Creativity and what I learned from the 5 elements of hip-hop

In 1998, I was a young journalist writing a series of articles about street artists in Copenhagen when I saw Steen Koerner and the electric boogie/break dance crew Out of Control perform their street show The Flying Horses. It became the start of a long creative collaboration.

I grew up with hip hop. Public Enemy was my musical upbringing, and my first concert was Run DMC, Eric B and Public Enemy in 1988.

I have always had a holistic mindset — looking at things from different angles, combining ideas from different places. Steen Koerner taught me about how Hip hop, in its original form, works the same way.

It is built on five elements: MCing, DJing, B-boying, graffiti, and knowledge. Each brings its own discipline — the word, the rhythm, the body, the visual, and the awareness that ties them together.

The idea is that they connect into something greater than any one of them alone. That is the true spirit of hip hop, far from what mainstream rap has turned it into.

Together with Steen and the Out of Control crew, I travelled to New York to make a short documentary for Danish national television about the city's hip-hop underground, where Out of Control reconnected with Breeze Team — their old friends in the Bronx. I filmed and did the interviews. Casper Holbek edited it into something watchable — thank you — and thank you to Yo-Akim for the music. We also went to London and Lille in France to film their shows.

I also produced video backdrops for Out of Control's show, Suber Sub, which we put together. Trying to make the video background an active part of the dance.

Around the same time, Steen and I wrote "Definitive Skitser — en trilogi", a dance theatre piece that combined poetry, breakdance, and electric boogie with theatre. It was performed at Rialto Teatret in Copenhagen in 1999 and received funding from Københavns Kommunes Kulturelle Udviklingspulje. As far as we know, it was one of the first stage productions to merge street dance with theatre in that way — a form Steen Koerner has since made his own, with productions like Nøddeknækkeren and Cykelmyggen Egon, which won the Reumert Prize and were included in the Danish Cultural Canon.

Breeze Team & Out of Control in the Bronx NYC 1998

Years later, the collaboration with Steen led to Gadens Hårdeste Hævn — a book and a city walk. A love story written by Steen Koerner, set to verse by rapper Clemens, and painted onto 20 walls in the city of Næstved by graffiti artists CMP One and Swet. I applied for and received publication funding from Statens Kunstråd and set up the publishing house Gaden Taler to publish the book. The project was opened by Denmark's then Minister of Culture, Marianne Jelved, who said in her opening speech:

"This is a work of art that meets its audience where they are and sets something in motion. The graffiti murals here in Næstved create cracks in the reality and the city we think we know so well. That is the strength of all good art: it can make us see things in new ways and open up dialogue and reflection."

Steen Koerner about the project:  "The entire project Gadens Hårdeste Hævn is based on the art forms and disciplines found in original hip hop culture. I am proud that my idea has now been realised, and stands as a truly unique Danish hip hop story — both on street level and in book form."

Clemens Telling about the project:  "Gadens Hårdeste Hævn is a good example of how far you can get with personal initiative and helping yourself along the way."

Some ideas take time to come to life, and sometimes other forces need to finish what you started. Back in 1999, Steen and I dreamed about creating an animated series called Elektroniske Dagdrømme, where we would animate electric boogie dancers. The story followed a man working at a factory who wanted to break free from the anxiety-marinated routines of everyday life. We never finished it.

But the idea lingered. In 2012, Steen picked it up and turned it into something new — a book called Robert Realitet, created together with rapper Clemens Telling and graffiti artist Ulrik Schiødt. Three of Denmark's biggest hip hop pioneers, whose collaborations on productions like Nøddeknækkeren and Cykelmyggen Egon have won the Reumert Prize, Københavnerprisen, and the Danish Hip Hop Award, and have been included in the Danish Cultural Canon. Steen asked if I could help edit and publish the book, and it was fascinating to see something grow out of what we had once started together.