JabbaWockeez member and native San Diegan Rynan Paguio is a veteran b-boy
After Kaba Modern's getting voted off, JabbaWockeez made it to the final round of "America's Best Dance Crew!" Congrats! They must get more votes than the crew Status Quo , who put on a goofy circus clown performance for their finale. JabbaWockeez chose to put on a solid, faithful old school hip hop routine, complete with crazy screwdrivers (or eggrolls) with shoulder freezes executed on beat with the stuttered snare. What an homage to hip hop styles for a mainstream, Mickey Mouse television show finale! They freaked that.
You can vote for your favorite crew all week, until the final show on Thursday, March 27, 2008.
Some thoughts on JabbaWockeez on "America's Best Dance Crew":
1. JabbaWockeez bring funk, flavor, and flamboyance while remaining loyal to particular dance foundations.
2. These dancers have been in the dance game for a long time, some for more than a decade. They deserve to get national (mainstream) recognition for their dedication to the craft. Their dedication is so much that the larger crew represented at last weekend's hip hop orgy "World of Dance" event.
3. The style JabbaWockeez projects brings a more faithful performance of hip hop dance forms (and fashion: matching dookie ropes and Kangol hats? What?!). I think they steer away from gimmicky tricks and hip hop-culture caricaturing. They let the world know that b-boy/b-girl culture never died (see the film Planet B-Boy), but is in fact getting stronger and achieving national (mainstream) shine (for good or bad?).
4. The crew epitomizes Pin@y commitment to b-boy/b-girl culture. The crew is half Pinoy (both on the MTV show and the larger crew); they give an accurate (male) face to Pinoy hip hop performance. The fact that the crew is ethnically mixed (and, well, also mono-gendered) is very much representative of the Pin@y experience in hip hop in general, as we tend to collaborate with many communities (we're very fluid and floating!). Check out any Pin@y dance organization on a college campus, and it'll probably have what Mark from FOBBDEEP calls "non-Filipino-Asians-in-Filipino-student-organizations", among many other racial groups.
5. I'm surprised this group made it this far in a watered-down TV show. I was convinced JabbaWockeez deserved to be "America's Best Dance Crew," but wasn't confident that mainstream America and MTV would "keep them" around this long, since they are "so hip hop." How subversive. How hip hop.
How thoughtful. How goldilocks.
Posts
6 comments:
I am definitely not surprised this crew made it this far. They are GOOD. What I'm surprised is that Kaba Modern didn't make it to the finale, but Status Quo did? I'm still trying to shake this nightmare out of my head.
MSB,
I have to agree. I should take back #5: I knew Jabba would make it this far. I guess I need more faith in the public about hip hop taste.
You're right Kaba Modern should be in the final round. Status Quo, really?
Too many Asians on TV. Makes people nervous. For war veterans, memories of the enemy...with rhythm...and a following!
UMMM...HELLO! i am so happy they made it to the final round. america was voting off some good crews for awhile, and with kaba modern gone, i have very little faith in america's taste in hip hop. or actually music in general (i started watching american idol too). i can see all my students' hip hop papers now. hahaaaa. just kidding, 161 students who follow this blog.
but anyway, i will definitely be voting. status quo is good, but jabba is PHENOMENAL.
ok and WHY IS JC a judge?! AND LIL MAMA? can someone explain that? i don't really get it.
i think kaba and jabba split the APA/california votes. kaba definitely deserved the finals spot, but even then, jabba still woulda won (IS gonna win). i didnt watch this show at first cuz i thought it was gonna be watered down (it actually isn't), but after catching up on ALL the episodes, i'm very pleased with how the show is done. for dedicated hiphop heads it's so great to see jabba be so unapolagetic about repping hiphop (and great to see the judges acknowledge that). their creativity (jazz instruments in "all that jazz", superman in "lean wit it", etc) comes from being a true homemade hiphop crew. thats shit you cant learn from a studio class, and wont truly understand unless you know hiphop music from apache to stronger. and that's not me trying to be backpacker elitist, that's the truth dunn
What up Mark! I've been trying to scour the Internet, blogs, news articles this morning that extol the brilliance & innovation of the Jabbawockeez. It took me until this morning to grasp how big a deal it was that they won. Much more so that it happened on a huge national stage.
Then I think of other dope Pin@y artist who accomplished similar feats in music & hip hop, but not in this big a stage.
I mean how many years did Q & the Picklz have to win before the entered into the national psyche? It was only after dominating a few DMC Competitions in the ealry 90's did they get the widespread recognition they deserved as geniuses & innovators.
Ultimately getting banned from internation competition, yet years later still holding court
wherever they go.
The Jabbawockeez are that good & maybe better. It was Shane Sparks that said "you guys set the standard for the 10 seasons. How incredible is that? I'm glad I was able to capture the whole thing on my DVR. Maybe it'll set off another cultural renaissance that we haven't seen in years.
Oh yeah, I still haven't found any articles yet. Check out the Jabba's website, they got youngin's doing their routines. Dayum!
Post a Comment