Newcastle City Crew Talks of a time when Breakdancing defined a BBoy Culture in Newcastle.

peep magazine

peep step into the world of Breakdancing and Bboys culture, where hip-hop, Graffiti and Breakdancing was more than just a lifestyle — it was a cultural Hip Hop movement. Join peep magazine and Damon Mogg, also known as D-Rock at The Bridge Hip Hop Festival in the heart of Newcastle upon tyne, as they travel back to the breakdancing nights of Tiffany’s Sidewalk in Newcastle upon Tyne, where the b-boy scene first caught fire in the UK. Damon shares his transformative journey from watching breakdancing on TV to experiencing its raw energy live, and how this cultural phenomenon swept through all schools and uniting students into breakdancing crews across many cities within the UK. These iconic moments not only shaped a Hip Hop generation, but also laid the foundation for a vibrant community that resided in Newcastle upon Tyne which thrived on creativity and inclusivity. Read the full interview below

peep.

This is an interview for peep Magazine, we’re here with Damon Mogg, aka D- Rock. Thanks for coming down to the bridge Hip Hop Festival here in Newcastle upon Tyne. It’s great to see you doing this Graffiti piece and letting me hang about and do this interview whilst you’re painting.

Damon Mogg

No, it’s no problem. As I say, I’ve only just turned up, so I’m not organized either, I’m just. I’m happy to be here and painting.

peep magazine Tiffany’s Sidewalk Newcastle

Tiffany’s was the name, sidewalk was the game. We’re going to go back to Newcastle upon Tyne in 1983 with D- Rock. What was your first taste of Breakdancing and Bboys? Can you define this Breakdancing night in Newcastle. How did did you hear about it? What about the event and what motivated you to get involved with this Hip Hop event?

Damon / D-Rok

Well, I only went to Tiffany’s a couple of times because I was really young at the time. I remember it being probably the most exciting and magical thing that I had seen, to be honest, because you went from just seeing Breaking on TV I wasn’t old enough to be kind of around the city at that point so you only see Breaking on TV and you hear it, I don’t know. You watch Beat Street over and over again and then you walk into somewhere where they are actually playing that music really loud and it looks like a disco, but you’re allowed to go in as a kid. Uh, it was absolutely amazing and I think that’s why it stuck with everybody. Everybody who who experienced it, um, remember it really fondly, and I think that’s why you still have an anniversary for it so there was tiffany’s

peep. Sidewalk Breakdancing and Bboys Newcastle

I’m trying to get my head around. Sidewalk was the night, and that night was organised by a guy called ‘stesh’

Damon Mogg

right, yeah, well, unfortunately, I never met him but every time I hear about anyone talk about this, they always mention his name and it’s like a like the main guy who kind of invented it he’s kind of a I I don’t know ‘Stesh’ either. I mean, as I say, I was really really young at the time, but it is a name that I’ve heard from the beginning right up until now. Um, and obviously he was responsible for the music being played and the fact that it was even happening. So there’s the root right there of this city of Newcastle upon Tyne.

peep. Breakdancing Swept Every School In The UK

Breaking, Hip Hop and Graffiti swept, in my opinion, every school in the UK. You would see breakdancing on bus stops, before school, after school break-break times. I mean, can you talk about your experience, because you must have been quite young when it swept through the schools?

Damon Mogg influenced by Michael Jackson’s Moonwalk

Yeah, I was about six, I think, when I first started. When I first saw it, I had a little thing for watching Michael Jackson dance and then I saw breaking on the TV. I saw Breaking on the TV and then that was it. I spent the rest of the time on my head in the living room, according to my mother. So, and school was. I mean, I remember getting sent to what then was called the ‘naughty wall’ a couple of times for Breakdancing and bboys activity, and I think it’s because the ladies who looked after the schoolyard at the time, just thought I was rolling around on the floor in my good clothes or whatever. But once they started realising what was happening, then we used to have little break in circles all the time in the school. That was what break time was for at school.

peep. Breakdancing and Bboys Stopped Negativity in Schools

Would you agree that Breakdancing and body popping stopped a lot of negativity in schools? Because in my school, for instance, there used to be a fight every other break-time. Someone beefing with someone and then break-dance came through also called ‘breakin’. I don’t really want to call it break-dancing because that was a term that was coined by middle class newspaper of the time. In my opinion, Breakdancing stopped a lot of negativity. Would you agree with this?

Damon Mogg

um, as I say, I think I was too young to even see a lot of it. Like, in first school I didn’t see many people fighting, and that’s where I was when breaking was around. We did used to dance in the schoolyard all the time, but I think probably on a wider level and for the older kids, I would say that it would have done that. I mean, god knows how many Breakdancing and bboys crews there was in the city of Newcastle at one point, but I guarantee every area would have had a crew. Everyone was Breakdancing. So there was, there was crews all over the place. Um, this don’t. I can’t remember what the standard was like, but yeah, there was a lot of crews then

peep. A Meeting Of Hip Hop Minds in Newcastle

You met another talented Hip Hop artist called Ken Masters who was also into Hip Hop Music, Hip-Hop Culture breaking, mc’ing, dj’ing. Could you talk, maybe, about that meeting and what was discussed, and was this like an explosion of creative minds?

D-Rock. Our Breakdancing Journey started in Cramlington Shopping Centre

Well, the first time I ever met him we didn’t realise we had met until later, but it was probably about 1986. I think it was probably about 1986. I think there was a break-dancing tournament in Concordia Shopping Centre in Cramlington. I had been going to a little youth club, where there were older kids and I could ‘wind-mill’ and ‘head-spin’ by this point. So they put me in their crew, and that weekend, we went and did this breakdancing and Bboys battle’ at this shopping centre in the north east. It was actually ‘kenny’s Crew’ from Cramlington, who we were battling that day. We didn’t realise that until we met, until we were friends and talking about that type of thing. We were like, ah, that’s him, that that’s him. So when I actually met him I was probably about 22 years old, and, there was a lot of us, you know like he had a group of friends and they were doing music all the time. They were called ‘Sin Hoods’ at the time. There were loads of other people around them, like ‘The Scruffs’ and ‘Untamed Youth’ from Gateshead, Newcastle. They were all doing music. Nobody was really breaking, but they were already doing music. People were drawing and doing Graffiti all the time. So I kind of slipped in with them straight away. Matt ( Ken Masters ) moved about three streets away from me at the time. So it was like I think he saw me one day wearing a Naughty by Nature hoodie, and then that was it. He kind of we started talking from there.

Damon Mogg. Clothing Identified Your People

Back then, clothes was how you identified your people. Really. There was more like separation in fashion as well, where it’s all kind of mixed together now a little bit, but then you could see who was into hip-hop quite clearly.

peep. Clothing Defined Your Bboys Attitude & Music Tastes

Yeah, because back in the day around the late 80s and early 90s, it would have been quite defined, you would have had your ‘post-punks’, maybe, then maybe ‘Goths’. People started growing their hair, which was quite cool back in the day.

Damon Mogg. Football Hooligans Wore Hip Hop Tracksuits just like Breakdancers

There was a lot of mixed with football hooligan type of stuff as well. You know, Like, even the fashion was the same then. They were wearing the same tracksuits as ‘breakers’ and the same trainers as breakers, so there was quite a lot of that mixed in as well. I think some of it, is about the fashion as well. You know, for the older, the older lads who were into breaking in the 80s and still loved that fashion. You know, people collecting rare FILA tracksuits and all that sort of thing as we’re, as we touch on fashion, as we touch on, uh, fashion, I think it’s quite apt that you explained that breaking became quite unfashionable and not really cool. Why do you think this happened?

peep. Breakdancing Became Unfashionable

As we touch on fashion. I think it’s quite apt that you explained that breaking became quite unfashionable and not really cool. Why do you think this happened?

Damon Mogg. Mainstream Media took Over Traditional Hip Hop Culture

I’m not sure. I think I’ve thought about that for my whole life, to be honest. I was probably at an age, where I wasn’t as influenced by the mainstream fashion or whatever was going on. I was way too young to go to a dance rave. So all the older lads who they got to an age were probably around 18 19 years old, where that going to raves and stuff like that, then Breakdancing kind of almost seemed to stop overnight for me. It went from everyone doing it to nobody’s doing it anymore and it’s not even a cool thing to do, like running on the spot was now the cool thing to do, you know, like the sort of new jack swing type of dancing that came in, followed straight after and it was all about ‘mc hammer’ and running on the spot or ‘raving’.

I had thought, like you know, I’ve spent a lot of time learning how to windmill and spinning on my head, I’m not just going to jump on down now, like you know and I just wanted to keep going. It was just too hard to stop when you’re so young and you’re kind of isolated in a part of the city where there is no one else doing it.

So by the time I come to get older and you meet people who are, who are into the same thing like by the time I met kenny and and the rest of them it was like we were all ready to break again. It took nothing to spark that, just put a record, put that song on that used to play and somebody would start breakdancing because we were back. We were all around the same age, we all probably experienced the same thing when breakdancing died, and we had nobody older than us showing us anymore. There was no influence anymore, so you just had to do that yourself. Like you know. I know that BTC ( Bad Taste Crew ) are really lucky that they had the breakers in Belfast, would mentor them and I’m pretty sure them boys are still going. So like that’s a good thing. That’s the one thing that we never had. We’ve got a lot in common with BTC and that’s probably the one thing we haven’t got in Newcastle upon tyne and that’s probably why they have a had a mentality straight away of sharing what they know and workshops and bringing people in. We didn’t have that mentality up North

No Support For Breakdancing and Bboys In Newcastle Upon Tyne

We kind of survived here and once we left the city to go to other cities, it was just about breakin and ‘battlin’. That’s all we wanted to do. There was no thought of the ‘next generation’. Really, it wasn’t even on our radar. We just wanted to battle, because we’d been stuck in this city of Newcastle ourselves for so long. There’s only so many times you can go to the same circle in the same club and have the same ‘knackers’ spill the same pint over the floor. You know what I mean. So by the time we came to leave in the city we were excited and we were just going to nights that were specifically for Breakdancing. So you’d go to Leeds or Manchester or just like close by, and eventually we’ll go to London all the time so, wow, this was good.

peep. This Is a Major Part Of Hip Hop History In Newcastle Upon Tyne

So we’re going to fast forward to 1993. You started your own crew called, NCK, ‘Newcastle City Krew’ influenced by ‘Wild Style’ & ‘Beat Street’, and then you seen a ‘Battle of the Year in 1995’.

Damon Mog Newcastle City Krew Breakdancing Formed In Newcastle

Yeah, I mean Newcastle City Krew ( NCK ) wasn’t really a crew back then. We were all together as friends and we were all breaking in 1993, but there was no name for us. We were just mates being bboys and breakdancing in a living room and at any hip-hop night that there was, which eventually Kenny (Ken Masters) had to put one on like every month, just so that there was somewhere for people to practice their music and breakdancing in an environment that was outside of a living room. So, we didn’t have the name, but we were all breaking together and a lot of the lads had never done breaking before, and there was only a few of us who had been from from the first wave. The other lads had jumped on hip-hop, uh, around like snoop and dre time and and and that type of thing you know. But they were were hungry.

They were doing Graffiti straight away and they wanted to learn to break and that was a slow process. It’s a hard thing to learn how to breakdance. So there was a lot of years there where we didn’t have the name NCK, but we were in a living room breakdancing and bboys together, you know, practicing, getting better. So when we saw Battle of the Year 1995, I think that’s when everything kind of changed, and we realised how serious breaking was, we were just trying to do the old things that we were, you know, like trying to get different combinations of swipes, windmills, headspins and trying to be as tidy as possible, and all of that. And then we watched Battle of the Year in 1995 and realised that like the level is high in Europe. so, this kind of made me thing, it wasn’t just us. We hadn’t seen anything from America at the time.

There’s other people around the country and if there’s other people in Europe, there’s got to be other people. In the UK. We knew about Tough Tim Twist and Second to Non for sure, like they were already kind of they were established. You know, we didn’t realise or think about whether there was the equivalent of us in every single city, and it works out that there kind of was. You know. There was a group of the generation of people that were kind of left behind. They were too young to follow what was happening. They still loved hip-hop, but everyone stopped and they had to keep it going in their city. That’s the same story of just about every city in the UK, I think.

peep. The Invention Of Newcastle City Krew

So, you’ve got your crew. You’re practising in bedrooms and stuff like this. You’ve got your mates with you and you’re all good friends. How does the NCK crew dynamics work? Is there a hierarchy in this crew? Because the word on the word I hate saying the word on the street, even though I’m going to say the word on the street , but um, the word in the word around the dance floor is that you were kind of the top boy, you were the spokesman of nck, you were the leader of nck. Would you agree with that? You’re probably not going to agree with that

Damon Mogg. I Never Drank Alcohol at Breakdancing Tournaments

I can see why it might have come across like that. I think that this has come from, if anything happens, when we’re dancing, I will be there to try and sort that out. Yes, I don’t drink, so maybe I’m just always the one who isn’t drunk at these times when things happen or whatever. I held no rule over any of the boys at all. It’s not like that.

I held no rule over any of the boys and everyone knew that nobody ruled anybody. That was a crew of 12 people with real big egos, who were kept together by just loving the same thing and being on the same team at the end of the day. The times when we first started going down to London, our attitude was that, like we are together as Newcastle going to London, that’s what kept us together for a long time. I think the fact that we were competing and that kept us together for a long time. I think the fact that we were competing and we needed to be together to to get to where we wanted to be.

peep. Was There Any Racial Tension With Crews From Newcastle in London

When when you guys were traveling down to London, I’m just gonna ask something that just popped in in my head – was the colour thing ever an issue with London crews being probably predominantly black and Newcastle crews being predominantly white? Was there any friction that you can remember if any?

Damon Mogg. There was No racial Tension With Black or Whites in Breakdancing Culture.

No, I think that’s probably a misconception to be honest. Predominantly, the crews weren’t black. There was a lot of crews of all different races. There was a lot of crews of just white lads who looked like they’d come out of a university hall. It doesn’t even exist in that environment.

peep magazine Interview Newcastle City Crew

That’s really good to hear, and I just thought I needed to ask it because from myself observing from the outside, I hear things. I hear people talking about different aspects of breakdancing and bboys and what not, and I have heard a couple of things like people getting ‘taxed’ for their money or gear, but I just wanted to get it from the horse’s mouth that you didn’t experience anything and that’s so good to hear.

Damon Mogg There was no Racial Tension within Breakdancing Crews Up And Down The Country

I think if you go to any Hip-Hop event that is put on by people, who know what they’re doing, you will never see anything like that. I don’t know. It is almost like that does not exist.

peep Newcastle Breakdancing and Bboys

As I’ve just touched on that you maybe were the ‘spearhead’ of the Newcastle breakdancing crew, and I don’t mean that in a you were the boss or you told people what to do, so maybe a spokesman is maybe a better word.

Damon Mogg

I think the only thing that puts me anywhere in that category is the fact that my B-boying was a little bit more advanced than everyone else’s when we started again. So I had ‘windmills’ and ‘head spins’ and stuff like that, and not many of the lads did have that. By the end of it, I definitely wasn’t the best, which I loved. That’s kind of how it’s supposed to be. That kind of almost feels like it redeems the fact that I never once thought of passing anything on to the next generation, but I already did. It was just that I was passing it on to people in my generation from the last generation and, yeah, like watching your friend, like go from not being able to do a thing to being on the stage at Urban Games, like it’s nice to see and it’s easy to forget.

peep. Bad Taste Crew Arrive In Newcastle Upon Tyne

And then along came Bad Taste Crew. I don’t want to be the interviewer who says, oh, “was there any beef” as it’s not what peep magazine are about, but ‘bad taste crew’ come into Newcastle, was Newcastle big enough for two crews? And I’m interested to hear the dynamics of them coming into Newcastle from Ireland.

Damon Mogg Bad Taste Crew Were A Breakdancing and bboys Family

I can understand why that might seem like it, and probably with any other crew – it probably would have been different. Um, but we we felt really close to to Bad Taste Crew, like really early on, like, I had already met P Martin couple of times and we knew that we were good people, and like you know, we shared a lot of the same interests and the same opinions. Um, and Martin, you know, early days, told me about the crew home, and I liked the fact that the crew, were a crew of friends from one place because that’s what we were, and that wasn’t really what was going on in the rest of the country. The crew, especially further down south, the crews, were all a mix of people from all different places, you know. So I liked it when the crew was just friends from one place who’d grown up together. Doing that, they came over, for I think we saw them at the Scottish B-Boy Championships first. I think that might have been when we first met them, and we just met them there and obviously knew Martin so he introduced us to everyone else and we got on like a house on fire. They came back over for the UK uni champs and stayed with us, it’s not like it’s not rare for that to happen. You know, like breakdancing and Bboys will look after B-Boys.

I know that like we didn’t feel like they were coming here to be a rival crew in the city. We felt like they were coming here and we were going to be together, it would be a strong unit like they’re family, so if we were ever anywhere, at a jam back then and something popped off in the circle with between one of bad taste crew and somebody else, then we would be there for that for sure. We kind of had that mentality. I don’t even think it ever entered my mind that they were rivals to us and I had nothing but love for them from the very beginning. So I was happy.

peep. Breakdancing influenced Graffiti

Big up Bad Taste Crew. I read somewhere that breakdance moves and freezes influenced the wild style graffiti. Or was that the other way around? I’m interested to hear your opinion on it.

Damon Mogg

I think it all just influences each other, to be honest, and I think so, like when I see an amazing piece of Graffiti that’s got letters, that kind of speak to me like the shape of them and everything, it is exactly the same feeling that I will have if I’m watching breakdancing a bboys do footwork and I’m like feeling that. Like it’s the same feeling if I see a DJ do like some sort of sick scratch. That that’s the same feeling. So, I think that’s probably where it comes from. Like if you’re in the Graffiti, you’re usually going to be into some sort of ‘Hip-Hop’ or ‘Breakin‘. You know, like I know, even if you’re not active, you would respect that, you know. So I think for people who’ve experienced like elements across the board of hip-hop, all of the different elements are just the same influential feeling when something good happens, a good piece of graffiti, a good piece of breaking. It’s the same feeling to me.

peep. ‘Holding It Up’ In Newcastle

I think it’s only fair that I ask this one last question about a conversation we had maybe four or five months ago now about how you explained about ‘holding it up in Newcastle for breakdancing and Bboys and all of the rest of it.

Damon Mogg B-Boy Culture

Well, I’d like to clarify, it wasn’t just me, but I think, without me and a certain group of people, there would have been no breakdancing and bboys in Newcastle. It’s because everybody had stopped. We had to go through some years of kind of getting laughed at for breakin again. I don’t think it got taken very seriously, like from some of the older heads maybe, but we just kind of pushed on with that, you know, at one point we started getting videos from all over the place and we knew that it was happening everywhere. So if we took it seriously we could kind of join in with that momentum and that’s all that came about to us. Although we were proud of being from the city and we would represent the city even with our name, we were kind of let down a little bit by it in a way, because nobody was interested in that. We got like more love in other cities for going to break, whereas here in Newcastle, you know, we’d be in fights all the time just for breakdancing, just because, I don’t know, lots of different reasons. You know, somebody’s girlfriend might be watching us too hard, or somebody gets a bit jealous and decides to just throw a drink on the floor and you know like, and it used to erupt quite a lot. And then we go to other cities and it wasn’t like that at all. Um, so we we struggled a little bit until we started leaving the city of Newcastle upon Tyne.

When we started leaving the city in, we found that when we came back, people had more respect than they did before. We ended up staying out of anything that was happening in the city because there was so much other stuff happening around the country in Europe etc. That was easier to concentrate on. There was no, you know like there was no Dance City saying here’s a dance studio, you know, put on some workshops and you know practice and you know you represent the city. There was nothing like that. We had to just do it on our own. Luckily, ken Masters had some big houses with big living rooms. So I do remember living rooms just being lino’d, just floor lino, in the middle of the living room for days and days and days. But yeah, we were hungry at that point because it was almost like it was starting again. Something that we thought was pretty much dead and we were just doing for a frisk. It was serious in other places and we should take it serious too.

peep. Breakdancing and Bboys in Fat Sam’s and the Black Swan Arts Centre Newcastle

Would this have been about Barcode, Fat Sam’s time, Black Swan Arts Centre?

Damon Mogg. Headspins and Windmills with Aches And Pains

Fat Sam’s was the first time I saw somebody else breakdance again, and that was Gavin Marshall. So big up, gav, he’s an NCK member as well, but then there was no Newcastle City Krew. I remember walking into Fat Sam’s pub at the blue carpet and hip-hop was playing and I was already loving it and then the lad next to me, mick, shouted across to Gav and said are you going to get down? And I kind of looked and thought, does he mean what I think he means? And then Gav started breaking and I was like right, wow, Breakdancing and bboys have started again.

And then from there that was it. It was practice, practice, practice. Windmills, head spins, aches and pains and carpet burns and glass in your head Like yeah, but like it’s almost like you see other cities and they had at least a few people who at least a few of the older ones who stayed on and kind of passed it on, and Newcastle upon tyne city didn’t seem to have that at all. But I’m glad we were persistent.

peep Journalism Newcastle Upon Tyne

Damon, it’s been absolutely brilliant chatting to you, mate, and I’ve been wanting to get you down having a chat about your Breakdancing history, about you holding it up, and again being a spearhead for the NCK Breakdancing crew. The Hip Hop language, the Street Dance atmosphere, the nights, the Breakin, the B-boying, the attitude. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I mean we definitely had that for sure.

Damon Mogg. NCK Krew

Yeah, I mean we definitely had that for sure. I think that got like a lot of people sort of perceived us in a certain way because of that. But breakdancing and Bboys to us, was about attitude, you know, if we were going to go to other cities then we were going to have to have some of that, we can’t go there and be meek in any way. I mean, a lot of the time that was fake confidence, you know what I mean. It’s not like we went there thinking that we were the best and we were amazing, but we had to kind of have some of that just to even compete. And because we were together and we felt real strong together.

One of our traits was to be aggressive and no nonsense, and if you do something that we consider to be ‘whack‘, then we’re going to call that out. Um, we were like that, I think, because they we watched crews like second two none and I mean we loved that. Their attitude was was amazing. We thought like if we could break like them, but like hold some of their attitude and the way that they had no fear when they were breaking against, you know, stars of the of the world scene. They had no fear. I think we took that from second 2 non on for sure.

peep The Bridge Hip Hop Festival In Newcastle

Thanks for chatting and um, hopefully see you again in the future. But, like I say, big respect, big respect. And, uh, I needed to get you on the channel because I’m going to, I’m going to try and source some images of you, of you dancing and your crew and all the rest of it, so I’m going to try my best to do that. But respect, respect, mate, and thanks again for chatting to Peep Magazine.

If you would prefer to Watch or Listen to the the full interview please follow the links below

Newcastle City Crew talks about the the beginnings of Breakdancing in Newcastle

Damon Mogg talks about forming a breakdance crew in Newcastle upon Tyne

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