The Hip Hop Nutcracker “turns Tchaikovsky on his head within the coolest potential approach.”
The reimagining of the Russian classical composer’s 130-year-old ballet set in up to date New York Metropolis has been residing as much as that promotional promise for the final 10 years. Now a vacation custom in its personal proper, the dance extravaganza is at present within the midst of a 30-city tour. And there for each beat, however a coronary heart transplant in December 2020, has been the present’s particular visitor MC and considered one of rap’s founding fathers, Kurtis Blow.
“I used to be all the time a fan and supporter of the fusion of hip-hop with different genres of music,” says Blow, recalling the primary time he watched a present rehearsal in 2013. “I noticed these younger b-boys and b-girls simply doing their factor, representing with all of the types from popping and locking to electrical boogaloo; kicks, head spins, again spins, windmills, air twists — and doing so to Tchaikovsky’s unimaginable classical music with hip-hop beats underneath it. I mentioned, ‘Oh my God, I’ve acquired to be part of this.’”
The trailblazing artist recognized for classics comparable to “Christmas Rappin’,” “The Breaks” and “Get together Time,” a fusion of rap and go-go, Blow was the primary rapper to be signed to a significant label (Mercury Data) in 1979, amongst different accolades. This previous summer time, Blow and fellow hip- hop legends, Chuck D and KRS-One based the Hip Hop Alliance, the primary ever union for hip-hop and R&B artists and the workforce that helps them.
The Hip Hop Nutcracker will wrap its tenth season in Hartford, Conn., on New 12 months’s Eve. The rest of the tour can be devoted to the late Stephen “tWitch” Boss, freestyle hip-hop dancer/choreographer and The Ellen DeGeneres Present co-host/co-exec producer. “We need to acknowledge the passing of considered one of our Nutcracker members of the family,” Blow says of Boss, who was a part of Disney’s model of the present, now streaming on Disney+.
Throughout a cellphone interview in the course of the tour’s New York cease, Blow mirrored on why The Hip Hop Nutcracker nonetheless resonates, life after his coronary heart transplant and hip-hop’s monumental fiftieth anniversary in 2023.
For individuals who haven’t seen the present, what does your function entail?
I get everybody ready for what they’re about to see by first taking them again with a medley of old-fashioned hip-hop songs as a result of the present begins out in 1980 on New 12 months’s Eve. On the finish of the intro, I sing a track referred to as “New 12 months’s Eve” and in the course of that, I’ve everybody depend down from 10 to 1. Once we get to 1, we scream Completely happy New 12 months as loud as we are able to. Then the present begins. On the finish I come again and do “The Breaks” with the entire solid. These proficient dancers from everywhere in the world give 150% each night time. Audiences come to the present — whose theme is love conquers all — and depart revitalized. I’m seeing generations from grandparents to their grandchildren and their daughters and sons. That’s what hip-hop is about too: all races, all ages.
What has your life been like because the transplant?
I’m a strolling, residing, respiration testimony that God remains to be within the miracle enterprise. What God did for me, God is ready to do it for you and everybody else. This can be a massive a part of my religion as a result of I’m a preacher as properly. Waking up the following morning after the operation, seeing the medical doctors and nurses and getting a thumbs up … I nonetheless get that pleasure each morning once I get up. I thank God that I’m nonetheless alive — and [I’m] so grateful to be part of this chance to unfold love in the course of the vacation season.
Which is one thing you first did within the late ‘70s with “Christmas Rappin’.”
I feel it was 1978. Billboard included me, a younger faculty pupil, within the final part of an interview about this new factor referred to as rap. I’ll always remember it as a result of throughout that point, there have been different extra widespread MCs like DJ Hollywood, Eddie Cheeba, Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa. However that article grew to become the idea of my credibility, and I feel it was not directly part of me getting my document cope with Mercury. Robert Ford Jr. wrote that article. Later, he and J.B. Moore, who additionally labored for Billboard, produced my first gold single, “Christmas Rappin’”. I owe Billboard and simply need to say thanks!
What does the style’s upcoming fiftieth anniversary imply to you?
I began break dancing in 1972, grew to become a DJ in ’73 and began rapping in ’74. I’ve witnessed this tradition rise from the ashes of the ghettos of the Bronx, Harlem, Queens and Brooklyn. It was out of that cultural trauma that hip-hop was created; it was escapism within the music. Now it’s been round for 50 years and it’s nonetheless highly effective — the No. 1-streamed style on the planet. Everybody across the globe is tuning in to hearken to what hip-hop has to say. We positively modified the world. And we’ve the chance to do it once more. My message to all of the younger individuals out there’s: We did it, and now the world is yours. The longer term is yours. You have got the chance to construct up your households, construct up your communities and construct up humanity.
