All aboard! The night train...
Is James Brown as important to hiphop as Kool Herc? Nah, homie. James Brown is as important to hiphop as, say—drums. Heartbeats. Oxygen. The sun in the sky. Feel me?
James Brown is waay bigger than hiphop—but as proponents of this culture that owes so very much to his massive contribution, we must pay homage to the creator. The best way to do that this week is definitely waiting for you Saturday, February 3, at Nectar Lounge, where the one and only Big World Breaks and our own international superstar breakers Massive Monkees host 4 the Love—A Tribute to James Brown.
"James represents the gatekeeper at the crossroads," says BWB's Aaron Walker-Loud, "standing between everything that came before and everything that came after. He took traditions of African music, blues, jazz, gospel—and he gave birth to R&B, soul, funk, and hiphop. It's an African and New Orleans tradition to make a lot of noise, to make a lot of music for the departed, so that's what we're doing on Saturday. I wanted to draw from all these different spheres of music—I'm talking singers, musicians, MCs, dancers—and have them represent in this, an audiovisual memorial for James Brown." Some of the guests rocking with Big World this weekend are Gabriel Teodros, DJ BlesOne, BYC, Amos Miller, Jumaane Smith, GodSpeed, SoulChilde, and Mash Hall's Bruce Illest.
BWB is the live performance army of One Family Inc., the company started by Walker-Loud and Zach Self (from the crew Anthem, among other projects). Walker-Loud himself has been a town fixture since his days drumming in the Garfield High Jazz Ensemble, and has since led such highly regarded groups as the Flood and Iguales. One Family, based in their full-service music studio, puts in nuff work within the community doing workshops, music instruction, and band management seminars in schools and venues throughout the Sound.
"Big World is basically the One Family house band," Walker-Loud laughs. "We just wanted to give our crew a name to represent us outside of the studio; we wanted to form a like-minded collective like the Soulquarians, the Funk Bros., or the JB's." The dozen-plus BWB (check www.myspace.com/bigworldbreaks for the whole crew roster) has been making quite a name for themselves around the scene with their trump-tight chops and heavy sound, most recently as Blue Scholars' live backup for BS's New Year's Eve blowout at Neumo's. Currently they're working on production and live instrumentation for break crews like Massive and BYC, as well as studio work for the Scholars and up-and-comers GodSpeed.
This seems like just the opportunity to honor the Godfather—I hadn't had the chance to properly commemorate Brown since he passed—and this still doesn't come close to doing justice to one of the most important cultural icons of our (or any) time. Simply the greatest of all time—Say It Loud. 
