Breakdancing Pioneer Whose Big Break Was in 80s Hit Flashdance
Wayne Frost, a hip-hop pioneer known as Frosty Freeze who helped inspire a worldwide breakdancing craze in the early 1980s as a member of the chart-topping group Rock Steady Crew, has died, aged 44.
Mr Frost was known for his acrobatic and daredevil moves. One that he created involved a flip in the air that ended with Mr Frost flat on his back. He called it the Suicide.
Mr Frost began attracting worldwide attention in 1981, when his picture appeared on the cover of The Village Voice with the headline "Physical Graffiti: Breaking Is Hard to Do".
He was then featured in early hip-hop music videos, including Malcolm McLaren’s "Buffalo Gals", and performed in films about hip- hop culture, including the groundbreaking 1983 documentary Style Wars and the 1983 feature film Wild Style.
But it was his appearance in the 1983 hit movie Flashdance with Jennifer Beals that brought him worldwide recognition and helped introduce breakdancing to mainstream popular culture.
At the time, breakdancing, or b-boying, a daring and complex dance form that grew out of the streets of the Bronx and Harlem in the 1970s, was one element of the emerging hip-hop culture, which included graffiti art, rapping and DJs scratching and mixing vinyl records on turntables.
Breakdancing had its own terminology and was composed of two basic elements – top rock, involving upper-body movement, and floor rock, involving footwork.
A b-boy dance phrase finishes with a "freeze", hence Mr Frost’s hip-hop name.
The Rock Steady Crew was founded in 1977 in the Bronx and gained international attention throughout the ’80s as its members, including Mr Frost, Jorge Pabon, who uses the name Pop Master Fabel, Crazy Legs, Ken Swift and others, toured and performed.
Mr Frost also appeared in two more documentaries about hip-hop culture, The Freshest Kids (2002) and 5 Sides of a Coin (2003).
He is survived by a brother and two sisters.
(c) 2008 Western Morning News, The Plymouth (UK). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.