ebunoluwa.com

I’ve spent a good part of the last year breakdancing with a group of young professionals in San Francisco. After taking a break (no pun intended), I can definitely say b-boying is once again a big part of my life.

Part of my training strategy is to record, watch and correct. Sometimes stuff that feels cool in the moment really looks whack and since we’re our own worst critics, who better to point it out than me? So far, so good. I’ve been breaking since 1998 but have improved the most over the last 2 years. No one told me I was whack my first 8 years so I continued down the same, dance detrimental path and made little progress. But as soon as I started recording, I was able watch myself (many-a cringe-worthy moment) and then continue with correct technique.

I’ve put together a highlight clip from the footage (primarily from Summer 2009, but some older) to document my status and share on the internets:

Ebunoluwa - Summer Breaking from Ebunoluwa on Vimeo.

I’ve been breaking since 1998 and have wanted to understand it from an academic standpoint as well as an artistic one. In order to support by curiosity, I recently started a breaking art and culture blog, Celebreak.net. Check it out!

It is truely an exciting and historic time to be alive in America. I’ve never been so passionate about an election before but I’ve been following politics like my life depended on it. In some ways, it does…

After hearing many reports about long lines to vote, I opted to wake up early and get a head start to beat the line. I got to the poll at 6am and was the only one there till 6:40, 20 minutes before it opened. No vex though, it gave me time to think about my vote, the beauty of a democracy and what it’ll mean when Obama gets elected..

The 10 year Anniversary of Mighty 4 went down in SF this past weekend. I only attended the Friday pre-party but heard the rest of it was pretty dope. But still, it’s been a while since I attended and danced at a jam. Gone are the days when I dreamt and drooled over competitions. I used to occasionally enter events back in Texas and have competed in Austin, San Antonio, Fort Worth, Grand Prairie and Houston. But lately, I much rather prefer dancing in cyphers.

So that’s what I did at Mighty 4 this weekend. Good times.

I came across this “testimonial” on B-Boy Zone, a website that sells a how-to-breakdance tutorial:

B-Boy Testimonial

The testimonial says

“I used to suck at breakdancing. Literally, suck. Ever since I got the BBoy Zone system, I’ve done so much better. I tried the airflare guide from Kujo…and I finally hit my first airflare! After 3 years of trying to learn flares, I can actually airflare now. Can you believe that? Seriously, I can already feel like I’m becoming a better bboy. You have given me so much hope for the future! Thanks.

Kishore Venkatesh. New Delhi, India.“

This is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a while

That was such a great speech. Here’s one of my favorite excerpts:

We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country. The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than for those plagued by gang-violence in Cleveland, but don’t tell me we can’t uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals. I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination. Passions fly on immigration, but I don’t know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers. This, too, is part of America’s promise — the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort.

This man needs to be elected.

Alex, one of my breaking crew members, recorded our 4 hour Memorial Day practice and made a clip:

I’m wearing the blue shirt and brown pants.

"Nigerian. American." T-Shirt

I started a t-shirt company in 2004 after watching  a Filipino-American movie, The Debut. The plot wasn’t too strong but it’s accents on cultural identity resonated strongly with me. And what hit me even harder were the t-shirts that were made to advertise the flick. They were white t-shirts that simply said “Filipino. American.” on the front and “The Debut” on the back.

So I opted to make some for Nigerians.

I had no idea how they would be received but felt the simple-yet-powerful statement would also resonate with the many Nigerian. American.’s at UT. And they did! I sold out of my first batch in 1 day and doubled my next order to meet the demand.

This gave birth to my first company, Ariwo Apparel. The response for the shirts led me to believe there was a market for ethnically themed clothing and accessories for Nigerians. Over the course of the next year, I produced Nigerian & Nigerian-American apparel, hats, beaded jewelry and stickers and sold them at events across Texas, Chicago and online. It was tough: I was enrolled full-time, working 20 hrs/week at Sun Microsystems, breaking, maintaining a social life and operating Ariwo Apparel at the same time. There were many sleepless nights and I learned some hard truths about running a company.

But man, what a thrilling ride! It was my first real taste of business and it drastically changed my career outlook. Had I not jumped on this opportunity, I would have never considered going into technology consulting, a field that gave me experience in business as well as technology. Had Ariwo Apparel never been created, I’d probably be working as a hardware engineer somewhere right now (not knocking it)….

Anyway, fast forward to 2008. I took a 1 week vacation to Austin last month and hit up the ever-satisfying Rudy’s BBQ with my brother. We’re talking ish and stuffing our faces with some of the finest BBQ in Austin before I go speechless. I had looked up and seen a white guy (pictured above) wearing my first shirt. All at once, ~365 days worth of memories flooded my brain and overwhelmed me. The highs, lows, joys and pains. One year of my life flashing before my eyes.

I finally regained composure and jumped at the guy. I didn’t mean to be startle him or be overbearing but I just had to know how and where he got the shirt. I explained to him that I had printed the shirt on his back 4 years earlier and was amazed and in shock to see him rocking it. As it turns out, he had gotten the shirt from his friend, a Nigerian-American girl who bought 3 of the tees from me back in the day. As soon as he mentioned her name, I could recall her face, the place we met and even the weather (it was a gorgeous day) on the date the transaction was made.

Every single one of the products was touched by me. I used to carry boxes to and fro printers and bags full of shirts around campus. With the exception of a few, I personally did each face-to-face sale myself. And I packed and shipped every single online order. My sweat went into making each piece before anyone else had a chance to sweat in them.

That t-shirt had come a long way. What are the odds? I would have never imagined that 4 years later, while visiting Austin from San Francisco, that’d I’d see the shirt on a non-Nigerian guy at Rudy’s BBQ.

I couldn’t even make that up.

We used to do “Tie Thursday” at Accenture so I opted to bring it with me to Tobi after joining the Engineering Team.  A couple of us did it and ended up on the website.

http://www.tobi.com/editorial-archive/tobi-blog/2008/4/313-tobi-style-scout-clean-code

“Clean Code”

Old College Professor

I was checking out Jamel Shabazz’s “Back in the Day” photography book and the introduction section talked about the origin of “cool”:

What is cool? Robert Farris Thompson writes in his 1983 book Flash Of The Spirit that cool originated in Nigeria in the first half of the 15th century. Ewure was the name given to a ruler crowned king of the Nigerian Empire of Benin. At the time, the word literally meant, “it is cool”. Thompson writes that Nigerian civilisation was impressive not only for its urban density, refinement and complexity, but also for the inner momentum of conviction and poise they maintained in the face of ongoing political oppression. Other leaders followed suit. Later in that century, a Yoruba leader from Ilobi (an area that is now southern Egabado) decided on the name Oba tio tutubi asum, which means “Cool-and-peaceful-as-the-native-Herb-Osub.” Thompson discovers cool in these different black civilizations and attributes them to a special inner drive and confidence that kept these civilizations going…

So apparently, Nigerians “created” cool? Or the idea of it was first distinguished by them. This could explain a lot…