Ireland’s hip-hop pioneers remembered as founding member of Belfast City Breakers William Madden dies

William, who died last week at the age of 57, was in the vanguard of a cultural revolution

Before Mo Chara, DJ Provai and Moglai Bap were even Kneecap-high to a bass bin, two men, probably more than anyone else, could be said to have introduced hip-hop to Belfast.

In the early 1980s, while it was still an underground US sub-culture, William Madden, who died last week at the age of 57 was in the vanguard of this now ubiquitous musical genre.

With his twin John, who died in 2015, they helped found the Belfast City Breakers, an avowedly non-sectarian dance, rap and B-Boy collective who did their damndest to show tribal colours don’t really matter when you’re spinning on your head on a scrap of lino at a bewildering speed in front of slack-jawed crowds.

Paying tribute to his life-long friend, fellow Belfast City Breaker, the B-Boy and DJ, John “Sconey” McCann, said it was privilege to see the twins in their pomp.

He added: “William was the George Best of breakdancing. If you saw him in a club spinning on his head 60 /70 spins a minute, it was just incredible.

“In Belfast City Breakers, we all had our individual moves .. but when he started to head spin, he transformed himself into a human whirlwind and the crowd went nuts. William was a visionary too as he always believed it would breakdancing would be an Olympic sport, and now it is.”

In the early days of the peace process, William and John recorded Belfast Rap, a track which was a poignant as it was positive.

William sang: “Green, white and orange..red White and Blue … let your love shine through.”

Another tribute from Oldskool Days on Facebook said: “Sad news on the passing of William Madden from the Belfast City Breakers.

“Twin brother of John who passed a few years back. Big players on the Hip Hop scene in Ireland. Both will be sadly missed RIP lad.”

Another said: “This is truly sad. I remember travelling the whole way up on the bus from Newry to watch these guys. We were young pretenders but BCB were the real deal.

“As close to American TV movies such as Breakdance and Beat Street we were going to get and boy did the crew deliver. RIP lads and a genuine thank you for the most amazing memories.”

For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage here and sign up to our What’s On newsletter.