Manchild raps, sings, writes music and plays the keyboard but nothing flows through him with as much intensity as hip-hop dancing.

A professional and self-ascribed team captain of the drum and dance troupe, Nothing But Skill, Tyrone “Manchild” Dawson will appear with teammates at 8:30 tonight in a street performance at the National Folk Festival. N.B.S. has additional street performances at the festival at 2:30 and 7:15 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday.

N.B.S. features a brisk mix of pop, boogie, gymnastics, and the martial artistry of kung fu and Brazilian capoeira as delivered by three dancers and a plastic bucket percussionist.

“The whole origin of our performance comes from the streets of New Yokr City,” Dawson said. “It’s in our blood.”

Since he was 9, Dawson has been stepping, leaping and dancing for hours at a time on sidewalks near his Bronx home and nearby Manhattan. Fifteen years later, he can make a living on a couple hours of dancing a day. Now 24, he practices a little less and his moves are a little more solid, but his commitment to hip-hop has never been stronger.

Just don’t call it break dancing.

“This is just a whole other experience,” Dawson said. “We try to bring all of these different dance types together so it’s something you got to feel.”

The members of N.B.S. have made a name by sharing what they feel, with performances at halftime at a Chicago Bulls game, Yankees spring training camp in Tampa Bay, spots on MTV and feature films as well as a recent exhibition for the president of Bermuda.

But it was on Fifth Avenue that N.B.S. was spotted by Julia Olin, associate director of the National Council for the Traditional Arts. Midafternoon on Easter weekend, Olin passed by St. Patrick’s Cathedral. She stood amazed as the spry dancers busted out moves and worked the crowd.

“All of a sudden, I was glued to the sidewalk,” Olin said recently. “I was floored.”

After taking in the sight for a few minutes, Olin pulled one of the dancers aside and within minutes, N.B.S. was the only hip-hop group planned to perform at the nation’s largest multicultural arts festival.

But as Dawson will tell you, N.B.S. could be at a wedding, a dance club or a street corner when the music starts, it always goes down the same: The percussion thumps, the tempo gets frantic and the moves become frenzied and fantastic.

“One guy will be spinning on his head while another dancer flips over him, before the third guy floats by like Michael Jackson,” Dawson said. “It’s gonna be crazy.”

Smooth slides and acrobatics aside, N.B.S. is concerned about making hip-hop accessible to people who don’t fall into the hip-hop audience, Dawson said.

“We want people to see how hip-hop was built,” Dawson said, “so they can reach it on a personal level.”