BIRTH OF A TRADEMARK – History of the Original Hip Hop Elements 1990 Logo and how Speedy Legs created the first official Breaking Sports Logo.
Photo below Speedy Legs circa 1986
In the late months of 1992, I finally met the individual that called himself “SPEEDY”. A B-Boy which I had heard of since the year of 1983 through a mutual friend who was a writer and known by the alias of SNAKE. I, at that time was more into piecing compared to my previous years of serious bombing in order to establish my name and become recognized among the early writers here in Miami, Florida. I was very pleased to have met Speedy after hearing about him for so many years and surprisingly he was still keeping breaking alive after so many years of the dance being around and said to have been extinct by 1985. When I spoke to Speedy, I told him that I used to do a bit of the dance back in the late-70’s, but I was never committed to the dance because my artwork was my biggest passion at that particular time. Somehow, I felt that I had to play a different role in order to fuel the fire of the dance. So, I became more involved by introducing the dance to the new generation through the many Zulu Nation functions that took place in 1993 and so forth. Speedy, later came to me with the idea to form a company called ” Hip Hop Elements ” which would cater to the many aspects of the culture, but would emphasize more on the dance as a sport. A few months later, we started to grow rapidly and many young individuals were eager to join the company. We had to come up with something that people would recognize when they saw us. That’s when I told Speedy to give me a picture of himself doing a 1990, and not to worry about anything else. I noticed that every professional sport such as Baseball and Basketball incorporated the colors red, white, and blue in their logo style, so I said to myself ” why not us?” After all, Breaking, B-Boying, Burning, Rocking, or however else we try to label the dance; Is another part of our history here in the United States of America. Therefore, my intent was for the logo to look official, so that it may be used when breaking reaches a professional plateau and can be seen and appreciated by a mainstream audience today.
By: SEAMSTAR
*** The 1990 as it is known today and featured in the picture above was invented by Trac 2 of Starchild La Rock, but he took the name from a move that Ken Swift invented in 1982.