I thought y'all might enjoy the weird connections I turned up for this article, as well as the vintage photos...

"One Nation, Invisible - The Untold Story of TC Hip Hop: 1981-1996"
http://citypages.com/data...e12383.asp

The TC Old-School Hip Hop Page
http://babelogue.citypage...ltes/#a895

Damon Dixon: Me and Tony Mosely started dancing in a group called 2 Be Rude. The "u" was a tongue. In 1983 we were hired to help pick people to be on the set of Purple Rain, and we wound up dancing in the bathroom at First Avenue. It was like us and maybe 15 other people, girls and guys, just dancing to hands clapping and feet stomping.

Prince happened to walk in with his bodyguards, and we're doing these moves. He just kind of looked at us, stood there about five minutes, and turned around and walked out. I was like, "We might be in trouble, dude."

Later that night we were given a tape and told to have seven routines ready for the next day. That's how we got to be in Purple Rain. Our scene was the balcony shot where there are five guys doing these moves to the Time's "Jungle Love" and "The Bird" in silhouette. One guy's got a police hat on, and the rest are in jheri curls and short hairdos with waves. That's us.

interesting. and actually it's not wierd at all. hip hop or rap has been around since the 1940's during big band music domination. How do i know? my grandfather who passed away lived that life with the zoot suits like malcom x before he became a black muslim. Hip hop is universal. it's the telling of stories and all civilizations have done it. In africa they have griots whose sole purpose is to tell the tale of each generation of a family they are assigned to by word of mouth. the griot then hands this info down to the next griot before they die. they have to know this in their head and be able to tell the story from their head. this is how Alex haley wrote "roots". He found a griot in africa who told him about his ancestry. Hip hop goes way back. of course prince knows about this. its an art. that lady who took him in was all about music and expressing yourself. Thats the common denominator-telling a story and expressing in your own way. Let the world go 'round. i love articles like that. it's great info for the young. they need to know about the real shit and not most of this processed mess( i sound like a old lady).