Rest in Power to an amazing BBOY from the Bronx. German was of Puerto Rican decent, and I can only speak on my personal knowledge of him. He was originaly a gymnast who turned BBOY, and won a contest me and my crew put together in the early 80's. It was the first time a BBOY did actual Thomas Flares on the ground, and in combination with breaking. After this competition, GERMAN was a ghetto celeb. He started catching fame at places like SKATE KEY, and ROSELAND. He went from basic breaking to incredible speed and power in less than a year. the best comparison we all have to GERMAN is BBOY IVAN (verbatim) These 2 Latino brothers are one and the same (even in personality) I was able to connect GERMAN to Magnificent Force where he replaced me on Gigs to ICELAND. And I took GERMAN with me to MEXICO in the late 80's where we performed a piece called PARAISO with ANN MARIE D'ANGELO. Side note is German was also an amazing SALSA and HUSTLE dancer and could spin like a top. We would walk down the street and he would stop and do WRIST 90's in the middle of the street (spin on his wrist)
IF ANYONE HAS ANY STORIES OF GERMAN, PLEASE SHARE IN THE COMMENTS. rest in Peace legend
excerpt from old facebook post I wrote (dec/15/2014):
THE BATTLE BETWEEN ORKO vs BBOY GERMAN
(he is not German he is Puerto Rican from the bronx, But PR people are funny with naming kids after Countries! lol)
I missed the first round at Devils Nest the week before..
heard about it, And was not a fan of Head Spin Battles. But from what I heard, most of the talk was about the Helmit..
German Didnt have that kind of Helmit.. But ORKO is not a 1 trick Pony.. he had SKILLS!
what people didn't know:
BBOY GERMAN is from my hood, and we ran a local crew called MOB CITY as an off shoot of MAG FORCE.. Had allot of young cats from our hood back us up, like GERMAN who did shows under MAG FORCE!
ME and BUCK 4 had a meeting at the KFC across the street from the DEVILS NEST. And set up the Battle. I found German, and we went in the club to do the all out battle, And NYCB, HOT FEET, RSC were with ORKO. GERMAN saw the whole crew, and got pissed, and went off on NOEL, FLEX, and the whole Crew. They were gonna jump German, I had to jump in front of FLEX to stop it.. And luckily they still had love for me, because it almost ended real bad.. They never got to Battle because of a major beef.. It would have been historical.. But Bronx Street Life took precedent that night.
Anyone who saw German Break back in the days will say he was amazing. The best comparison to todays recognized boys is BBOY IVAN. Every BX Ol Schooler that see's IVAN calls him BBOY GERMAN. They had the exact same APPROACH to BREAKING and same Energy, same Power, same speed, same Flipping abilities... German Created allot of famous Combinations, he put the Flare into Breaking, he created Flare 90's, Wrist 90's, and many Flare combinations... ORKO vs GERMAN would have been a classic.. props to both Brothas.. Blessings
R.I.P. to BBoy German!!!
Mr. Wiggles thank you again for such a beautiful story. I heard of BBoy German in the past growing up in the bronx but didn’t know much about him. You compared BBoy German to BBoy Ivan dude must have been Niceee!!! That battle in the “Nest” would probably made history. Thankyou, Wiggles for sharing your stories and the history of this street dance. Please keep them coming. Peace!!!