Breakdancing is one of hip-hop's five pillars, and seeing it at the 2024 Olympics in Paris is quite the wild sight for the culture and art form as a whole. Sadly, this global exposure and reintroduction in the popular societal sphere probably won't make you very happy if you're bummed out about people forgetting about this pillar more often than not. That's because a lot of these displays proved to be pretty cringe according to social media's comically unimpressed reactions. Many of them took aim at a particular b-girl Raygun, although other Olympians also caught strays and jokes about their efforts.
Still, a lot of Olympics fans and viewers found some truly worthwhile and engaging performances during these breakdancing one-on-ones. Even though most of what's going viral is the more seemingly embarrassing fare, just like with every other event, there's always something special to witness. Hip-hop's had a pretty eventful presence in these games this year, with Snoop Dogg pretty much being the poster boy for a lot of it. Surely, more closed and centralized hip-hop circles have a lot more to say about this breakdancing.
Fans Aren't Impressed By Breakdancing At The Olympics
Elsewhere, artists like Pharrell think that the Olympics should reinstate their arts competition. "We get to remind people that at one point, the Olympics actually had the arts as a section that ran all these competitions," he expressed at the event's Louis Vuitton party. "Sculpture, architecture, visual arts. The idea we get to put the arts back in… Why not take this moment to bring awareness?" The LV creative director referred to the five medals awarded in fields of music, painting, architecture, literature, and sculpture from 1912 to 1948. Breakdancing is definitely a start, although it seems like they didn't kick off on the best foot this year.
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Meanwhile, there are other Olympics-slash-hip-hop moments that were perhaps not as embarrassing as some breakdancing, but were nonetheless not the typical display you'd see from the genre. This includes Travis Scott and Quavo's impromptu performance of the U.S. national anthem. Huncho Jack and Jack Huncho were giving it their all, but if they had a mic in front of their hands, it would be a pretty bad performance. But they didn't mean to take over a Super Bowl stage with it, so let's let them be proud hip-hop stars and at least make the jokes funny and not mean.
