In 1999, my friends Adrian, Garner and I ran a drop-in hip hop club in Edmonton’s city center. It was called the “First Element Hip Hop Club.” We started with any empty church hall, a PA system, and the desire to create a place for kids to come and break, scratch, and freestyle.

Well, I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but word spread and soon we had 20-30 people coming every week. We taught basic breakin’ moves to whoever showed up, but we also had some really incredible dancers show up.

James Jones was one of those guys. He was one of the handful of kids that showed up from north east Edmonton. And he is an unbelievable bboy.

Well, on September 18th, 2008 he appeared on “So You Think You Can Dance” and charmed the judges. He’s off to Toronto for the competition. It was really cool for me to watch the clip; he’s got a great spirit.

Watch his audition on CTV here.

More info on First Element

I just found this on an old VHS tape, and converted it to digital.

In 1999, my friends Adrian, Garner and I ran the “First Element” club in Edmonton’s city center.

It ended up being a “meeting place” for many of e-town’s hip-hop heads.

Folks you might recognize:

Curtis Santiago (formerly of the Hi-Phoniqs):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Santiago

James Jones (So You Think You Can Dance):
http://www.facebook.com/bboyjj

Short Top (MC & DJ in Edmonton’s Hip Hop community)
http://www.reverbnation.com/shortop