Dave Scott, Hip-Hop Choreographer, Is Dead at 52
A former basketball standout with no formal dance training, he came to provide moves for rappers like Bow Wow and dance-battle films like “You Got Served.”Dave Scott, who steered off a college basketball track to become, without formal training, a prominent hip-hop choreographer, mapping the moves for adrenaline-charged street dancing films like “You Got Served” and reality shows like “So You Think You Can Dance,” died on June 16 in Las Vegas. He was 52.His son Neko said he died in a hospital of organ failure after a long illness.Mr. Scott, who was raised in Compton, Calif., was attending Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, on a basketball scholarship when he went dancing one night. Little did he know that a manager of the rapper Rob Base was there, and was impressed enough by Mr. Scott’s gyrations that he invited him to replace a dancer who had dropped out of the rapper’s tour.Mr. Scott was anything but a professional. He learned much of what he knew by decoding the moves from Michael Jackson videos and early hip-hop films like “Breakin’” (1984). It didn’t matter.“I learned the choreography in two days,” he was quoted as saying in a 2013 article in The New York Post. “I left school and finished the tour.”So much for hoops; Mr. Scott’s direction was set.He went on to work as a choreographer for more than 20 films and television shows. His breakout effort was “You Got Served” (2004), which follows the dance-battle odyssey of a crew of Black teenagers from Los Angeles.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More