Breakin Bread 10 Years still Rockin

We kicked off Breakin Bread in May 1998 thanks to a mate of mine, Pik, who was promoting clubs for Kiss FM. He didn’t know much about Hip Hop but had seen resurgence of Hip Hop at clubs like Scratch and Funkin Pussy where for the first time, hardcore hip hop heads like me started noticing girls coming to hip hop events. We were used to hip hop nights being sweaty dark affairs in empty clubs with almost 100% of the audience being male.

Pik wanted to start a night with breakdancing which was also coming to the fore at the time. The UK B-boy championships had started a few years earlier and was now big enough to be held in Brixton Academy. I linked Pik’s b-boy idea with playing more funk, soul and breaks alongside hip hop. This music was missing at other hip hop nights and I knew from running previous events that b-boys preferred rockin to funk and disco than straight hip hop. An added bonus was that girls were more likely to dance to soul music if they weren’t already hip hop chicks.

I called in Rob Life and Tufkut to DJ at our first night. They were both serious record collectors that I’d known for years and had been my guiding lights into the world of soul, funk and disco that gave birth to hip hop.