Baltimore Club Music: Improvisation In Multiple Forms
TT The Artist’s “Dark City” documentary shows the creativity and mettle of Baltimore.
By Aaron West
5 min readPublished on
While Baltimore Club music is based on a number of staple and signature moves, the most adept and accomplished at the dance form weave them together into an unpredictable, complex tapestry of constant evolution. It’s improvisation at its highest form. Just like the dance form the city birthed, Baltimore is a breeding ground for innovation, for improvisation. A lively but rugged city whose socioeconomic conditions can often make it difficult for its citizens to be successful, especially those of a darker hue. Baltimore Club music grew out of dark halls and rooms, places where the downtrodden could express themselves freely. The art form grew from despair and offered a modicum of hope, especially for those with an aptitude for creating something out of nothing, and creating something out of nothing is just what a number of figures in TT The Artist’s “Dark City, Beneath the Beat” documentary have done.
Improvisation is defined as the “art or act of composing, uttering, executing, or arranging anything without previous preparation.” It’s often the centerpiece of modern dance, particularly through the myriad dance styles created and popularized in the Black American community.
It’s the centerpiece of the TSU (Team Squad Up) Dance Crew featured throughout “Dark City” as well. Terry “TSU Terry” Weddington founded the Baltimore Club collective in 2008 with two other members, entering a competition called Contrast Hall, and making his breakthrough from a single moment of improvisation. Speaking over the phone, Terry painted the picture of the group’s pivotal moment: “It was us three, against like seven of them. It was ONE move I did in particular… The beat slowed down, and I caught the actual beat when it slowed down, and everybody went CRAZY. The crowd was quiet that WHOLE night. No one was doing anything really catchy, or exciting. Nobody had caught the crowd. And after that happened? It was an automatic ‘ok it’s them. They won.’ Because that was like out of nowhere. I didn’t know the song, going into that battle. I didn’t know the beat. After that, that’s when everybody started to know about TSU as a crew, because we had beaten one of the hottest groups out.”
For Terry, improvisation isn’t just what you do in a battle, it means a chance for betterment: “For me, improvisation and dance means that when the right opportunity presents itself, if it can help you become a better person, you should go for it… I started off dancing because I needed an outlet to stay out of trouble. I was playing basketball at first, but it didn’t work. I needed something else to elevate me through high school, and dance was that… But then, I started to develop a real passion and love for it once I’d seen that there was more to the dance itself; there was the culture, music, the DJs, promoters, so many different things that inspired me to keep it going. The late great K Swift’s work ethic--once she passed away--inspired me to keep it going through dance. That’s why I started teaching. Although I’m not a DJ or producer I could use the club music and the dance to keep the culture and the scene going with that aspect of how I do it.”
TT The Artist’s “Dark City: Beneath The Beat” showcases Baltimore’s improvisational flair from a number of different viewpoints, and especially prominently with Errigh “Neek B'Chillin” LaBoo, CEO of BMore Than Dance and founder of the renowned King Of Baltimore dance competition. Speaking to Neek on the phone, he laid out his path matter-of-factly with many an introspective pause. “Improvisation for me is the hustle. It’s kinda the one element that may genuinely be fair all across the board. The odds may not always be fair, but the hustle is always fair. It’s one of those things where it’s like, as long as you’re constantly pushing the envelope and trying to take things to new heights, you know. They say preparation is key, but sometimes preparation is freestyle, you know what I mean? [Laughs] It’s kinda what drives dreams, if you had the artistic ability to allow your mind to explore things that maybe you weren’t necessarily always capable of.
“The culture here, everybody’s a dancer in some way, shape, or form... For me, I was always very optimistic. I wasn’t the best dancer on the scene, but we always questioned who WAS. It was always a big issue for us as the Baltimore culture. One of the BIG issues, everybody always wanted to know. ‘Who’s the best dancer, who’s the best of the best?’. So with that question arising, when I became of age to kind of really understand business, and going to school for business, it became easier to put the concept together to prove.”
That idea of officially determining the best dancer in Baltimore became the King of the City competition, held nine times since its creation in 2007. From that competition and the culture that grew around it came another pivot, another improvisation, and the creation of the all-encompassing lifestyle collective and youth mentorship program called Bmore Than Dance.
Said Neek: “I kinda saw opportunity as well as a need for exposure. The opportunity was the fact that our culture is one that’s very unique, and a lot of people have never seen it or aren’t doing it. As well as understanding the limited opportunities for the youth here, it was a necessity to start to understand how to make a living… I like to say Bmore Than Dance went from a dance competition to this organization that came to focus solely on how to improve.”
At its core, improvisation is about the mastery of a form and the creative interpretation of its application. Whether it’s through the physical act of dance, the spoken word of the artists or even the production of the underlying tracks themselves, improvisation is woven throughout the fabric of Baltimore Club music. And thanks to a number of dedicated figures, it won’t unravel anytime soon.
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