DUMBFOUNDEAD, Shot by Jason Lewis

Quick update from the R16 B-boy tournament in Korea. Last night in Seoul was off the hook at The Bunker Party, held in the unrenovated basement of a mall. It felt like a massive, warehouse space like in Brooklyn. Cables and pipes hanging exposed from the ceiling, bar made out of milk crates, cements walls…But then you saw the DJ stage, a huge LED display showing sick graphics so bright, you felt like you were in a pyschedelic techno spaceship.

DJ Skeme (Rock Steady) and DJ P-trix warmed up the crowd before Rakaa (Dilated Peoples) and my boy, Dumbfoundead took the stage. Rakaa has amazing stage presence and straight up killed it while my boy DUM brought the Korean/LA connection w/ some smooth & silky West-coast flow. When Rakaa dropped “This Way” the crowd went APESHIT! It was truly a hip-hop moment. Maybe even history in the making. And what was even more incredible was that a few hours earlier, none of it had been planned. Cut Chemist was originally billed to play the show but pulled out at the last minute. Since there’s so much talent here for R16 right now, a world-class impromptu performance is only a few phonecalls away. Like most things in Asia, what you get is never what you expect. Sometimes its blows you away.

Thank you Korea. Let’s see what you got tonight.