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LIA KIM

Lia Kim is one of the most inventive poppers of our generation.  Hailing from South Korea, Lia Kim shoes up as a judge for the 1v1 All Styles event at the Fair Play Dance Camp in Krakow Poland.  she has always looked great in a low angle as it helps demonstrate the extreme contrast she is capable of in her levels.  She learns the music (a Flume remix) as it plays, and reacts to it incredibly well with an explosive repertoire of popping and waving.

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LES TWINS | BOUBOU

Les Twins and Boubou are members of Criminalz crew, a legendary collection of dancers that have defined France’s “new style hip hop”.  Yak Films are the legendary filmmakers that also helped Les Twins early in their career around 2010.  So its very satisfying to see these giants continue to collaborate in a creative way at the tail end of 2016.  Larry is up first and demonstrates his intricate knowledge of his technical vision of new-style hip hop and how it intersects with contemporary American dance movements like “Hit Dem Folks”.  Laurent is up next, in all white, delivering his trademark full body dance experience that looks even better when you see it in person (or higher framerate than what we are watching in this video).  Then there’s Boubou giving a performance in stark contrast to Larry’s; a hat hides all of his expressions while he focuses on intricate waves and isolations.  Despite these three being some of the absolute tip top of freestyle dance talent in the world, my favorite part is still where they goof off in the transitions.

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E-SOLO

E-Solo has been a staple of the Litefeet battle scene for a few years now, so it’s awesome to see him represent the genre in New York’s yearly Battlefest.  He is the king of shoe tricks, which is something exclusive to the Litefeet dance style.  I won’t spoil the surprise, but he does something with shoe tricks that I have never seen before in my life, and had me laughing out loud alone in my apartment.  I find this to be my usual reaction to Litefeet dancers: cracking up at their creativeness and ingenuity, especially when prop dancing is involved.

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BLUPRINT | TAYLOR PIERCE | JCODE

Its great to see how Dragon House has evolved since the Hit Dem Folks exploded onto the world.  In the early days, Dragon House was primarily dancing to American Dubstep. Most of these songs don’t have a natural rhythm for traditional hip hop dancers to freestyle.  But Dragon House took the intricacies of the genre to hone their isolations, waving, and animation based freestyle.  Hit Dem Folks gave an accessible dance style to the Atlanta area, and Dragon House has absorbed it like Majin Buu.  They are looking unstoppable now that they are dancing to god-tier music like Desiigner’s “Timmy Turner”.  Bluprint’s animations at the beginning of the song flow seamlessly in and out of the Hit Dem Folks groove.  But JCode almost steals the beginning with his grill schenanigans, and later Taylor Pierce takes her groove as slow as she wants it to be. There’s an overall sense of whimsy that makes Dragon House’s more technical bits cut more than they did before.  This group is Twins level now.

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BABY BOOGALOO | NONSTOP | IGLIDE| ANDROID| BLUPRINT

This one video collides some of the biggest powerhouses of the danceworld. The incredible camera work comes courtesy of Yak Films, the legends from the bay area responsible for most of the videos that I share on this blog. One of my favorit poppers from the bay area also drops by: the viral youtube hit Nonstop. Then there's Baby Boogaloo, a dancer from the Oxnard CA that first saw fame dancing on , and is now a main character on the show Blackish. Then there is Dragon House, represented by iGlide, Android, and Bluprint. Their extremely rich popping/animation style defined a generation of Atlanta dancing before there was "hit dem folks". The fact that all these forces were at the same BBQ is nothing short of amazing.

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LADIA YATES | G NERD

While I wouldn’t call them the king and queen of jookin, this video perfectly captures the heart of a jookin battle.  Jookin is primarily a footwork based dance style from Memphis, and seeing these two seasoned pros go at a Three 6 Mafia is very satisfying as a fan of the style.  Ladia Yates has a much more eclectic style with lots of popping, waving, and some tight tutting combos, G Nerd is a jookin purest, and is a great example of a lot of the repertoire jookin brings. 

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A TAI

A Tai is a locker from the Taiwanese crew Kaoshiung Funk Crew, adorably abbreviated to KFC.  KFC is responsible for putting on South Side Sessions, an expose of locking, waacking, and other traditional funky dance styles in the Kaoshiung International Convention Center.  A Tai has been a judge at several events like this in Taiwan, and i think is a potential world star of locking.  He is able to capture storytelling and audience participation that was so important in the origins the locking dance style (Don Campbell’s street performances).  I got chills when A Tai had the audience yelling along with the song.  Most of his moves are relaxed, but a close eye catches these incredibly technical and creative moments that seem to come out of nowhere, and effortlessly flow into the next slow groove.  A Tai is incredibly COOL, and you should be watching.

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MEECHIE | SWAE LEE

The importance of Meechie and Tha Krew cannot be understated. Their style defined the new generation of Atlanta freestyle dance, especially now that “JuJu on the Beat” is a worldwide hit. The pioneer of the Hit Dem Folks style shows off with Swae Lee in tow to give the Illuminati seal of approval via pineapple dance.

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TORI | “Japanese elderly ladies in the 60s”

This video has been circulating facebook for a little bit, and I just wanted to take the time to point out that not only are these ladies from Japan dancing well, but very accurate to the origins of many contemporary hip hop street dances. Tori's solo popping is incredibly strong, and she has solo videos that stand out on their own. But getting the other two in the video to have a housing duet, and the suprise at the end of the video are really what sets this off.

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LES TWINS vs RUSH BALL

At the beginning of 2013, Baauer, TNGHT, RL Grime, and Salva were at the top of the instrumental hip hop game that had now taken over clubs, raves, radio, and pop music.  So it’s only fitting that these score a battle between the two of the top hip hop duos of all time.  Japan’s Rush Ball is one of the undisputed kings of an old school style of hip hop with inspiration from the 70′s and 80′s US East Coast.  Then we have Les Twins from France, the infamous kings of animation, storytelling, isolations, and self proclaimed new style hip hop.  This battle is a treasure and perfect snapshot of an era.

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REMOTE CONTROL

Remote Control is a subset of Dragon House, the best popping/animation/isloations group from Atlanta performing in front of the unifinished stadium for the Falcons. The crew is hitting their group sections much better with more interesting choreo, and Bryan CHIBI Gaynor continues to prove that scoliosis is no match for the best isolantist in the world.

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Katz

Katz from the Bay Area has been rolling with the Finger Circus crew and her skills have improved immensely since.  The “Double Digits” series with P-NUT (also on the Status Silver youtube channel) shows that she can go finger to finger with the best finger tutter in the game right now.  She shares a similar symmetrical style with P-NUT, but she completely outshines him in musicality and rhythm in this video.  Watch how easy and natural it is for her to switch between symmetry and asymmetry.  Katz is THE finger tutter to watch right now; I expect even more improvement in the future.

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HAVOC | BATTLEFEST

Havoc has been dancing at the NYC #Battlefest event since at least 2006 according to the oldest post on his facebook page.  Havoc’s animation and isolations have been massively influential on New York’s Flex dance scene. Ten years later and Havoc is still a monster in this Battlefest promo.  Major props to the editor that took footage that looks like a Yak Films one shot, and seems to cut perfectly with the end of Havoc’s combos.   True legend filmed by mature crew that keeps getting better.  This gets me hype.

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MEECHIE | MR HOT SPOT

THIS WAS IN DRAKE’S BACKYARD!!!

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MUFASA

HIP HOP.

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AKUMA DIVA

TRUE WAACKING LEGEND.  THE CONFIDENCE THAT ONLY A PRO COULD HAVE TO SLOW DOWN AS MUCH AS AKUMA DIVA DOES.  TRUE SPIRIT OF VOGUE.  WATCH THIS ONE ALL THE WAY THROUGH.

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ERA vs NARI

TURFING AND FINGER TUTTING LEGEND “ERA” OF FINGER CIRCUS BATTLES THE SONIC-FINGERS “NARI” OF DARK MATTER.  TURN HD ALL THE WAY ON AND FULLSCREEN THE MOST INCREDIBLE FINGER TUTTING BATTLE I’VE EVER SEEN.