance and finding good music, there's no way around it.
F: I would suggest looking up Funk/Hip-Hop DJs that aren't on the breaking scene. There's a huge scene of DJs that play a ton of incredible music and you can find their mixes online in various places. There's people like DJ Spinna, Kenny Dope, Koco aka Shimokita, Breakbeat Lou, and a ton of others that put out really dope mixes online, it's just a matter of searching keywords, like; 'Funk', 'boom bap', 'Hip Hop', etc... Once you learn how to search, the discovery process will follow and become endless.
Do you think it's important for break DJs now to learn how to produce beats to bring good music to the scene?
LR: I think you have to be a good DJ first if you really want to bring good music to the scene because you have to understand the vibe in general of what actually makes people move. Then, from a musical aspect, you have to do your research on the music and then experiment. Coming from a production end, it's cool to learn about arrangement and all these different things, just the general flow of music, but I feel it's more important to actually be a good DJ first.
F: I don't think it's important for DJs to produce music within the breaking scene. I think there are many who are trying when it's not their strength. DJing can help a little with knowing how to produce but the two are very different. I think DJs need to dig more as opposed to just producing beats or playing produced beats. If a DJ is into music and production, great, but honestly we don't need more produced breakbeats, we need good music. I feel like the US is the first to signal changes, and I can already see that the scene is moving away from those beats.
Lean Rock at the Red Bull BC One World Final 2014
© Nika Kramer/Red Bull Content Pool
And here's a quick breakdown for any breakers and other dancers, looking for more ways to find new music:
- The hip-hop dance scene is a massive, worldwide community fuelled by music. Asking other dancers who they're listening to and where they find music, as well as exchanging tracks, and the names of DJs and artists, is probably the easiest way to constantly discover new music.
- There are tons of DJs on the hip-hop dance scene alone who you can find easily just by looking at who's booked to DJ at the the competitions and jams. Researching first into this will give you a whole host of DJs to follow and through the music they play you can then start to find the artists of those tracks and go digging for more of their music. From this you can then expand your research into DJs outside of the dance scene.
- There are many websites that act as platforms for artists to upload their latest music. Soundcloud is one of the most popular sites used by DJs and other music artists, where you can subscribe to their accounts to keep up to date with their latest releases. Lean Rock and Fleg are there as DJ Lean Rock and Octopusfleg.
- Instagram is the easiest way to follow your favourite DJs and music artists and discover more about them. Just hit that follow button and stay up to date.
