ILL WHAT THE FUNK?! CREW......

My first student/crewmate/partner/brother from another mother killing beats where we've met.

2009. Thats when I first met him. He didn't know anything. Just a fanboy of Nam Hyun Joon.

Now he is consistently learning, developing, and trying to evolve the dance using his individuality.

Still a LOOOOOOOOOOOONG way to go till he gets to the point where he wants to go.

But even with difficulties, I know he NEVER gives up. He will consistently work to improve.

My brotha

iLL of What The Funk?! Crew.

LA Part 2: Meeting Hollywood Stars and Homeland.

LA welcomed us with the brightest weather on the second day.

This was the first time I saw LA in bright day light. I realized how HUGE this place was and surprisingly the atmosphere and the environment surrounding us felt warmer compare to NY which is dark and dim lol

Our day started by going to UMAMI Barger for brunch.
Umami "旨味" is Japanese. It means delicious taste so I knew I'm gonna have great food to start the day off!

The wall was full of interesting Japanese poem that insisted how you can find a great new dish. As I was reading it, the waiter approached me. He looked part Asian so I assumed he knew the meaning of the poem.....

Waiter "You know what that saids?"
Me      "Yea, its pretty unique and interesting"
Waiter "oh yea? What does it say?"

-____________-

Come on man. I thought you guys put that up because it means something special for you to work there lol

So I translated the poem for him and he was happy, saying that thats what Umami Barger is (well yea I can guess thats why its on the wall....)

Hungry dogg.....lol

UMAMI Barger

The burger was in fact "うまい(delicious)". It had a great combination of crunchy and juicy mixed inside a soft bun. Hmmmm  making me hungry right now LMAO

After brunch, we went to Hollywood Boulevard! Saw this many times on movies so I was excited :)

Street Robot was better than the East....lol

YEAAA FINALLY HERE!!!

Michael's hands and feet were smaller than I thought.

King Of Pop

Master of Martial Art

YEAAA KICK HIS ASS!!! lol

Hollywood Blvd was a lot like Time Square in NYC with full of movie star memorial. It was great :) It was especially great to get to Michael Jackson and Bruce Lee's memorial stars (?). Also I was really surprised to find out how small Michael's hands and feet were. It was about my size exactly. But he can do that dynamic and explosive dance movements. Amazing. Purely respect him as a dancer and entertainer. 

After having fun at Hollywood Blvd, we went to Homeland!!!

YES HOMELAND!!! I've been waiting to go here for many years!!!

We drove from down town LA and it was about a half hour drive. 

Kid Boogie told us that he will be there so I was excited! It's been almost two years since I last saw him. I wanted to show how I improved training the technique he had shown me. 

Here is what I was like when I got to Homeland lol

So I was SOOOOOOO excited like a little kid! lol

BUT

Kid, Slim, Keumsae, nor tabo showed up.....

Because of this, and from the exhaustion from the previous session, by the last hour of the session, I was done.....

Anyway, Homeland was Dope! 

A lot of positive energy was there, and people liked sharing that energy with others. This is what I liked about it the most. 

In a sense, it was like Popshop in NYC. But at Popshop, we don't all make a cypher to get down. I feel like we are a little more separated. But here, they were all making a huge cypher. I thought this was a great way for younger/beginner generation to interact with the older ones. 

Although it would've definitely turned out better if the people I was expecting showed up, I enjoyed Homeland. I hope to visit there soon. 

LA Part 1: Arrival and late night session.

After staying in Japan for a week and saying goodbye to Nonoko while we both shed tears (Don't say nothing....You don't know how tough it is to do this for 5.5 years.....) I arrived in LA.

Now from what I remembered, Ilya, told me that he would have his friend come over to the airport to pick me up.

But NOOOOOOOOOO -______-

He tells me to take a shuttle to get there....
sigh.....what a start lol Me Japanese, no english, scared, understand??? lol

I took the shuttle and arrived in front of this crazy looking modern building. Here, I met Liz and Denom.
They are friends of Ilya from Boston and generously welcomed us to stay with them for a week! Not only that, they drove us around LA (which I'll get to later on) but they were soooooo nice :) I'm really glad that I got to meet and hang out with them.

After I settled down and unpacked my stuff, we went out to eat at Honey Pigs.

Pic

While eating, I got to know about Liz and Denom a little. Also Ilya and I kinda talked about what we did for the past week and a half.
Seeing him felt like ages ago since we lived together for a moth before coming to LA (WOW what a bf gf sentence this is.......SUPER GAY lol).

Than Ilya told me that he was talking to Slim Boogie earlier that day. So we decided to contact him because Ilya thought it'll be dope and a dream come true if we can go to the practice spot that he films his dance clip that is posted on youtube.

So he contacts him.
No response.

I've shared contact with Jr Boogaloo and Bionic Man a month before at Electric Soul Satisfaction, so I started to text them.

Jr Boogaloo was very helpful.
He gave us the numbers of this crew mates and told us to contact them as soon as possible to plan our week.

Bionic Man responded quickly. And welcomed us to come to his place when it is convenient for us.
Unfortunately, he lived 40 min away by driving. So we couldn't go that night.

It was around mid night and we still couldn't get a solid answer.
We didn't want to waste our time just waiting so I decided to text Slim Boogie.

A call back from Slim LMAO!!!

I still can't forget the face Ilya made when I said "oh he is calling me" lol

and what was even awesome was that the spot he practices was only a few blocks away!!!


So on the FIRST NIGHT IN LA, I mean literally few hours after landing, we get to practice with Slim Boogie.

We also planned to go to Homeland to see Kid Boogie the next day and go to San Diego for Jr. Boogaloo's 2 hour private lesson the day after tomorrow.

AWESOME

This trip could not turn out to be better than this.

So we walked and met up with Slim and Keumsae!
We both met slim couple times through MGF workshop tour (link) and SDFX 2 in Boston (link).
I've also met Keumsae before when C-lo hosted an event (link) in D.C couple years ago and she came as one of the judges.

A reunion is always great. I was glad to see them again, but this time in LA.

We exchanged for roughly 4 or 5 hours.

Seeing their get down was amazing. The level of foundation and advanced technique they had was unbelievable. We not only saw, but felt the level gap between the East coast popping compared to the West.

Please don't take this in a wrong way. I'm not trying to look down on the East. I feel that because they are taught by poppers with proper historic background the students had better understanding of how to execute the dance better.
Of course Popping is a dance movement that originated from the West. Thus, the resources to its roots can be easily traced back. Unlike us (the East) or the world, who dig the internet for information, they can go straight to the creditable source.

Some dancers I've met in the past told me that they don't really care about the past. Whats done is done and they want to focus on "THEM" because its their "GENERATION". But I think history is important. Knowledge is Power. Sense of community is crucial to the Hip Hop and Street Dance community. This is why I feel strongly about the need of popping education on the East Coast.

Anyway, I'll discuss that some other time. Back to the trip.

We didn't take any dance footage because I was too focused on observing the Slim and Keumsae lol
I think you can tell by how we were right after the session.

After the session, we were DONE lol In the vid I was wide awake, but I literally fell a sleep as soon as I got to the bed.
The Monster drink we had before going to the session was all used up and our body was collapsing.
I fell a sleep as soon as I got to the bed.

Thank You once again Slim and Keumsae. This would not have been the best day to start off without you two.

Part 1 End.

Day 12: What is What The Funk?! Kamikaze?

So on Tumblr, someone asked the meaning of sugaloofujinfunk.

Well, this is the original blog post I made when we actually made the name and custom hats!!! lol

So here it goes....

_________________________________________________________________________________
Blog from What The Funk?! Crew

The idea sparked from SUGALOO and Poppin iLL talking about becoming a 2 man battle team of our crew since we've been battling together at events constantly.

We chose the name 神風(Kamikaze) because we want to become battling poppers that destroy everything that stands in our way (opponent)to reach the goal(winning the battle) and also to bring new flavor to the scene.

According to the ancient story of Japan, Kamikaze is formed by two gods know as Fujin (風神）god of wind and Raijin（雷神）god of lightning.

They are also one of the most well known gods in Japan because the painting by Tawaraya Soutatsu titled 風神雷神図 Fujin Raijin zu(picture below) is preserved as a national treasure in Japan.




To make this vision and hope to life, I created a customize hat and shirt.

he hat is done and here it is



RAIJIN/God of Lightning (Poppin iLL)









...................................................

































nah this is it LOL

RAIJIN/God of Lightning (Poppin iLL)



FUJIN/God of Wind (SUGALOO)




"Raijin and Fujin of kamikaze on the mission to amaze, create craze, taking over the dance floor that is our door to fame. What The Funk?! Crew for life!!!"

Peace and God Bless

Battle Team, 神風(kamikaze) of What The Funk?! Crew.

The idea sparked from SUGALOO and Poppin iLL talking about becoming a 2 man battle team of our crew since we've been battling together at events constantly.

We chose the name 神風(Kamikaze) because we want to become battling poppers that destroy everything that stands in our way (opponent)to reach the goal(winning the battle) and also to bring new flavor to the scene.

According to the ancient story of Japan, Kamikaze is formed by two gods know as Fujin (風神）god of wind and Raijin（雷神）god of lightning.

They are also one of the most well known gods in Japan because the painting by Tawaraya Soutatsu titled 風神雷神図 Fujin Raijin zu(picture below) is preserved as a national treasure in Japan.




To make this vision and hope to life, I created a customize hat and shirt.

he hat is done and here it is



RAIJIN/God of Lightning (Poppin iLL)









...................................................

































nah this is it LOL

RAIJIN/God of Lightning (Poppin iLL)



FUJIN/God of Wind (SUGALOO)




We will be rocking those to events starting Boogie Nation 2011!!!

If you are going to the event, we will see you there!

Peace n God Bless.

P.S For people interested in Boogie Nation, here is the Facebook information.

Place: Club 412
412 8th ave ( 31st Street ) Next to MSG / Penn Station
New York, NY

Time: 9PM-2AM

Hosted By: NYC Popping Academy

Boogie Nation NYC 2011 1 on 1 Popping Championship

$10 with flyer or RSVP
$15 with out
( so its really only $10 because why would you not rsvp nor have flyer printed ? )

Part of NYC popping dance week 2011

Hosted by Tommy Hypno Chan

DJ
Break Easy
Spinning all your popping music all night

Judge
Tiny Love
Big Mike
The people there! - Boogie Nation style


1 on1 Popping Battle
Group round if we have alot of people
If we can get everyone there and have the battle starts at 11pm then we can do 2 rounds each even if we have 16 people.
However we always want to keep the battle low # and short so there is more time for just open music.

King Tut Contest - only 4 to 8 dancer max .You get 1 min or 2 to do your thing. ( One round )

Come early because this not that long of an event. Event starts at 9.30 then come at 9.30

Have your $10 bill - we don't have change !

Bring your own water and have fun!