Breaking as “ultimate freedom”: interview with breakdancer and hip-hop producer, Mark Munk Ross

By Leila Lois | 27 Aug 24
Mark Munk Ross

Breakdancing has had an unprecedented amount of coverage in the mainstream media since Australian Rachael Gunn, AKA B-Girl Raygun, hit the stage at the Paris 2024 Olympics this month.

But untold are the stories of breakers of diverse backgrounds, who’ve contributed to a rich and evolving history of breakdance in Australia. Breakers like Mark Munk Ross (aka Munk), a Jardwadjali/Wotjobulak man, who has been in the music industry for over 30 years and has been referred to as “the grandfather of Aboriginal hip-hop”. He describes breakdancing as a space for inclusion and protest.

“I’ve seen so much change in the breaking community since I was dancing in the ‘80s,” Munk begins. “The truth is, breaking culture is always in flux, it’s highly politically engaged as an art form, it reflects the occupations of the time and place, as well as the individual identity of the dancer,” he reflects.

“In that sense, I’m not sure breakdance at the Olympics is that important, it’s an apolitical context … in the very first ever breaking battle at the Olympics we witnessed the disqualification of Maniza Talash for wearing a ‘FREE AFGHAN WOMEN’ slogan on her cape and that speaks volumes about how the Olympics removes breaking from its important roots, as a protest movement,” he adds.

Certainly, the emphasis of Raygun’s Australian qualifying performance for the Olympics was more focussed on expressing comic moves like a kangaroo hop than making political protest statements.

“In a sense,” Munk concedes, “breaking has become quite whitewashed, when it enters the mainstream, but as a practice for young Indigenous people, it’s really culturally important, it allows us to express our truth. Hip-hop is so important to our community, it’s where I found a voice for my experiences.”

He mentions that he is amused by the fact that one of the major breaking groups in Sydney/Eora Nation train most nights at the Downing Centre court house, which is a public space in the city centre. Whilst it is interesting that the venue becomes a hub for creativity once the sun goes down, it is a stark contrast to what the venue is during the daylight hours – a place that incarcerates people. For Munk this place brings back unwanted memories of police targeting hip hop heads and First Nations people in the 1980s through to the present day. “It is a courthouse where the brothers & sisters get locked up, so it is the last place I would like to be hanging out” he says.

“There’s no right or wrong to breaking,” he says, “but you do have to feel it. It comes from the heart.” Since his breaking debut in the 1980s, Munkimuk has become hugely successful as a hip-hop music producer, and traveled the world, including Thailand and Philippines, with his work.

“People think I’m mad because I love to find out where the local B-boys dance in the hood, wherever I am, which aren’t always the safest places.” Yet this is the context for authentic breaking. “You see the most amazing talent that way, it can’t be manufactured, it’s lived experience and often it comes from tough times.”

But, as Munk says, breaking is an inclusive dance culture, even though breaking’s roots come from African American & Puerto Rican peoples in the USA. “Since the 1980s people from all backgrounds have participated. My first introduction here in Australia was through watching and learning breaking moves from the video clip of Malcolm McLaren & The World Famous Supreme Team’s 1982 song ‘Buffalo Girls’, which featured Rock Steady Crew breaking, as well as all the elements of hiphop culture. McLaren was a 70’s punk. [Some of] the first ‘fans’ of hiphop culture were the punks that came across town to the early hiphop jams.”

“We don’t want to create division, as breakers, it’s about spreading the love, uplifting people. I often look at my career and think, ‘how did I get here?’ I was a kid who was lucky to get a mars bar for Christmas, I don’t forget that.”

“But if you take your life story into your art with authenticity, if you respect who you are and where you came from, that’s the spirit of breaking and hip-hop. It’s all about community.”