This year marks the tenth anniversary of a documentary about a less widely recognised part of Nottingham history. NG83: When We Were B Boys, follows a particular few years in the mid 80s when, through happenstance, Notts became the UK’s unofficial breakdancing capital. In advance of two events celebrating the anniversary of the film, two of its co-directors: Claude Knight and Luke Scott, reminisce on making it.
In summer 1983, a crew of New York B Boys danced in the Old Market Square to promote a milkshake called WFLA, videoed by an accompanying filmmaker called Danny Cornyetz. Among the watching crowd was local Claude Knight, then aged sixteen. Decades later, Claude, and fellow Notts local Luke Scott, reached out to Danny, who still had the original footage to show them.
“They went all around the UK, up north, and to Nottingham,” says Claude. “I remember talking to [Danny], and I said, ‘Do you remember Nottingham?’ he said, ‘Newcastle?’, and I said, ‘No, Nottingham.’ He then remembered, and he said that, out of all the places, that was what the New York guys talked about the most. It was like a riot: there were about three, or four hundred people, all packed into Old Market Square.”
When they met Danny, Claude and Luke were creating a documentary which would be titled NG83: When We Were B Boys, in collaboration with filmmaker Sam Derby Cooper. Released in 2016, it's today an award winning film that’s considered a local classic but the idea for it came from very ordinary circumstances. In the 2000s, Claude and Luke became friends via their warehouse jobs, bonding over Claude’s many tales of Nottingham’s vibrant, Hip Hop past. Then, inspired by the work of filmmaker Shane Meadows, an idea was seeded…
“I remember watching This Is England, and the first bit which says ‘1983’. I thought, ‘What was I doing in 1983?’ I was into breakdancing and Hip Hop,” says Claude. “I said to Luke that it would be great to do a sort of short story about when the New York breakers came to the Market Square… we could do a little film.’ He said ‘Why don’t we do a documentary.’ We thought it’d be dead easy. It took us seven or eight years!”
That Old Market Square performance in 1983 was a cultural earthquake for Nottingham. Many young people, like Claude, came away from it determined to participate in Hip Hop, and lots of them decided that they would learn to breakdance.
DJ Jonathan Woodliffe picked up on this, and started putting on Hip Hop jams at Rock City. This quickly snowballed into a national phenomenon with Notts becoming an unofficial breakdancing centre of the country, attracting many national crews, among which were the likes of later drum and bass legend Goldie, and future Take That star Jason Orange. When Claude and Luke started making the film, they tried to capture the sheer scale of what happened.
“We interviewed a lot of people who used to travel to Nottingham, because Rock City Saturday afternoons used to be a focal point for the UK Hip Hop scene. You’d have people travelling in from London, Manchester, Birmingham, everywhere, to come visit the jams,” says Luke. “It got too big – we put together a rough cut, and there were too many talking heads for the audience to follow. So we went back to the drawing board, and focused on a smaller number of characters, who complimented each other.”
The Nottingham lads – we always had an attitude, and thought we were better than everyone else at dancing
As a result, NG83 became a small scale film with big themes. Claude and Luke gave a small group of dancers and MCs, who back then were part of the scene, the space to retell their stories from that strange, but beautiful few years. Even decades later, each person interviewed in the documentary was still filled with personal stories and love for Hip Hop. Watching it, you certainly get a sense of why, exactly, Nottingham embraced Hip Hop with open arms.
“Nottingham has always had a good music scene. I used to go to funk, soul, and jazz all dayers which were from one in the afternoon till ten at night,” says Claude. “The Nottingham lads – we always had an attitude, and thought we were better than everyone else at dancing. I don’t know if it’s small city syndrome, but we were a bit lairy and thought we were the best.”
Claude rapped alongside The Rock City Crew who, with their rivals The Assassinators, put Notts on the breakdancing map. The craze got so big that Claude and the Rock City crew supported US Hip Hop and RnB legends Grandmaster Melle Mel and Chaka Khan for their 1985 show in London – one of many performances that B Boys from Nottingham got to do across the country, and even abroad. NG83 features lots of footage of these shows.
“A lot of the archive stuff that you see in the film is from old Betamax and VHS videos which had been copied and passed on to different people, with a shelf life of 25-30 years – depending on how they’re stored,” says Luke. “So, it was a race against time to preserve all this stuff and digitise it. It was out there, but just under people’s beds, or in a locker. There was quite a lot of detective work.”
Released in 2016, NG83 saw huge success. Claude and Luke would go be interviewed on platforms like the BBC and The One Show, and would take the film to be shown at the New York Hip Hop Film Festival, where it won Best Documentary. Claude and Luke think that the fact they limited the personal stories they were telling to seven was a factor in its success – though it's a Nottingham story, the themes are universal, so “it travelled very well.”
Yet, though it celebrates those happy years in Nottingham, the film doesn’t exactly have a happy ending. After a few years, the breakdancing craze burned out, and Nottingham B Boys who’d devoted their lives to it found themselves lost and adrift. Some got into substance or legal problems or even passed – the issues which breakdancing had kept them from, due to the lack of opportunities back then in Nottingham for disadvantaged kids.
It’s been ten years since NG83 was released, and watching it still feels sad for Luke and Claude, not least because, since its release, various Nottingham B Boys and MCs, some featured in the documentary, have passed away. Among them was Tommy ‘Sly’ Thomas, who is central to the film. He passed in 2023, having spent his life immersed in lots of subcultures, like roller skating, reggae soundsystems, Hip Hop, and drum and bass.
“The news was quite sudden – first hearing he’s in hospital with cancer then hearing he’s passed away,” says Luke. “He was such a larger than life character – and the times we spent making the film, then driving around the country promoting it, and going to screenings with it – there were so many stories and memories of being around him. You can’t believe he’s not going to be around, and pop out of the woodwork like he did.”
But happily, to mark the tenth anniversary of the film, there’s going to be two different events – a Broadway Cinema screening on 10 July and a Rock City Hip Hop jam on 25 July, which will bring the community back together. In advance of the occasions, Claude and Luke have partnered with Maggie’s, a local palliative care charity, so that the proceeds from this celebration of Notts culture go back to the community.
“We’re having a Rock City Hip Hop jam, and then we’re having a screening at Broadway, because Broadway is a charity – they said that they’ll donate the tickets to our cause. It’s very poignant, because the film has characters in it who passed away,” says Claude. “It’s sad but it will be a good celebration, for the film, and their memories as well.”
The NG83 10th Anniversary Screening will happen at Broadway Cinema on Friday 10 July. It will be closely followed by a Q&A. The NG83 Hip Hop jam will happen on Sat 25 July, at Rock City. Tickets can be bought from the Broadway and Rock City websites.
We have a favour to ask
LeftLion is Nottingham’s meeting point for information about what’s going on in our city, from the established organisations to the grassroots. We want to keep what we do free to all to access, but increasingly we are relying on revenue from our readers to continue. Can you spare a few quid each month to support us?
