Breaking
Find out what the two Squadron crew members get up to and how they exchange creatively when they're at home, away from competitions and the breaking dance floor.
Just over a year ago long-time friends, travel buddies and Squadron crew mates B-Boy RoxRite and DJ Lean Rock decided to move in together, in Los Angeles. "It was just the timing," Lean says. He knew RoxRite was thinking of moving to LA and he was also looking for a place and a room-mate. With both of them in the same situation – both moving forward with new steps in their lives, and both also wanting to further push their crew, Squadron, to another level – they became LA room-mates.
Naturally, most breakers might assume that when two long-time breaking buddies move in together they would be training all the time, bouncing moves off one another and battling to test themselves, but even though RoxRite is one of the best B-Boys on the planet, and Lean Rock is well known for his breaking skills on the floors, their creative relationship as room-mates revolves more around the valuable, career skills both have built and are focused on furthering off the dance floor.
Lean Rock: We don't train at home together so often, but I think part of that is the circumstances right now in how much we've had to grind in our own personal things, so in some ways it's taken away the attention of being creative with breaking, for me personally anyway. I need to focus on my music a little bit more, and RoxRite has his brand that he just started and is trying to push right now, on top of other things.
Lean Rock is one of the most booked DJs on the worldwide breaking competition scene, with his mixes being played in training sessions all over the world. RoxRite has spent years honing his skills in photography and film-making, which he uses to produce online content that helps to promote himself as a professional B-Boy. It's within these skills that the two creative room-mates really gel and exchange, giving each other feedback and helping each other to further their careers, in any way they can.
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RoxRite: We work more together in terms of feeding off each other's ideas. Lean has been helping me with music for a lot of my YouTube content when it comes to working on beats and having a different sound for my videos. Also, when I'm editing and doing certain projects I'm really zoned into the topic and so it's good getting outside feedback from a hip-hop head like Lean.
L: RoxRite has a better eye for photography and film, so I actually ask his advice on that and about what I should post sometimes. I've definitely learned a lot seeing him do his projects, and realised how similar video editing is with writing music. I have almost the same mindset when I'm arranging a song.
When it comes to their crew, Squadron, part of living together was to build and work on their ideas and plans for the crew, which is made up of some of the most influential and well-known breakers on the scene, including B-boys like Kid David, Luigi, Keebz, El Nino and Victor. The crew have become more than a battle crew, as RoxRite and Lean explain:
R: Squadron is also a movement representing breaking in a raw format and in a way that we feel is preserving the knowledge passed down through our generations of different crews. We're trying to represent that ideology, preserve it, and pass it down to more and more kids.
L: Squadron is something that represents our more organic lifestyle, rather than just the normal cookie cutter things that you see about breaking. There is a lot of personality that doesn't get represented out there, and also the understanding of the true culture of what we do, because for us we do and live this lifestyle, 24/7.
Still, being an active, competitive B-Boy at the highest level in the game, RoxRite does acknowledge and enjoy the benefits of living with one of the best DJs on the scene.
R: Living with a DJ helps in introducing me to new music and sounds that I haven't heard before or maybe overlooked. Having new sound is important for me to dance, and it keeps me inspired, motivated and pushing to play with different things that I haven't yet.
One thing that's important to remember is that although they may only have been living together as room-mates for just over a year, RoxRite and Lean Rock have been friends for 16 years, since meeting at B-Boy Summit in 2004. They've battled together, travelled together, and developed a mutual respect for each other as individuals, which is the foundation behind what makes their creative relationship as room-mates work. It isn't just a case of being two creatively skilled breakers who live together – they are, and always have been, friends first, which also allows them to give each other space to be who they are working to be, and also to motivate each other in their journeys.
R: The way that Lean carries and represents himself makes him easy to communicate and work with. We have a mutual respect for one another, and for each other's skill set, as well as both being focused on what we want to do individually.
L: RoxRite definitely helped me even prior to us moving in together, in having an understanding of business in our scene, as he's like one of the first professional B-Boys. Just seeing how he's really put himself out there, and his attitude towards things, while at the same time still maintaining his authentic true self. I've always admired that about him and tried my best to follow that guideline. Plus, I think it's important in general to help out your friends as much as you can.
