What is Bboysounds?
Bboysounds is a living library of breakin’ music and Hip-Hop culture, showcasing the soundtrack of the cypher, the beats behind the battles, and interviews with pioneers, leaders, and luminaries.
Our Story
The Podcast
Bboysounds started in 2010 as a podcast called “Radio Breaks Worldwide” hosted by Sway Beats and Dj Chief.
The podcast started with a live mixtape in the style of a radio music showcase, taking time to highlight the featured DJs, producers, and musicians, followed by interviews with a wide range of icons in the scene, from Cut Chemist to Camp Lo to Yellow Benjy Melendez of the Ghetto Brothers.
The Website
The website started in 2012 as a blog, offering the “Bboysounds Weekly” to our growing email list and social media following.
The Weekly highlighted a handful of mixtapes, albums, and singles – introducing musicians and DJs from around the world to our readers – and sharing the latest podcast episode.
The Cassette
We printed the first Bboysounds stickers, shirts, and DJ bags in 2012, and within a couple years, our iconic Cassette logo was showing up in photo posts all over the world.
Why did we choose this logo?
The cassette tape holds a special significance in Hip-Hop and Bboy Culture, as one of the most recognizable symbols of the movement.
Cassette tapes were the original medium through which early Hip-Hop culture was shared from one to another, as the underground movement wasn’t being pressed en masse, and the music couldn’t be found on the radio or in the record store.
This meant that Hip-Hop Culture had to grow through direct connection to others involved in the movement, and as MCing, DJing, and Breakin’ – as the musical elements of the new culture – spread throughout New York and eventually the world, it was through these cassette tapes that bboys and bgirls could share the experience with others.
Throughout the 1970s, Hip-Hop pioneer DJs like DJ Hollywood, Grandmaster Flash, Kool Herc, and others were known for selling taped recordings of their party and club performances, as well as custom-made mixes at top dollar prices.
As recording equipment and, ultimately, digital recording and mp3 technology made cassette tapes and their often bulky and lower-quality players all but obsolete, tapes were no longer a practical option for transmitting sounds. Despite this, you can still find companies producing cassette tapes and artists selling their music on them.
The cassette tape serves as a living relic of the early Hip-Hop movement, and we found that this would be the most sensible symbol of our mission at Bboysounds.
The Boombox
Radio Bboy was launched in 2011 as a sister website to Bboysounds, driving countless listeners from around the world to the dopest musicians and DJs on Soundcloud.
Radio Bboy offered eight continuous music channels, including battle beats, jazzy breaks, jackin’ house, Hip-Hop classics, disco funk, and more, plus dedicated channels featuring individual DJs doing their thing in the scene.
The Label
After hundreds of articles and dozens of interviews written and recorded, we launched our own in-house label in 2015.
Since then, Black Label Breaks has published original music from our own Dj Chief, with dozens of singles, mixtapes, and albums dropped.
If you dig the music, please… SUPPORT THE ARTISTS!
Our social media posts, features, and articles will always credit and link to the artist, so you can easily find and support the musicians and DJs.
Now that you know what we’re all about…
Click here to read some interviews.
Click here to check out our latest original music.
Click here to tune in to Radio Bboy.
Click here to find us on Instagram.