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What's right in one neighborhood can be troublesome in another. When a Bronx break dancer named Crazy Legs took a recent trip to Chicago, wearing his hat at a precarious 45° angle, a local told him, "You better not wear your cap that way 'cause you could get hurt. Somebody could think you're a gangster." Still, hip hop has been downtown long enough that stylistic confusion like this is a little less frequent. Every Friday night, crews of rappers make the trip from The Bronx to the lower West Side of Manhattan, where they do their stuff at a roller disco called the Roxy. The crowd there is mostly new bohemian types. They watch with the guilty pleasure of anthropologists visiting Soul Train, as rappers pick up on a little new wave style (miniskirts and studs are making a showing in the South Bronx) and make their moves. Downtown, however, there is a palpable difference in the proceedings. "We bring everything here from our neighborhood to put on a show," is the way Crazy Legs explains it. "But uptown it's not a show. It's our way of life." —ByJayCocks.
Reported by Stephen Koepp/New York