So what is it all about? After the battle between Vagabonds and Flow Mo during Hip Opsession 5 in which Flow Mo took the win, Vagabonds felt they were judged unfairly. Judging the event was Nacera, Cros 1 and Born. Youssef of Vagabonds decided to call the judges out and Born stepped up to represent them. A different story says that Youssef specifically called Born out. The result? See for yourself...
Son got beat by Bornie Born. I thought Born was wearing a cap backwards but it was a mullet, lol. From the video you can feel the crowd on Born's side which is misleading when trying to judge the battle for yourself. I do try to make opinions based on objective reasoning and all this right here is not just me being all biased like the crowd. There are simply two important things I found Born was trying to teach Youssef, foundation and listening to the music.
But before that I'd like to pay my respects where they're due. I respect Youssef for his amazing skills in powermoves, especially those sweet rounds of barrel mills and suicides. Also, respect is deserved for the man who had balls of steel to call out one of the judges for feeling wronged, even if the judge was Born. Entering a competition is basically submitting yourself to the judgement of bboys who may or may not be "better" than you. Here, Youssef felt the judges were a bunch of wackjobs and wanted to prove that him and his crew deserved better. Props for that. It would have been quite a monumental moment had Vagabonds been proven wronged, but that wasn't the case here. Genuinely, this competition's judges were judges for a reason. Born only backed that claim up.
As a judge who had just seen Vagabonds and Youssef perform during the crew battles, Born knew exactly what to throw down as the element of surprise had gone. Born didn't look like he was battling Youssef to prove himself as a judge but battling to teach Youssef what he had lacked. After watching Youssef throw down his first set I felt I could turn the music on and off and it would make no difference. Sure, he was feeling the music in the beginning but it no longer meant anything once he got into the zone of doing his powermoves. Without music, he's merely an acrobat. He also lacked that element that set bboying apart from all the other dances - foundations. This is not to say that Youssef lacked foundations as a bboy. Perhaps he possessed foundations, but the fact that he didn't deliver it in this battle showed he was incomplete.
Born responded and he knew all he needed were foundational moves. He listened to the tempo of the music and delivered something fast and dynamic, but arrested when the music was due to a pause. This also showed us that not only was he listening, he was also predicting the music. In short, he was dancing. On top of that, like a true battle, he was constantly aware of his enemies - he didn't take his eyes off them, and managed to kill a beat on a Vagabond who stepped into the ring when Born was throwing down. He literally saw the Vagabond the moment he stepped in his momentary territory and attacked him. It was freakeh.
A second and third round happened but of the same result. The point is that bboying is first and foremost a DANCE. Music is not background noise, it takes the centre stage. Being a powerhead is no excuse to disregard the music once in power mode. For example, check this video - here are examples of powerheads still listening to the music even when they're suspended on air.
They weren't joking when they said Born was a natural born dancer because he knew well how to pay attention to the music at all times. Anyways, this feels like I'm putting Born up on a pedestal, but I assure you this is all what I got from only watching that call out video. I know for sure that every bboy has their own weaknesses and Born is not exempt from that *ahem* Casper.
