When did you first get interested in Hip-Hop culture?
I grew up listening to a lot of 70s funk & soul, and old school rhythm & blues records. I was always drawn to the percussive sound of funk, which of course lay the foundations for what would evolve into Hip-Hop.
During the 90s an uncle of mine was working for a record label in California, and he’d always bring back stacks of free CDs for us as gifts. Growing up in a rural Irish town, you’re not exposed to a wide variety of music beyond trad, country, or played out dance music, so whenever we received any new music we’d spend time digging through the CDs looking for something fresh. Despite having a variety of music to choose from I grew up sheltered to what was current and mainstream at the time. While all the other kids were listening to everything from Oasis to DJ Quiksilver, I was listening to Curtis Mayfield, Sam Cooke and James Brown.
Looking back, this essentially oriented me squarely towards Hip-Hop music. In the 90s this is when I discovered Hip-Hop in these stacks of CDs. From the obscure sounds of Insane Clown Posse, to the West Coast gangster rap stylings of Cypress Hill, and now a more modern sound to R’n’B…. Familiar drum patterns and groove lines, mixed with wordplay and storytelling…I was hooked right away.
At this time I still didn’t know what Hip-Hop Culture was, I just knew I liked the music. I also loved graffiti. Then I saw breakin’ (break dance) for the first time. Run DMC’s ‘It’s Like That’ was shown on Channel 4 one Saturday morning and from that moment, at 12 years old, I was on a mission to learn how to do it.
Fast forward 8 years, I had just moved to Belfast to go to uni. I then discovered the Belfast City Breakers, and instantly signed up to one of their classes in the Crescent Arts Centre.
This was my first proper exposure to Hip-Hop culture. BCB introduced me to ‘jams’, social gatherings mixed with MCs, DJs and Breakers. I was a total ‘culchie’ at the time, so it took a while for me to learn the culture, style, approach, and attitude. Like everyone starting off in Hip-Hop, you usually take from Hip-Hop at the start. You only start to understand Hip-Hop culture when you start giving back. 20 years later, I am still giving back as much as I can. I am still learning more about this culture and my place within it.
What led to setting up 5th Element NI?
Over my 20 years of breakin’, and being involved in the Hip-Hop scene in Belfast, I’ve had the opportunity to explore different avenues within Hip-Hop, from performing, battling, running events, and teaching workshops. I started teaching classes in order to recruit new interest in breakin’. This lasted for a while until I joined T13 Skatepark as a freelance designer, breaker and instructor, working with the likes of Alternative Education, refugee groups, and tons of different community groups. Seeing how T13 operated was a big inspiration and influence for me.
Years later I met Terry Conlon, a charity worker, and Hip-Hop enthusiast, who was from the same neck of the woods as me back home. He approached me with the idea of setting up a charity in order to help spread the art of breakin’ and Hip-Hop culture to more people. So we met up in Madden’s pub in the summer of 2018 to discuss a plan and took it from there.
That’s when we started to connect with other local Hip-Hop artists, and started to build a team of people who could see and understand the vision and help push the movement forward. It was a slow start, as we didn’t exactly know what we were doing, but we found our feet eventually. Before you know it Terry had found a building for us to establish ourselves in. Not going to lie, I was nervous about this as it all felt very fast, not to mention none of us really knew what we were taking on. But as a result it forced us to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and tackle it head on.
At this point we had set up a full committee and had also teamed up with local MC and producer Daz, owner of the Hip-Hop radio station Skank FM, local breakin’ crew ‘Northern Soles Crew’, Elixir Hip-Hop Collective and various street artists such as Sam Barry and Track1, with additional support from our growing volunteer base. We occupied a 4 story derelict office block in the city centre and got to work. Over time things changed, the team changed, but what was left was a core group of individuals who were willing to keep it going. We eventually moved into our new premises, the Masonic Hall on 13 Park Road.
Could you talk about what 5th Element does regarding dance?.
At 5th Element we regularly host different forms of dance in our dance studio, from swing dancing, to breakin’, to even Kpop parties. We run regular breakin’ sessions for local breakers and beginners, with hope to grow our scene more this coming year. With breakin’ now being part of the Paris 2024 Olympics, 5th Element has teamed up with ‘Breaking Ireland’ to run an official Irish Ranking Battle, where Ireland’s top breakers compete as part of the formal process of making their way to representing Ireland in the Olympics. It’s still early days but we see breakin’ becoming hugely popular in the coming years so we are setting up now so that our future generation of breakers will have an opportunity to go for gold. If anyone wants to get into breakin’, we run free drop-in sessions every Thursday from 6.30pm. All ages and abilities are welcome.
What are the aims of 5th Element more generally?
In Hip-Hop there are 4 elements. Rapping, DJing, Graffiti, and Breakin’. To us the ‘5th element’ is community. We recognised early on that for Hip-Hop to grow it has to unite. It used to be that each element had its own scene, so to speak, with very little collaboration, except maybe between MCs and DJs. So by having all elements operating under one roof we learned that we are stronger together, and could properly represent real Hip-Hop culture that aims to empower, educate and inspire. Our vision today is still very much based on this Hip-Hop ethos, however I’d say that our mission is now more focused on building individual and community spirit beyond the Hip-Hop scene.
The importance of community and connecting with people couldn’t be more evident than it was after all the lockdowns during Covid. The stories we hear on a weekly basis, stories of struggle, addiction, loneliness, mental health issues, etc, have all shown us the importance of providing a non-judgemental and inclusive space for everyone to share their story. On the one hand these stories are difficult to talk about, but on the other hand it is great they are being talked about and expressed, either outwardly in conversation or through an artform.
Where to now?
After establishing great relationships with many local charities and community groups, we are in a position to grow this and provide more outreach projects. We have also been invited to a number of festivals this year and we would like to attend more in the future as a full 5th Element Hip-Hop crew. As well as this we hope to build our connections with the wider music/dance/art scenes in Ireland and the UK in order to provide more opportunities for up and coming artists living in Belfast, all while hosting more community jams and events throughout the year.
If you want to see more of the work of 5th Element NI – click on the links below
