Back to the Roots Battle 2015 review

It was an amazing event at the School Centre in Reutte (Austria) which was organised by the youth centre Smile. “Back to the Roots” was a weekend full of Hip Hop and Urban Culture within the scope of 30th anniversary of youth work in Reutte. On Friday 2 October a concert with different German-speaking rap artists provided a great atmosphere and was a cool opening. On the following day more than 100 dancers from Austria, Germany and Morocco met and had a good time in the small Austrian city.

Due to the current border controls there was a delay of 60 minutes because many dancers who arrived from Vienna and Graz stuck in traffic. But no problem, the DJs Cosmic and Amun enthused the dancers with brilliant beats and breaks so that despite the time delay there was a good mood throughout the event. For the evaluation of the battles the organisers used the new judging system of and8. This way the jury members Niels Robitzky aka Storm (Germany), Olivia from Flavourama from Salzburg (Austria) and Christopher Dunston aka Raw Element (USA) could fully focus on the assessment. Funky Samuel aka MC Flocke from Graz (Austria) hosted the event and was of good humor either.

At first the preselection for the 1vs1 Hip Hop and the 1vs1 B-Boying Battle took place. In both categories you could spot many known faces of the Austrian scene and Lil Zoo, as representative from Morocco, contributed to the internationality of the event. After his marriage to the Austrian Stefanie Ambelj the Moroccan moved to Innsbruck (Austria), for this reason he decided to drop by in Reutte. The day was filled with many exciting battles and in the end two dancers from Vienna Argi and Joe Joe faced each other in the Hip Hop finals. Joe Joe could decide this battle in his favour. The B-Boying final battle was between Lil Zoo and Guti of Prodigyy from Dornbirn. Guti was able to win the first round but after this Lil Zoo pulled out all the stops and persuaded with amazing blow-ups and acrobatic finesse in the following runs. In the end he won with 2:1.

For the Austrian Allstyle Crew Battles different dancers formed up to small crews in order to represent their region or their city. Very interesting crew names arose hereby, among others Xiberger or Salzbronx. It was visible how much fun these teams had together and how much they enjoyed the dance and the experience. Team Vienna was the clear winner against the Xiberger from Dornbirn. In the following you will see the placements of the winners.

1vs1 Hip Hop Battle
• 1. Place | Joe Joe (Austria) | Cash prize: 200.00 €
• 2. Place | Argi (Austria) | Cash prize: 100.00 €
• 3. Place | Ugur (Germany) | Cash prize: 50.00 €

1vs1 B-Boying Battle
• 1. Place | Lil Zoo (Marocco) | Cash prize: 200.00 €
• 2. Place | Guti (Austria) | Cash prize: 100.00 €
• 3. Place | Rock'n'Rolli (Austria) | Cash prize: 50.00 €

Austrian Allstyle Crew Battle
• 1. Platz | Team Vienna (Austria) | Cash prize: 500.00 € + Trophy
• 2. Platz | Die Xiberger (Austria) | Cash prize: 300.00 €
• 3. Platz | Hakuna Matata (Austria) | Cash prize: 100.00 €

All in all it was a great day with good mood and many nice and relaxed people. Yes, that's exactly how Hip Hop is supposed to be - full of energy, exchange, fun and pleasure! A big thank you goes to the responsible people of the "Back to the Roots" for their work, above all to Chris, Eva and Charly from the youth centre Smile as well as to Tobias Hanny and Hakuna Matata.