Meet the B-boy carving out global fame

Break­ing burst onto Bronx blocks in 1973, thanks to Black and Puer­to Rican youth as a pow­er­ful form of expres­sion. By the ​‘80s, the rise of hip-hop pro­pelled street dance from the bor­oughs of the Big Apple to con­crete jun­gles worldwide.

Fast-for­ward to today and the new gen­er­a­tion of b‑boys and b‑girls rep­re­sent some of the top ath­letes, dancers, and influ­encers on the plan­et. They’re land­ing spon­sor­ships with Nike, Adi­das, and Red Bull, roles in major motion pic­tures, invites to dance in dif­fer­ent coun­tries each week, and a chance to com­pete at the Paris 2024 Olympics this sum­mer, when break­ing will make its ​“one-time” debut. 

Sam Phillips, known as Sheku, is a self-taught pro b‑boy and under­dog on Break­ing­GB, a crew for elite break­ers in the UK and a mem­ber of Just4Funk crew. He’s carved out fame across all four cor­ners of the globe, not through glossy cam­paigns or a size­able stash of spon­sor­ship cash, but with a unique style and an unstop­pable determination. 

When we speak, Sheku is at the beach for a rare week back home in Devon, car­ry­ing a shoul­der injury and one shot left to make the Olympic cut. He’s between dai­ly dou­ble train­ing ses­sions, with a razor-sharp focus on the future and his bat­tle men­tal­i­ty at maximal. 

“I kill myself every round like it’s my last,” he says. ​“I don’t mind set­ting the pace and going first against an oppo­nent because I know no one can dance like me. It’s hard to dance like me. I’m very com­plex; my strength is my orig­i­nal­i­ty. You can’t teach that; you either have it or you don’t.” He con­tin­ues: ​“Even though I’m not spon­sored, I reck­on I work hard­er than any­one else who is. Hon­est­ly, I don’t think any break­er is on the same work eth­ic as me right now.” 

Break­ing has nev­er been this big. Ever. From the explo­sive cre­ativ­i­ty, fusion of styles and acro­bat­ics b‑boys and b‑girls pos­sess, to the lev­el of com­pe­ti­tion, prizes at stake, and the gar­gan­tu­an fan fol­low­ing that comes with it. 

The heights are unprece­dent­ed. Today, a b‑girl in a vil­lage in Kaza­khstan can post a clip from a local cypher on Tik­Tok or Insta­gram and clock viral fame or brand deals by morn­ing. Add the Olympic Games to the mix, and the break­ing scene is set to have more expo­sure than any pio­neer of hip-hop cul­ture could have predicted. 

51 years ago, on August 11^th 1973, DJ Kool Herc, the pio­neer of turntab­lism, famous­ly mixed two copies of the same record at a par­ty for the very first time. He extend­ed ​“the break” sec­tion of the track so that dancers could go off and have more time to show­case their moves. 

Break­ers flexed fly foot­work and grav­i­ty-defy­ing head spins dur­ing Her­c’s rhyth­mic loops, cre­at­ing the foun­da­tions of the genre. MCs like Grand­mas­ter Flash spit bars out of boom box­es, and graf­fi­ti writ­ers Futu­ra and Lee Quiñones paint­ed the backdrop. 

Soon, Ice‑T was host­ing break­ing bat­tles, which, like rap cyphers, became an alter­na­tive way for crews to mas­ter moves and set­tle their dif­fer­ences, whether at block par­ties, clubs, park jams, or freestyle ses­sions in skat­ing rinks. 

Pho­tog­ra­ph­er Martha Coop­er was doc­u­ment­ing a sub­cul­ture on the rise. Hip-hop heavy­weights like Big Dad­dy Kane, Fab 5 Fred­dy, Kur­tis Blow, and Run DMC jumped in on the action and recruit­ed break­ers like Mr.Freeze, The New City Break­ers and Rock Steady Crew into their music videos. Tele­vi­sion appear­ances fol­lowed, and cult films like Breakin, Wild Style, Beat Street and Flash­dance launched, leap­ing across the pond toward glob­al hype.

Break­ing hit Lon­don in the ear­ly ​’80s. UK crews formed, such as Street Machine from Man­ches­ter, Rock City Crew from Not­ting­ham, and Sec­ond to None from Bournemouth. But by the end of the decade, the scene had been dilut­ed by the fever­ish rise of main­stream pop, par­ty dances, and crazes. Many b‑boys, b‑girls, and hip-hop heads who’d sup­port­ed the cul­ture packed up their Kan­gol hats and Adi­das super­stars and left their lega­cy on the lino.

Sure, the main­stream scene was dead, but under­ground, break­ing was very much alive. Unknown to the gen­er­al pub­lic, break­ing was thriv­ing and evolving.

The rise of the com­pe­ti­tion era and ​“judged break­ing” gained trac­tion thanks to pro­mot­ers apply­ing for art grants, spon­sors, and fund­ing events out of their own pock­ets. Among those were the UK BBoy Cham­pi­onships, a year­ly event famous for its 1on1, solo com­pe­ti­tion, and 8vs8 crew bat­tle, estab­lished in 1996 by the pro­mot­er, DJ Hooch.

That same year, in ​’96 Sheku was born by the sea­side in Devon. A decade lat­er, he was danc­ing. ​“I start­ed break­ing around 2009 after see­ing the first UK BBoy cham­pi­onships real­ly ear­ly one morn­ing on the TV. Imme­di­ate­ly, I knew that b‑boying was what I want­ed to do.” Sheku explains, ​“I did­n’t real­ly have access to YouTube back then, so I was just record­ing all the break­ing bat­tles and doc­u­men­taries I could get my hands on.”

Sheku began hon­ing his skills by repeat­ed­ly rins­ing the tapes and copy­ing the moves. ​“Some­one taught me the heli­copter at school, and I start­ed body pop­ping and all that after watch­ing the Step Up movies”, he laughs. ​“I would say I’m self-taught apart from a cou­ple of work­shops with impor­tant peo­ple in the UK world of break­ing such as Rene­gade, Mouse, and Splin­ter. B‑Boy Casper had a big influ­ence on my foot­work, because he was killing it in his own way. ” he con­tin­ues, name-check­ing those who’ve inspired him. ” I was­n’t win­ning for a long time; I was always los­ing. Main­ly because I was­n’t good at pow­er moves, and in Eng­land, back then, those were the ​“go-to” to win. I always lost to break­ers doing wind­mills and head spins because I was just rock­ing clas­sic foot­work like a 6‑step the whole round.” 

Sheku’s finesse with foot­work began in a dif­fer­ent are­na. ​“I start­ed out with box­ing and break­ing at the same time. I think I was 14 years old, which is not that young, real­ly. All my friends were doing it, and I was the only one danc­ing, so I guess I ini­tial­ly start­ed box­ing to fol­low the crowd.”

But by his 16^th birth­day, Sheku’s pas­sion to pack a punch had been super­seded by break­ing. ​“I knew if I was going to make it at one thing, I would make it in danc­ing, sim­ply because I put more hard work into that.” Sheku says, ​“I was grow­ing out of box­ing a bit because it is painful! It’s not an easy sport. Still, if danc­ing had­n’t worked out, I would have endured the pain and done all I could to make it at box­ing or some sort of mar­tial arts. My mind­set of mas­ter­ing a craft comes from that indefinitely.” 

At 27 years old, Sheku has 55 titles under his belt, includ­ing World Bat­tle Por­to, one of the biggest solo-break­ing com­pe­ti­tions, two Red Bull BC One UK wins and spent 18 months defeat­ing oppo­nents in a gru­elling qual­i­fy­ing process to try and qual­i­fy for the Olympics.

Despite being ranked 33^rd on the WDSF Olympic rank­ing list, he’s had to cement his sta­tus by bat­tling first thing in the morn­ing and late at night in dif­fer­ent coun­tries against a string of revered b‑boys who have been mul­ti­ple world champions. 

On top of that, there’s been chat cir­cu­lat­ing among break­ers about biased judg­ing across the bat­tles from some of the unknown names on the pan­el that could be less knowl­edgable about the break­ing or OG fan­boys mak­ing the final decision. 

“That can be a bit scary and a bit unre­li­able to know that our future is in their hands.” Sheku remarks. 

Debat­able judg­ing isn’t why you won’t see break­ing at the Los Ange­les Sum­mer Olympics in 2028, but it’s anoth­er tes­ta­ment to the numer­ous com­plex­i­ties and logis­tics of try­ing to trans­form one of hip-hop’s four ele­ments into a world-class sport. 

When it comes to adver­si­ty, Sheku is a beast who can bat­tle past all odds. When he’s not train­ing, he’s a bar­ber who has had mul­ti­ple side hus­tles to fund his dreams. 

“In the future, I would love to go down the route that spon­sored b‑boys and b‑girls have gone down; that would be amaz­ing! If I could train six hours a day, I would real­ly abuse my body just to make sure I’m amaz­ing! If I was spon­sored, I would­n’t be bar­ber­ing. I would focus sole­ly on dance. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, now I still have to work.”

Sheku reflects, ​“I became a bar­ber because I was try­ing to find a job where I could take time off to trav­el. Before that, I made a lot of sac­ri­fices when I was younger, work­ing in cof­fee shops and roof­ing just to make sure I had the week­ends free to go and bat­tle. But I was get­ting a bit depressed roof­ing, it was­n’t for me. I always put my hap­pi­ness first. I’d rather be skint if I have to be. I put hap­pi­ness over mon­ey any day.” 

One of the most bliss­ful spots for Sheku is run­ning on the beach, nature or train­ing in the stu­dio. ​“I wake myself up every day and go ​‘right, I got­ta go train.’ I just have this thing in the back of my mind where I have to go.”

When asked to reveal how he’s adapt­ed his train­ing this past year, he explains, ​“I train for break­ing like I would for box­ing. I’m not real­ly tal­ent­ed, but I would say I’m real­ly hard­work­ing at what I do. I train six days a week, over 20 hours, at least three or four hours dai­ly. I love the run­ning, the con­di­tion­ing and drilling the same thing over and over until it’s perfect.”

Recent­ly, Sheku’s been work­ing with a coach to lev­el up his dynam­ics for the Olympic qual­i­fiers, but for the most part, he’s entire­ly self-trained. ​“Some days, I go with com­plete­ly no plan of what I’m doing. It’s either a good or a bad ses­sion. I don’t real­ly have any­one to bat­tle with out here unless I train with my crew, which is once a week or my stu­dent. Every­thing else is on me. ​“he con­tin­ues, ​“I try not to be too hard on myself. Even just show­ing up to your ses­sion and doing an hour of top rock [foot movem is still doing some­thing. That’s how I see it. Every­thing all adds up.”

Sheku’s pen­chant for incor­po­rat­ing numer­ous, intri­cate threads (moves pass­ing​one body part through an open­ing also cre­at­ed with the body) has solid­i­fied his dis­tinc­tive style and the nick­name ​‘Thready Kruger.’

He gets his main inspi­ra­tion for his moves from movies and car­toons and infus­es his per­for­mance with dynam­ic sto­ry­telling. Sheku has an all-round­ed approach to his craft, but when pressed to sum up his style, he says that he makes his dance rou­tines look like a cap­ti­vat­ing doo­dle com­ing to life. ​“So far, my proud­est achieve­ment was 100% find­ing myself and my style. The feel­ing you get when you know you have that shows the hard work.”

When it comes to his tac­tics before a major bat­tle, Sheku remains solo.

“I nor­mal­ly go sit in the toi­let and put my head­phones in. I fid­dle on my phone, work­ing out what I am going to do, and then I close my eyes, and I visu­alise it. I see if it works, and then I go and do it. It’s always been me, by myself. Ulti­mate­ly, I’m the only one who can make the right deci­sion about what I’m going to do to beat this per­son up there.”

The stu­dio is call­ing, and while the sun starts to set on our chat, Sheku’s eyes are locked on the hori­zon. ​“I would say the biggest chal­lenge to ​“mak­ing it” as a b‑boy is get­ting your name out there. It only takes one big event for the whole scene to know who you are. Patience is key.”

So, how would he feel if he locked down that final spot? ​“Mak­ing it to the Olympics is a feel­ing I can’t real­ly explain right now, but I’m sure I’d be over the moon more than any­thing if I did. When I look at who I’m up against in the last qual­i­fiers before Paris, those b‑boys are lit­er­al­ly the best to ever do it.”

When it comes to the UK break­ing scene, Sheku already had G.O.A.T sta­tus, more than that, his self-made suc­cess thus far speaks to all the oth­er under­dog break­ers out there who have had noth­ing hand­ed to them, and had to build every­thing by them­selves. Sheku’s prov­ing he’s a force to be reck­oned with. ​“I might have a bunch of titles, but my main focus in dance is to keep cre­at­ing, explor­ing, and leav­ing a lega­cy. I treat every bat­tle like it’s my last, but I’m only just get­ting start­ed.“

A ver­sion of this sto­ry will appear in Huck 81, which is com­ing soon.

For more Sum­mer of Sport con­tent, click here.

Enjoyed this arti­cle? Fol­low Huck on Insta­gram.

Sup­port sto­ries like this by becom­ing a mem­ber of Club Huck.