The acoustics outside the ASU Student Services building weren't complementary.
Yet, the Omega Psi Phi fraternity step team, in a mock rehearsal on Sunday afternoon for tomorrow's 2 p.m. Krimson and Kream Klassik Stepshow at Gammage Auditorium, still managed to draw a few admirers.
"It's my hop/team. We're on the in/tro. We came to freak/this/show/fa' you," pointman Therran Oliphant barked to his fellow steppers, Jason Craig and Jason Culpepper, as they pounded their feet on cement to the beat of the catchy cadence.
While the trio demonstrated the 12-minute routine it hopes will win the stepshow's $2,500 first prize, two girls sat on a nearby bench and watched curiously. Another hid behind a pillar that shielded her voyeurism.
And two guys, who appeared to be in their early-20s, stopped for a moment, scoffed and walked in the other direction.
"That's our style," said Culpepper, an Omega Psi Phi alumnus and 2001 criminal justice graduate of NAU. "It's in-your-face, high intensity. We're the dudes that try to break the floor. That's our fraternity's personality."
Of the nine black fraternities and sororities on college campuses throughout the country, eight chapters from the Southwest and California will be represented by nearly 80 Greeks in tomorrow's stepshow in front of an expected crowd of more than 2,500.
The host fraternity, ASU's chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi, has been preparing for the event (hosted by Cinque of Black Entertainment Television's Teen Summit) since the day after last year's first Greek stepshow in Arizona.
"It cost [Kappa Alpha Psi] about $10,000 last year. And we barely broke even," said Darian Hall, the ASU chapter president. "The ideal goal is to be able to make a profit."
Kappa Alpha Psi's profit margin isn't the show's only benefactor. A portion of the ticket sales will be used for scholarships for incoming freshmen, said Hall, a business administration senior.
"Our main focus is to have something on campus that brings the community together," he added.
Black fraternities, Hall said, started stepping on college campuses in the 1950s and '60s, "singing to girls, serenading them." Over time, synchronized dance steps, hand claps and shouting were incorporated into routines at fraternity parties where different troupes would "stroll," inspiring others to join in.
"Really, it traces all the way back to the tribes in Africa," he said, "and over time it's just evolved."
For Kappa Alpha Psi, stepping has become its pomp and flair.
"Kappas like to play it up for the ladies. That's our style," said Hall with a grin. "We have a bit of a reputation as the 'player' fraternity, the pretty boys."
"Pretty boys!" shouted Oliphant, a May 2001 NAU graduate listening in between steps. "We don't like those pretty boys!"
Oliphant's heckling is a joke, but crack-stepping is prohibited from tomorrow's show.
"Crack-stepping," Culpepper explained, "is when you diss other fraternities [or sororities] in your routine."
"It's not showing what you have as far as your hopping skills," Oliphant added.
The Omega Psi Phi troupe has been developing its skills during daily two-hour rehearsals at Oliphant's house for the past month. But other ASU fraternities, Hall said, have practiced at all hours of the night in empty lots and parking structures.
"There's a lot more space to work on your steps," Hall said.
"And you get a better sound," Oliphant added. "It's not so much the aesthetics, it's the auditory effect that you're going for."
Just then, the trio finished off its rehearsal with what Culpepper described as "a party stroll called the 'Muscle Man.'"
The three of them lined up, single-file, and began raising their knees to their chests, bringing their hands to a clap underneath their legs. Then, they crouched down, heads up, and flexed their arms as an angry growl crept out of their mouths.
"Imagine seeing that in the middle of a party," said Culpepper, winded. "Somebody'd just be like 'Uh, yeah. We gonna get out the way.'"
Reach the reporter at josef.watson@asu.edu.
