0:00 [Music] welcome back to JK out of the closet today we have Anthony back and we're talking about it's this just says and I don't know how else to put this Anthony talks about performing Icy Fire on a what does that mean America's Best Dance Crew obviously we know that part I fire I don't know IC fire what's that one it's the name of a song it's a routine that I made um this is uh again bar a us to come up with stop blaming me dude he's crediting you uh impactful pivotal moments that like really changed our lives inway and uh okay number one stret the D don't break the dough stretch the don't break the D I'm sure Ryan will talk about this in different ways because I was fortunate to be on ABDC uh at the same time that Ryan was his second time uh where where they won
0:52 I saw how pivotal it was for you too it was yeah it was that's not even a joke that's like actually real um the thing is uh America's best Dan crew obviously huge for our culture especially the culture of cruise like there there's not even Cru shows anywhere anymore and and this was like the biggest thing at its time and season one where the ja walks won Mike Tony Lawrence all them with were there with cabba season three Quest Crew won Victor was on that crew um and season like five the porotic won all that stuff and then it goes I think till season seven yeah seven and then it like kind of chills out for a second or gets canel or whatever and then eventually and I the entire time was like a lot of my friends go on the show uh Kindra eventually got like turned into like an actual crew at some point um and I was
1:45 just a witness to this but like my dreams of wanting to be on not saying I had dreams but like I I was the idea of ever being on it was like Gone With the Wind and then suddenly they decided to bring it back and I was like oh ████ they're deciding to bring it back it's crazy but then they called the season of Champions AKA it's just the past champions get invited to come back on so again the idea of it gone I was never on it you're not a champ thank you no you're not a champion say it one more time please you knew that you knew already that you were not a champion thank you thank you said it subtitle it if you can yeah more words put my name in there too so it can be memeified uh that being said they do season of Champions but then because our crew ends up having past champions on it cuz our crew has members from porotic
2:35 members from Quest members from Kabam member even though they didn't technically win uh members from jabawaki like we have different members the way our crew is structured that they eventually were like yeah like you guys should come on the show and then I was like what the f like I'm going to get an opportunity to go on the show that I've witnessed all of my homies do in the last 10 years was that part of the narrative on TV like this crew has all 100 like that was the only way dude KRA was like you never fing heard of us if you weren't in the dance scene and like every other group that was on this season of Champions won ABDC before so the only way that they they could bring us on was they literally said in our in our opening package we have members of kab and the jab blockis and porotic that
3:26 are part of this crew and that was like they're okay for us to come in and participate cuz they basically realistically they probably just needed to say the word Jabba walki somewhere cuz Jabba just didn't they had nothing to lose like why would they come back you yeah they weren't going to come back yeah they're already on top of the world um so it's like we got this like random opportunity to come be on the show I I go in and I'm there and this comes down to uh again when you talk about like artist insecurity and Dynamics and stuff like that this artists are sensitive ████ especially Coro dancers Coro dancers are the most ████ dancers in the entire dance culture yeah that's true yeah yeah why we're just so pillow soft like our bag is ████ coming up with moves and then everybody dancing like nobody stand out too much cuz we should be clean and stuff like that b boys are like the complete opposite end
4:17 of the spectrum but also you know everything comes with its pros and its cons but we're like Coro is like you you're very like you want to always be supportive of other people's like you know thoughts feelings decision usually you want to be inclusive yeah so you know I'm coming on there and yeah I I I take pride in the idea that me and my co-founded kjas and we brought a group of very esteemed choreographers and dancers onto our crew to go go handle this show um but in no space in time did I ever feel in my own crew that I was ever like even close to the best dancer in that group not even skill-wise movement skill-wise straight up creation ideology you know what I mean like sure I I think I got I definitely play a part
5:08 I think what I really brought to the table other than the fact that like I was a talker which is why they always relied on me to speak during interview packages and ████ like that um you're a feminist believe all woman y that's his table bu um I I was uh willing to organize and just rally like if you know what I mean sometimes people they're not willing they're just artists they're just want to dance e Scout and I'll be the guy yeah Eagle Scout I'll be the guy to be like yo we should get together we should do this we should blah blah blah um let's make sure we organize this let's have this you know what I mean uh whatever I just organize ████ um even when it comes to being an effective creative director with a lot of other different people that are just as capable of creative directing being able to lead by stepping away and not needing give myself the shine of certain section being like you're better at this section you're better at this music blah blah
5:59 blah so the entire show it's like even though again I'm one of the quote unquote leaders it's like everything's about like just doing putting our best foot forward even if it's not myself and then suddenly we get to our last episode and it's just us in quest and our literally last show uh of the entire experience on ABDC everybody's suddenly down to do my routine up until this point every routine was a collaborative put together thing but for whatever reason in wanting to just represent ourselves which I think is foolish and hindsight I think at the end of the day we're not just on a uh a competition we're on a reality TV show when you think TV show you should just play TV show rules for entertainment you don't think like Artistry but you know I we were all green to a lot of the experience so we're just like regardless
6:49 of win or lose let's just represent ourselves a way that's authentic you know what I mean some hippy ████ you know what I'm talking about so we're like all right so everybody was down to like do my routine which was very how would you describe it Ryan what do you mean I See Fire as a routine it's like it's not a competitive piece it's just more artistic well no I I don't know I didn't think it was non competitive what word are you looking for it's a slow song oh okay it's you know what I mean it's like a really ethereal Edge shearing acoustic track it it draws you in and it and I think you you will feel what the intended feel is it's not really up for like what vibe do you have watching this it's but the goal is to beat them right and a competition so it's more so like um this
7:39 is just who I am this is what I like versus like more of like battle style definitely not battle style we still saw it like that was getting us what do you think made people dial in on it was it cuz it was so different than the other performances at the time I think we were just trying to show like range of of like what we're authentically are capable of and our entire bit too or just like our brandings we were always telling stories like when I say telling stories I'm not saying like their performances tell stories but we had like a voice that would like tell a story of like where we were in the journey or why we were doing something we had our Sensei come out and I was recording our Sensei voices or we had like costumes that would like have these different things and so in this ending one we like wrapped up like our story it feels very like solemn like it feels like a like it feels lonely but you are it is extremely effective but is it like
8:30 based on the other competitors like your piece was just a fresh breath of fresh air compared to everyone else's it was definitely different for the whole season for the whole season it was a stand out yo yeah yeah like none of the it wasn't blowups like impressive physical certain things it was just like for sure that my intention when creating okay let me go back to even like why I created this piece of why it's important to me number one is because it was probably the first time I had choreographed something something even out before the show that felt like genuinely just me everything else was probably a reflection of people who taught me and or or like you know me just kind of like playing the game of dance yeah whereas this one was the first time I like went like I'm just going to I just want to move like this to this weird song that nobody would think about choreographing to because
9:20 this I don't know this I'm just going to try ████ out and then when I did we performed it at our first like major kindas performance at Body Rock 2014 We performed it for what whatever reason everybody came up to me and it it just validated my existence as like an artist in the game like everyone liked it yeah everyone liked it and and even um I I tell people when people are like how do you find your music and as cheesy as this is I tell people like the best songs that I've ever created to in my life I never found the song I feel like the song found me you want to know where the song comes from us in the credits of the second Hobbit right the desolation of smug you know when the ████ dragon flies out and you know s███'s about to go down and then cuts the credits and then Ed sh's voice comes in all solemn and him right today's video is brought to you by the day let drop so I love traveling but what sucks about traveling
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11:01 experiences see for yourself why over 1 million readers start their morning with daily drop subscribe Now using the link in the description to get started on earning towards your next dream travel experience the reason why this hit me so hard is because before I went to go watch that movie me and my roommate he was like yo you want to go take some shrooms I was like bet he's like let's go we're like let's go watch the Lord of the Rings right or or The Hobbit so we think it's going to be just like fantasy like we're seeing dwarves and L's I didn't realize that when you're on shrooms and like the whole dragon scene where he he they're they're in the mountain with all the gold and he's running around trying to hide like I'm like you're tripping this is intense you know what I mean like ime maxed out intense and they show with like 120 frames a second like not natural from the human eye yeah it was is crazy
11:52 danger right and I'm on shrooms look like a BBC show and then and then when it cuts and it's black and then the most ████ beautiful man's voice comes in oh M bro my my heart started crying you just gave me chill you know what I'm talking so then that song that's how I found it or it found me so that's why I choreographed it didn't find you it just did drugs sh makes you listen more it found me you know what I'm saying so like I had I had this actual emotional experience with this so when I created to I didn't want to create it like I'm in a Dance World blah blah I just had a relationship with it and then end up being and that's how like Artistry is right you make something that's like unique and auth but you could tell it's authentic people will give you praise for it so I got mad praise for us and then we go on the show and then they all all the crew decides like they're down to do this performance
12:43 as our like send off routine how did you decide that did you suggest it or did they suggest you first I don't think I suggested it I cuz they were like who's got a routine Anthony does cuz no because every every routine that we had brought for the most part was like like we built it there you know what I mean except for our intro because our intro you don't know that was like our intro was vings routine then we reworked it to show a lot of different variation and then everything was like built there nothing was pre-built the reason why we when we saw that we were like ████ because like we try to bait people to try to beat us at our game which is why it's so easy for us to win like the acrobatic type stuff well just like because our arrangements are how we win it's not but then everyone thinks it's the tricks but it's the arrangement of it so then like we we
13:34 try to like make people think they have to do that too and then when they don't then it's like ah God damn it like they're playing their game instead of playing exactly exactly yeah so that's why we were like oh we can't do that cuz mind you while they're doing that ████ we're putting a ████ Target on Steve's dick and doing a flip off it like and that's going to win and you when you put those next next to each other was like iconic for all time ours just gets your sensation at that moment so we were like M do they think do they know later you find out it's rigged anyway no it was I don't think it was rigged no they won they won um anyways um but the point is when I think I think especially anybody who is doing anything in their career when they're pursuing something that they care about that's like not just like a career for like money or work it's a sense of self you're always
14:25 subconsciously seeking a point of like understanding not even just validation like an understanding that that's where you belong like you you either chose the right path or you belong somewhere or whatever right it's just a sense of belonging and for some reason in life I'm given this crazy opportunity we had a we had a cherry blossom prop tree that was like dropping people were in the Raptors dropping cherry blossom leaves for this they had a fog machine low ground fog for like me to walk through and then we just start doing this routine and like my in essence Mona Lisa of a routine I've ever created not by standards of like this is best by some judgment it's just your own version of like something your small painting that people take pictures of exactly and then we get to do this on TV and I remember
15:16 even like the production heads and stuff like that during Tech being like some people I made people cry doing it and it's like that's what I do like randomly when I when I was going around teaching that routine too people would cry and I would I would not understand it cuz I found this through doing shrooms and watching The Hobbit but it did mean something to me you know what I mean it's an aler yeah so like just getting that chance to one be on a show that like I witnessed my my closest friends experience and then like God was like Hey like you get to go on it that was already I was on some sort of Cloud9 I didn't understand and then to do a close off with like my closest friends being like let's do this routine that was a a whole other level of like I can't I could not believe life that was a that was a really nice stamp for the season too yeah so it just it just made
16:08 me feel like whatever choices I finally made cuz I too was like very black sheep my even my actual extended family and stuff like that everybody went to Harvard Dartmouth Berkeley y Stanford corn whatever the ████ you know what I mean thway schools I I felt like I had done something that my parents were in Vietnam during this time they were traveling and and my mom sends me or my dad sends me a video my mom's on her iPad and she's just lying in bed with her ████ feet up and ████ and she's just voting for us and like I don't have many moments or memories where like I know that my parents were like fighting for me for something phys like visually I can comprehend it this was one of the most important things that I've ever experienced in my life up until that point um and ironically it's set the bar
17:00 too for like moving forward even after ABC everything that we ended up doing after that was like it all started right there and I got to participate in a way that was just like I'll never not be thankful for so was a huge confidence injection obviously yeah yeah definitely that's that's what thing remember we used to always tell you guys we're like we're always going to win ABDC but you're going to win at life cuz that cuz that that what you guys did was like if you tried to play the game you wouldn't end up looking like yourselves yeah for sure are you guys saying that with your pinkies up like Hunger Games like oh we always with life darling but you all little weird at the at the games dude quest Quest for that type of TV show is unbeatable we coincidentally already look like what people like of that produced that you
17:50 are so Dynamic and everything like you guys were made for TV that's why that's why midseason Mike was like why the ████ are we trying to do these tricks remember yeah you guys snapped out of it yeah we were trying to do like tricks and and we were like in the rehearsal was like guys we don't do this that's what we were trying to get them to do we were like come on man beat us at this but then it's like cuz we know that what the tone they have is like their brand like we can't just make that up randomly but we afterwards you know we did our normal thing we got to we got to open up our Dojo through through like crowdfunding yeah cuz people were just like fans and followers of what we were actually doing afterwards we we sold hella merch you guys made more money on your crowdfunding than we did from the prize damn dude it was it was a good time is that why you call them Jabba wackies I've never seen off camera I've never heard anyone
18:42 sayy the craziest thing is when you ████ said mag walkies and I was dying was I don't know where this I think we can bring it back now Joe yeah cuz I had a Jae Mas put a MAG he's like mag how trippy would it be if you heard Donald Trump say it he called do followers Mega honestly that be sick for Java walkies that would be pretty sick all red I don't know if they would like it so red I like the color red yeah I I agree with that piece being one of the like when you I guess like when you define kingas from That season that would be the piece for sure I want to watch the whole season where can I watch the whole ████ season literally on YouTube it's like every in a week yeah yeah but it's on like 480p bro I can't watch no dance that was also the best dance TV show that that never was too cuz they had the worst marketing that in hey you think
19:33 you think they could ever bring that show back you think it would work today or it'll probably come back at I when I talk to the people that like had a hand in making them they always say that anything's possible because there is a big hole for it there's no competitive thing but also dance is just too easily consumable and and you can just get it instantly on your phone at any like through you can't run away from it so it's a little bit hard to be like but dancers got wrecked the Olympics so you just got to wait a couple months I mean it that it actually has a net positive even after cuz I remember even when that the show first came out I was like yo this I didn't know anything about dancing but like as a casual viewer I was like this is cool there's not there's just also there's even if they let's say they green lit it there's not 12 Crews to do this ████ anymore really the the era of cruise is over because like when you can become like a 30 million follower person off of Tik Tok
20:24 by using your cell phone in your living room yeah like who why would you split your your performance money with like seven other people travel Hotel food accommodation people don't train that way anymore and there's not enough even if they had those open slots 12 homies wouldn't be able to get together with enough time and look like a crew what if they did like five 12 is too much that was a golden era that's just playoffs and you're starting to playoff it's trippy cuz all those Crews already existed back then that's the weird part we were like real Crews and we'd already done we'd already won a ton of competitions and ████ already so it was n like doing that was just an extent it was like the finals of what you were already doing wow yeah so it's now it's I can't imagine who they would even get how you feel about that we just talked about dance hella were you dying oh really yeah I don't know he just checked
21:14 out I was like think about yeah if you guys watch that piece what's the actual name of it yeah there's also a k just week one through seven compilation but watch that one I See Fire I'm going to watch I See Fire K just ABDC season 8 what a legend what a legend
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