Jojo Joe Santiago

JoJo, known formally as Santiago Torres, is a co-founder of Rock Steady Crew and one of the earliest documented b-boys of the Bronx. In 1977, JoJo and Jimmy Dee established the organization that would become Rock Steady Crew, creating both a social alliance and a testing ground for breaking skill at a moment when the form's first wave of Bronx participants was declining. The crew's origins also involved the Untouchable Four B.Boys—Joe-Joe, Easy-Mike, Jimmy-Dee, and P.Body 170th—before the Rock Steady name was adopted at a meeting in Jimmy Dee's home on Echo Place. JoJo's contribution was institutional as well as physical: Rock Steady created continuity, identity, and standards during a period when breaking could have fragmented into scattered battles. Community histories associate him with the development of the backspin, a rotational floor move that became central to b-boy vocabulary. In 1979, Jimmy Dee authorized Crazy Legs and B-Boy Fresh to develop a Manhattan branch, a step that helped Rock Steady survive and expand into the downtown venues, films, and international performances that followed. JoJo has continued to appear in oral-history and heritage contexts, including a 2020 interview about Rock Steady origins and a 2023 appearance at the Museum of Bronx History's "When the Bronx Moved" exhibit, cementing his role as a founding witness to early breaking genealogy.