Pow Wow: The Dawn of "Bounce"

Robert Darrell Allen alias Pow Wow (1961-2025) is one of the legends of b-boy history, MCing history and Hip Hop history in general. He was one of the "First Eleven" Zulu Kings and member of Africa Bambaataa's Soulsonic Force. In the dance world, his name is bound to the term "Boi-oing" which is frequently used in the sense of a bouncy movement in B-boying. This kinetic concept is essentially contained in B-boys' Toprock but can be performed in Footwork too. It is also said that Boi-oing was one of the original names for B-boying.

In an interview, Pow Wow stated: "A lot of cats don't know this, man, but they weren't calling it B-boying. They were called Boi-oing kids. And Boi-oing kids went to B-boying, and B-boys went to break dancers; and MCing went from MCing to rapping. And we were boi-oing kids, man; that's what we were." (Full interview here)

However, in my opinion, this was little bit misunderstood, because when I was asking Pow Wow about the term he just laughed and told me that Boi-oing was actually a mocking term used by people who didn't understand the dance. They just saw kids jumping and rolling on the floor so they called them "Boi-oing kids" or "floorsweepers". Cholly Rock confirmed this to me as well.

Boi-oing is actually the interjection for the sound of the little bouncing ball (in Czech language called "hopík"). I think the widely spread understanding of this term as one of the original names used by the practitioners of the dance is inaccurate. In the interview, Pow Wow didn't say "we" used the term to call the dance, he said "they" were calling it like that. In NYC, I also interviewed so many OGs and asked them to tell me all the names they used to call the dance. They were giving me many different terms but nobody answered "Boi-oing".

At the same time the excerpt from the interview shows that Pow Wow somehow accepted this term, maybe even identify with it. As he said "that's what we were". Maybe the insult from the outside didn't really offend him because he actually wanted to bounce. Because it was cool to bounce. So maybe even if he didn't think about it, in a certain sense of the word he took this insult as a compliment...

The bounce is what makes B-boy a B-Boy. Before that, there were Rockers and Rockers were rocking, grooving. But this "bouncing ball hop" was something new. It created a different nature of the dance. With the coming of Hip Hop, the side-to-side rocking motion was replaced by the up-and-down bouncing. That, to me, is the essential difference between Rock and B-boying. Not the floor moves - Rockers were floor-rocking too. 

The bounce is the turning point between pre-Hip Hop dancing and Hip Hop dances. Before Hip Hop, Rockers were dancing to the whole song, grooving, performing steps and rocking their body and when the break come they were dropping, touching the floor and going up&down. That's what the strong beat told them to do. When Hip Hop DJs started to loop the breaks, dancers stuck on this up&down movement because that's what the neverending break told them to do. Again and again. Up & Down. That's how I imagine the birth of the bounce.

The bounce is the fundamental part of what is today called Hip Hop Dance or Freestyle Hip Hop. The Hip Hop dancers inherited the bounce from B-boys, B-boys got it from Pow Wow and Pow Wow picked it up from the Native Americans.

It all started with a visit of a museum where Pow Wow saw a video-documentation of Native American dance, which inspired him so much that he decided to implement this bouncy character of movement into his dance. He also started to wear his famous war bonnet and got his nickname Pow Wow which is a term from the Native American culture.

"A powwow is a gathering with dances held by many Native American communities to socialize, dance, sing, and honor their cultures." (Wikipedia)

I'm so sad I wasn't able to interview Pow Wow fully. We only had few talks during the park jams in Crotona Park. He wasn't on social media so he gave me his number, but I didn't have american number (I remember calling him from a phone booth haha). Anyway we wasn't able to set the time of the meeting. So now I can only regret. Another big legend is gone. Rest in peace Pow Wow🕊️

Photo by Charlie Hustle