Meet The Winners Of The Red Bull BC One Boston Cypher

We’re drawing close to the Red Bull BC One National Finals in Orlando next weekend!

Source: Kien Quan / Courtesy Red Bull

After checking out the Los Angeles cypher last month, BOSSIP’s Sr. Content Director Janeé Bolden was in the building Saturday, August 7th, as the world’s largest breaking competition, Red Bull BC One, continued its 18th iteration in Boston.

Source: Kien Quan / Courtesy Red Bull

Top breakers from Boston and beyond faced off at Big Night Live for an unforgettable day of 1:1 b-boy and b-girl battles. Following an electrifying 16 bracket b-boy competition and 8 bracket b-girl competition, B-boy Hijack and B-girl Randi were crowned winners of the Red Bull BC One Boston Cypher and will head to the U.S. Red Bull BC One National Finals.

Source: Kien Quan / Courtesy Red Bull

BOSSIP spoke with B-Boy Hijack (Jack Rabanal) following his incredible win. Hijack is a 27 year old B-Boy repping Honolulu, Hawaii and the 808 Breaker crew. He has been breaking for 12 years and this is his first win at a Red Bull BC One Cypher.

Jack told BOSSIP he actually wasn’t feeling any pressure during the day’s competition, “I just came to have fun,” he explained. “I came to relax and I came to do what I do.”

Jack explained he’s been breaking since 2009 but started popping at just 9-years-old, thanks to his older brother who taught him.

“I’ve been in love with movement,” Jack said of his passion for breaking. “It’s dancers like myself, my good homie Ark, and even Rascal Randi, who won, people like that just love to dance. That side of the coin most people don’t focus on, but it is the root part of it. To just bug out and be in the spontaneity of the movement. It’s dancers like that who drive the scene and really restore hope — it’s a dance before anything. You just groove.”

While he grows and sells coffee back home in Hawaii, Jack credits breaking for introducing him to different places across the globe that he never expected to explore.

“I’d never been to Denmark, nor would I have imagined going to Denmark,” Jack told BOSSIP, “But breaking just brings people together. I quote my homie Amjad, he’s from 7$Crew in Switzerland, he said breaking is a futuristic direction, there is no color, there is no race. If you work hard, you’ve got love. If you’re creative, you’ve got love.”

Source: Kien Quan / Courtesy Red Bull

BOSSIP also spoke with B-Girl Randi (Randi Freitas) following her win. Randi is originally from Santa Rosa, California — which is also the hometown of BC One co-founder and judge RoxRite. Randi has been breaking for more than 14 years and has been part of many Red Bull dance events. BOSSIP asked Randi about her strategy going into the day’s competition.

“I was most focused on doing me, staying calm in the battle,” Randi told BOSSIP. “Sometimes I get worked up and I forget moves, so I wanted to stay really present because they had open qualifiers so I didn’t know the B-girls I was going up against. I had never met them before and didn’t know what to expect so I was just trying to stay grounded and do me.”

With the popularity of BC One continuing to expand, we had to ask Randi what gets her most excited about the future of breaking and she pointed to the growing number of women entering the sport.

“It’s super inspiring,” Randi told BOSSIP. “I’m 34 now so I’m getting up there in breaking years but I think that looking beyond ourselves we want the culture to grow and we want dance to grow and we definitely want females to grow, because there are so few of us. Seeing these young hungry girls, I feel like when I was younger breaking wasn’t what you wanted to do. You wanted to look cute and didn’t want to get dirty, so to see them out there rolling around with the boys I think it’s going to do a lot to uplift the culture.”

Like Jack, Randi has also gotten to visit some unexpected places in the world thanks to breakdance.

“Thailand was the most exciting place,” Randi told BOSSIP. “I got to go out there and teach for a couple of weeks.”

The Red Bull BC One Boston cypher was hosted by B-boy El Nino and musician MyVerse, and judges included Red Bull BC One All Stars and world renown b-boys RoxRite and Ronnie, b-girls Nat and Beta, and b-boy Lino.

The full competition is available to watch on demand on the Red Bull BC One YouTube page

The Red Bull BC One competition continued this weekend in Houston, before the U.S. Red Bull BC One National Finals, which take place in Orlando next weekend. One b-boy and one b-girl will go on to represent the U.S. at the Red Bull BC One World Finals taking place in Gdańsk, Poland, on November 5 to 6.