This summer the Olympics came to Paris, France and for the first time ever, breakdancing was an official sport in the games.

This summer the Olympics came to Paris, France and for the first time ever, breakdancing was an official sport in these games. One of hip-hop’s original elements had the honor of being the first dance competition to be included formally in any Olympics game. The inclusion of a cultural dance such as breaking is unprecedented and for some represents proof of hip-hop’s cultural relevance and endurance. Still others see this as another example of the commodification and degradation of hip-hop’s cultural and creative importance, with the dance, as it’s colloquially referred to among the breaking community being exploited and distorted for the benefit of outsiders profit and influence. The divide in thought and philosophy is drawn among similar lines as with other debates around the cultural output of hip-hop. Rap music and its vast commercialization and appropriation by corporate and mainstream interests. The institutionalization of both rap and graffiti neutering their radical potency, reducing them to instruments for the established art world, while at the same time creating new fields and areas for artists to generate personal sustainability, even if that stability comes with the cost of authenticity and being contained within a structural box. The push-pull of the culture becoming mainstreamed and mainlined by market forces whose own survival instincts dictate it must monetize, distill and reduce whatever it consumes juxtaposed by the benefits (for possibly only a privileged few) of artists having the means of their artistic practice be their livelihood, while also ensuring the art’s future makes the current situation complicated at best. 

This year is actually not Breakdance’s debut in the Olympics‌ — breaking was a part of the closing ceremony performance at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California. At that time, breaking was never in consideration to be an official designated competition, and at that time breakdance in general was barely known of by the wider global audience; it was by mainstream accounts a ‘street fad’ that had an of-the-moment hip appeal but little else. Fast forward to 2018, where the first medals to be won in a breakdance competition at an Olympics was done so at the youth Olympics, in Buenos Aires. In theory, these might be seen as slow incremental steps towards recognition and acceptance that lead to breaking, making its way to one of the highest platforms the dance has ever had. In truth, as with the existential question of the validity of “the dance” becoming “the sport” the reality is a little more complex and nuanced. 

One of the perks of being the host nation of the Olympics is there are six open slots the country can fill in the competition with sports of their choosing. These sports might be traditional ones that have appeared in previous Olympics (throughout its history, sports have been added and dropped from the games, while many of the traditional sports we’ve come to know remain consistent‌ — others such as tennis, curling, wrestling, golf and even baseball have been included and discontinued over time) or sports that may be popular in the host country, and give them an opportunity to win medals due to the sport being one their country excels in. The latter reason is one of the factors for breaking’s inclusion in Paris. Commercial interests are another, as one of the Olympic mandates is to continue popularizing the competition and particularly the IOC is focused on bringing younger viewers to be interested in the games. While, in many respects hip-hop as a culture has been literally drawn and quartered, the traditional four elements that are the pillars and foundation of the culture, over time have been separated and occupy their own spaces, often independent of one another (some within the hip-hop community, however, have stated this was always the case from the very beginning and the myth of their connection was born from only some pioneers, but that is another story for another piece), most still associate them with hip-hop. This is important, because the brand of hip-hop remains a very powerful magnet for youth and is still associated with youth culture. A noted gamble by the IOC to bring breaking to the level of Olympic sport is the hope it will be an accelerant for a demographic that has long since checked out of the quadrennial event. 

Breaking has for a long time crossed over into the sporting realm, as huge corporations such as Red Bull and BC ONE have for decades sponsored global competitions with cash prizes and broadcasting that has massively popularized it. The Olympics is late to the party and simply getting on a very expensive train that has already gone some distance down the tracks. The difference, however, has been in the way the format of the competition is being laid out, from the  the way in which teams (not “crews”, a significant cultural distinction as the formation of breaking crews is and was a communal organic exercise) are formed, to the judging, to even what music will be allowed to be played due to commercial rights issues at the jam. And then, there is the jam. Even with Red Bull, for example, the culture of breaking, the communities and ethos around it still broadly, loosely exist. The sense that it is more than a competition for money, however faint, still has some resonance even in these global battles. That isn’t so clear if that will be the case in Paris; in fact, many things about what this type of exposure and shifts in how “the dance” is orchestrated means for the culture writ large are unclear. Maybe it will mean nothing at all. Breaking has already been announced as not being a part of the 2028 Summer Games (ironically in Los Angeles, the scene of its first appearance in 84). It’s possible that these game’s will be a one-and-done for Breakdance. Still, this summer the dance will have exposure and a mainstream acknowledgement like never before, transforming it to something new and different altogether, and that is precisely what many who love the culture fear, the change from a cultural practice, to a purely sporting franchise and commercial venture. But maybe, it’s already too late.