Bulgaria Trip

Wow, I've been thinking of what to write about this trip and have been utterly speechless. For those of you not in the know, last week I went with Urban Artistry to perform at an event in Bulgaria called "Jam on It". It was the first time ever I've been flown out of the country for a performance. This trip changed my life! I was inspired by so many people. I could probably write a book about everything that happened, but I will attempt to keep it mildly short.

I didn't really know what to expect out of the event so I did my best to keep an open mind. The whole weekend I couldn't stop dancing. The vibe was just so nice, the music was dope, and the dancers were plain amazing. I was skipping dinner almost every night because I didn't want to miss any of the action.

The dancers in Bulgaria are incredible. They definitely have some of the nastiest footwork I've seen in my life. I think the first move everyone learns is Halo, because almost everyone had dope Halos... Everyone repped hard and consistently got down to the music. There was also a huge community of bgirls. They were all very talented. Some with amazing flavor, footworks, and even some with dope power. I was doing my best to keep up and try to throw down, I just hope I didn't look too much like a noob.

The hip hop community in Bulgaria is so healthy. It was truly refreshing. The jam wasn't just for dancers, all members of our culture got to showcase: from djs, bboys, graffiti artists, emcees, beat boxers, and even those who just wished to experience good shows. They had traditional Bulgarian folk music and dance. I also got to see Teodosii Spasov and DJ Cooh, an insanely talented flute player playing experimental music with a dj. Through every performance everyone gave their attention to the performers, it was amazing to see such respect. All of the shows were simply amazing.

This event made me think of hip hop back home in the states and how in some areas it is sadly lacking. We have a lot to learn from our Balkan brothers. I want to try to remedy some of this, but changing attitudes will be a long rough rode.

Overall after this event I just feel so inspired. I was back to training almost as soon as I got off the plane and dropped my luggage off home. I have so many ideas in my head and I don't want to lose these feelings. I really miss Bulgaria already and hope I can return soon.

I really want to thank Sleep Walk Kingz crew for inviting us to their event. The showed us true hospitality and I am very grateful. I would also like to thank the US embassy for funding our trip. They also took very good care of us. I want to thank my fam Urban Artistry for giving me this opportunity and sharing this experience with me. I also want to thank Recognize crew for holding it down and being some of the craziest people I've ever met in my life. Thank you to everyone at the event. Bulgaria is an awesome place and we were treated with much respect and hospitality. I hope someday I can return this to my new family in Bulgaria

Peace
~Halfstep

Goals

Goals....

- In the next 2 months I will release my first underground dj mix cd entitled halfway underground.
- In the next 3 months I will build an archive lamp server for UA footage
- In September I will travel to Bulgaria to rep with my Urban Artistry family at the sleepwalkers jam.
- In October I will be providing sound/djing for the Kicking for Kids who Can't yearly kickathon as well as performing at the event with Urban Artistry.
- In the next 6 months I will release my first bboy trailer.
- In the next 1 year I will have my first paid dj gig
- In the next 1 year I will have windmills, headspins, and 1990s consistently
- In the next 1 year I will produce a halfstep original beat/song
- Next summer I will go to Germany to visit my extended UA family
- With all the abundance of free time from these goals I will "try" to find a woman heh.
- 24/7/365 I will continue to Rep Cab Crew and Urban Artistry to the fullest.

Post Winter Updates

Things are going well for me. I've been pretty lazy the past year in blogging, I guess it happens. No promises I will change though ;)

Winter was a good time for me. I finally cleaned up my act and started practicing heavily again. Heavily enough to break a foot!(Don't worry, a new one is in the mail already) Some highlights from recently include my trip to Nashville for the Bashville Stampede competition. I had a great time and Urban Artistry rented 3 vans and we dominated the event between the 25 or so of us. Even though I didn't make the cut into our 5 on 5 team I had a great time ripping the ciphers. I was sad to wear purple, but I will get over it.

Some other good news; I was chosen to be in a Orthopedics magazine and you may even see me on the cover. Not sure yet, I haven't heard all of the details. I read a rough draft of the interview and it looked really good. I'm excited to get the issue.

Work has been going pretty well lately. I took as my mentor one of my senior team members and it is going great. I'm learning a lot about system architecture and becoming a better developer.

Djing hit a rough spot for me. I've been trying to migrate to serato from my cds. My initial playlist was humongoid and had almost 4000 songs. They weren't sorted very well either. After a very poor session last week, I deleted my entire playlist and started over from just the songs I have on my cds. I need to take things more slowly so I know all my music better. So things did suck, but they will be getting better.

Dancing is going well. I've been working on a lot of things that I had neglected for a while and trying to get my footwork at a good spot. I'm working on all my freezes too. I need to get back on the windmills, but that will come with time I supposed. Over winter I changed the way I practice and it has been working out pretty well. Just gotta keep on it!

Thanks all for now I guess.
Peace