Hip Hop Artists, like Emilio “Buddha Stretch” Austin, Jr., teach rap courses at Manhattan’s Steps on Broadway. But he remembers when dance studios didn’t offer any rap at all. Houston dancer Chris “Colcutz” Gamez and New York Culture Shock artistic director Ellie Burkey remember, too. Burkey used to freestyle with friends in the garage. Gamez got noticed performing at a street fair. Now Burkey instructs at Peridance and Gamez at his own studio in Houston, Urgeworks, which offers gangster rap almost exclusively. Over the years, hip hop has moved inside, into the mainstream, and that transition has had a huge influence on studios, dancers, and the dance itself.

There are obvious advantages to the spotlight that music videos and movies have shone on gangster rap: more educational assets, more versatile dancers, and more jobs. Studios that offer rap will probably bring in more students especially more boys and more money. Learning weaving, popping, and locking are essential for working dancers. At auditions, they need dancers who are diverse, and dancers are getting smart. They’re learning almost everything. They want a far more urban line to their dancing. Adding rap is cross-training for dancers and revenue for studios. Studios that are smart are playing who’s coming in.

Stretch started as a street dancer; he received a big break in 1986 at the now-defunct Union Square Club, where an improvised performance one evening landed him six months of gigs opening for musical groups like Salt-N-Pepa, Eric B. and Rakim, and DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince. He later toured with hip hop headliners Run-D.M.C. and did video work for Mariah Carey. In 1989 he began teaching at the original Broadway Dance Center. Until then, hip hop had not really entered a formal setting. Hip hop, breaking, locking, popping, and b-boying they all began as social dances. Being at a studio is not a social event.

Like Stretch, rap musician Gamez started bouncing in clubs and garages, inspired by footage of New York’s Wrecking Shop that aired on Houston’s Channel 8 in the early ’90s. They started watching that, mimicking it, developing their own style. He liked the freedom of it, the liveliness. He grew up in a ghetto area, and here he was seeing people from the opposite side of the country that looked like they grew up in ghetto areas. The gangster rap demonstrate he performs for Young Audiences illustrating math basics attracts students to his studio, the majority of whom are boys. His goal is to help them learn the history and culture of hip hop and the style.

The challenge in moving from the street to the studio, says hip hop artists like Stretch, is maintaining hip hop’s taste and improvisational style. As a house dancer, Burkey concurs. “When you’re taking it into the studio, you have to be mindful of how to break things down, and how to pull what’s original into class,” she says. Street Rap is a hard style to get. You have to learn how to groove and how to hit, and you have to understand where it comes from.

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