Hip-Hop Forefather Breakdancer Adolfo “Shabba-Doo” Quinones Passes Away At 65!

YourBlackWorld.net, By Victor Omondi, Posted January 5th 2021

The original gatekeeping community of the ubiquitous culture of hip-hop has lost another one of its legendary pioneers during 2020’s final days.

According to Deadline News, breakdancing pioneer Adolfo “Shabba-Doo” Quinones passed away on Wednesday (December 30) per a public statement released by Toni Basil, Shabba-Doo’s fellow member of “The Original Lockers” hip-hop dance crew.

“It is with extreme sadness the Lockers family announces the unexpected passing of our beloved Adolfo Shabba-Doo Quinones. In this difficult time, we are requesting privacy,” Basil posted on his Twitter account on Wednesday morning.

Basil, Don Campbell (aka Campbellock), Fred Berry (aka Mr. Penguin), Bill Williams (aka Slim the Robot), Leo Williamson (aka Flukey Luke), and Shabba-Doo were all the first-string founding members of the Original Lockers (formerly The Lockers) who joined forces in 1973. This initial pioneering tandem remained together until 1976.

In that year, Basil and Berry left the popular breakdancing outfit with no hard feelings for their trend-setting brothers. They were subsequentially replaced by actor  Mykelti Williamson and dancing phenom Tony “Go-Go” Foster. Greg “Campbellock Jr” Pope was another breakdance artist whose name was affiliated with the groundbreaking group at one time in history.

Shabba-Doo himself was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois to a father of Puerto Rican descent and a mother who was Black American. He and his breakdancing hit squad are authentically the first hip-hop-affiliated group who invented the “locking” dance craze.

This popular body rock groove has evolved over the last four decades. It has also been re-branded by newer hip-hop artists and groups, including the late St. Louis, Missouri-bred rapper Huey.

Born Lawerence Franks, Jr., the official music video to Huey’s 2006 double-platinum mega-hit, “Pop, Lock, & Drop It,” definitely re-popularized the foundation for style showcased by Shabba-Doo and his affiliates 30-plus years earlier.

Unfortunately, in June 2020, Huey was gunned down in a tragic act of crime at the age of 31.

Like many people who follow their dreams of entertainment superstardom, Shabba-Doo moved west from his native city of Chicago to Los Angeles, California. During his humble beginnings in Tinseltown, Shabba-Doo found his way to seminal fame as a member of classic black music television’s Soul Train Gang. But he did not stop at the small screen.

Playing in an acting role as a man known as Ozone, a smooth dance crew maestro, Shabba-Doo rocketed himself to enternal prominence inside the motion picture industry. He earned cinematic immortality by starring in the 1980s-era  Breakin and Breakin’ 2 Electric Boogaloo dance movie franchise.

The original and its sequel are still considered by many credible film critics to be a two-project cult classic.

Following the years of the Breakin franchise film generation, Shabba-Doo reinvented himself in other roles, such as 1990’s Lambada. In 1993, Shabba bossed up careerwise again. He made his directorial debut in the film Rave – Dancing to a Different Beat.

After his accession to mastering the top creative movie-making role of film director, Shabba threw his weight around in television again alongside some legitimate household names.

He made guest appearances on every commercially popular 1990s television series one could think of in those days, including The Super Mario Brothers Show! and Saturday Night Live. Maintaining his position as an A-list leadership candidate in entertainment, Shabba returned to music. He shined this time as a go-to choreographer who helped some of music’s step their game up on the dance floor.

The figurative and literal mover and shaker worked with music icons in multiple genres, including Madonna in the world of pop, Luther Vandross in the world of R&B, Chaka Khan in the world of original soul, and back to his hip-hop roots to assist the Three Six Mafia, the legendary Oscar-winning rap group from Memphis, Tennessee.

Scant details have been provided about Shabba-Doo’s death at the age of 65. However, the true legacy being shown to people right now after Shabba’s passing reveals what a genuinely full and rich life is. Deadline also reported that Shabba posted a message on social media recently in which he rejoiced over testing negative for COVID-19, a fatal respiratory disease caused by the SARS CoV-2 coronavirus.

In closing, the magical man and cultural legend known to his fans and loved ones as Shabba-Doo powerfully exemplified what staying power is all about. Breakdancing, graffiti artistry, Dee-Jaying, record scratching, producing music compositions, which were known as “breakbeats,” and being a rap MC back in Shabba-Doo’s early days was laughed at.

Mainstream America labeled hip-hop culture and the assortment of crafts within it as fads for rabble-rousers with no future. The naysayers said these trends of cultural resistance to inequality and radical creative expression would fizzle out forever before the passage of one generation. But Shabba-Doo and his breakdancing crew proved society-at-large and its clueless cultural establishment wrong.

Nearly one half-century later, the trail-blazing, trend-setting, and most hyper-appropriated urban social club for people of color has its tentacles of influence wrapped around the entire globe. Shabba-Doo will always be remembered by his beloved culture’s purists as a builder of the original house of hip-hop; not a meal-grubbing guest without a lease.

Without the shadow of a doubt, Shabba’s contributions, in the aggregate sum of the entertainment world, helped hip-hop transition from a despised sub-culture, which got a death sentence at birth, into a thriving, creative juggernaut; one that breeds generic copycats inside the same white male-dominated pop culture that cursed it ages ago.

May a true Renaissance man that changed the Earth’s commercially artistic atmosphere (who was known in film credits as Ozone) rest in peace.