At Marquette Middle School in the 1980s, Menkhu Ara Meri Maat sat alone in the lunchroom. He’d just moved to Madison from Chicago.
“A kid came up to me,” Maat recalled. “He was like, ‘Why are you sitting by yourself?’ Come sit with me and my friends.”
One of those friends was James Johnson, a member of the HBOs — Homeboys Only — a local breakdancing crew. Soon, Maat was at school dances, getting noticed for his moves…