Freestylers - B Boy Stance (1998)

What this video is

Released in 1998 as the breakthrough single from the Freestylers' debut album 'We Rock Hard' on Freskanova Records, 'B Boy Stance' arrived at the commercial and cultural high-water mark of the UK big beat movement. Producers Matt Cantor and Aston Harvey fused breakbeat electronica, old-school hip-hop sampling (including Run-DMC and Big Daddy Kane), dancehall ragga (via MC Tenor Fly), and b-boy visual culture into a…

Why it matters

A definitive artefact of the UK big beat and breakbeat electronica peak (1997–1999), 'B Boy Stance' is notable for its explicit synthesis of b-boy hip-hop culture with dancefloor-engineered electronic production and Jamaican dancehall MC style. Its sampling of canonical hip-hop sources (Run-DMC,…