During the breaking competition at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics, a Howard County, Maryland, native played a key role as one of the DJs. Stephen Fleg, who goes by DJ Fleg, spoke to WTOP about being part of breakdancing’s historic debut on the international stage.
“It’s the biggest stage that we’ve ever been on,” he said. “The stakes were very high, and I just needed to focus and get the work done in the best way possible. And I think I did that.”
Fleg grew up in the Columbia area and started breaking when he was in middle school. Although he graduated from the University of Maryland in 2008 with a degree in political science, he decided to pursue his love of dance and music.
Fleg began teaching breaking classes in Northern Virginia, D.C. and Maryland before deciding to become a DJ full-time. Since then, he’s worked at some of the biggest competitions worldwide, including the Youth Olympic Games in 2018. That put him on the radar for the Paris Summer Olympics this year.
“It was just pure work,” Fleg said. “Just head down, do the work well, and make sure that you could have a little fun with it. But mostly it’s just execute, execute, execute.”
Fleg was so focused on his work that he’s barely had time to reflect on the experience. It was a lot of pressure having all his songs in the right order, knowing how to mix them and being cognizant of the dancers, all while millions of people watched.
“We’re not just up there pressing play,” he said. “We’re scratching the records. We’re doing these different manipulations. We do that with the drum break of a song. And when we’re doing that, that’s all live, that’s all of our hands. If my skills aren’t on point, and I scratch something offbeat, the dancer’s going to turn and look at me, like, ‘what are you doing, man?’”
Breaking won’t be featured at the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles but Fleg is glad they had their moment in the spotlight.
“We’re still going to be here. We’re still going to be doing our thing,” he said. “It’s kind of cool that people got to see it. I don’t think people have an idea of how strong this community is and how worldwide it is, and what it’s been doing for decades.”
Fleg is busy the rest of the year with gigs in Philadelphia, Denver and Rio de Janeiro. He is now based in New York and you can follow him on Instagram.
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