BreakBeat Lou

Growing up in New York City in the ’70s, Louis Flores came to hip-hop like so many other Latino kids his age: by rushing to contribute as it sprung up around him, first as a dancer and then as a DJ and producer. In the early ’80s, Flores teamed up with the late Leonard Roberts to put out records inspired by the early hip-hop jams. This lead to the bootleg Octopus Breakbeats, compiling the breaks DJs had been using to keep dancers moving, and then in 1986 to the Street Beat Records label. Selecting and editing foundational breaks, Flores and Roberts acquired the rights to release these under the Ultimate Breaks & Beats series. Over the next decade, the UBB compilations made a seismic impact on how hip-hop was created by providing fodder and inspiration to a new generation of sample-minded producers. The compilations would also play a part in the explosion of jungle and drum & bass in the UK and find their ways into numerous chart hits from Mariah Carey to Hanson. Yet Flores and Roberts remained largely unrecognized for their contribution until decades later. Flores left the music industry in 1995, having worked as a DJ, editor and producer, before returning in the late 2000s when the importance of UBB, and his work editing the breaks, was brought back to light by fans such as Kenny Dope.