How did you become involved with street dancing?
It was really interesting, man. About 1978, it was a melting pot of cultures. the Asian nation was booming. Right now it's starting to resurface, but back then you had Samoans, you had Filipinos, and even had Cambodians. You had Blacks and a few Hispanics-not a lot of Hispanics-mainly the Blacks, Asians and Samoans. they were being bussed and moving down to the south Bay [beach communities south of L.A.]. They were bringing their influences from San Jose or San Francisco. Their style of poppin' was totally different from down here. One of my favorite styles was strutting, and Blue City Strutters-Danny, Paul, Ted, Jack and Charlie-they had a style that heavily influenced me. It was very much like martial arts, all th stuff that they would do, from the king tut to pyramid-style domino routines; that heavily influenced al the dancers in the South Bay. that's when the styles of poppin' started really, really getting fast.
I met Puppet at my high school. We met the first semester; we clicked and we started working out moves. We found that we were stronger [and could] take over our area if we just joined each other and didn't battle. I ended up discovering my group members by going to different cities like El Monte, Baldwin Park, Carson, even L.A. I fromed the Fancy Dancers based on each person's specialty. Like Puppet, every time he danced, he looked like a Puppet. From his fingers to his facial expressions, you now, to the sound that he would make. So I says, "Your name is Puppet." Another guy who I was hoping you guys would find is Cosmo. This huy was on of the best people who cold wave out there in the street dance world. He was Latino, and back then it was like, "On, all the Black dancers are good." Well, there were Mexicans and Asians better than Blacks, but a lot of those guys stopped dancing. But cosmo, I found him in Baldwin park. He was a member of another group called Showtime, but he seen that me, Puppet and a guy named Hector from New York, we were winning contests and making money. So he left his crew and joined ours. Around that time, that's when we'd just started taking over house parties. We didn't really come to L.A.; we stayed in San Fernando Valley, Granada Hills. I was actually 12 when I stred going around to different places. that's why they call me Shrimp-'cause I was a little bitty guy doing this grown-up style.
When Bruno and I became friends around 1980, we made a lot of people mad because Bruno liked my style and I liked his style. Now it L.A. style and the boogaloo style. We opened up a whole can of worms. the phone call came through while we were practicing one day, and Bruno said, "Hey, you know what? they're doing this commercial, you wanna do it?" I'm like, "Hey, anywhere to dance. I'll just go." it was a CBS commercial called "We Got the Touch." it was me, Bruno, Chain Reaction, Jazzy J and Anthony Thomas, who Choreographed [Janet Jackson's] "Rhythm Nation" [video]. After that first job, we got the buy. there was money. We didn't have to be at the clubs. the following year, Bruno met Shabba Doo. there was like a lot of different contests at this club called El Paso Cantina. Bruno was running in that circle, and I of course was 13, so he'd come and give me feedback, like, "Hey, I met this huy and they're doing this video and you need to meet him so we could work for him." And sure enough, Lionel Richie, in 1983, had a video [for a song] called "All Night Long." that was our first paying gig together as a group. Then, after that, videos just came because we were known as this group. It was me, Bruno, Shabba Doo, and of course my little sidekick Coco [Fidel Rodriguez]-that little boy-and Ana Sanchez [Lollipop]. Then Sugar Pop, Mr. Freeze...all these people started coming to L.A.
Marcel Marceau, the French mime, he legitimized miming by gestures and how he would paint a picture and tell a story. With poppin', you're tellin a story with a dance. And I would vividly try to capture my audience. But from all my knowledge and all my years of dnacing, I can't point [out] one group that made up poppin'. I don't care what anybody says. the closest guy I know that helped influence poppin' was Slim the Robot from the original Lockers. He was robotting back then, and then you had Shields and Yarnell [mines with their own 70's TV show]. But poppin' is not just one style. It has these different moves: the floating, the poppin', the tickin', and every culture had their influence. I got a chance to be exposed to all these different styles, and I came up with animation. I started defining that style as my style because I would watch cartoons. Bugs Bunny, Monster movies, Clash of the Titans-if you look at my style, the only thing that you can compare it to is those movies. Stop -motion characters-that was my style. I got into this thing where I wanted to be an alien. When you pop, you become this thing. You go to another planet. A lot of guys concentrate on the moves, but I would be more mental. I was heavily influenced by Boppin' Andre and Tickin' Dave from Feemont High Schooll, and another guy named Triplet. they were basically doin' robot style, but it was speed-up.
I think poppin' became a part of Hip-Hop officially when the movies and breakdancing came out. Breakdancing, in the media's eyes, was so big that they threw poppin' in there as a form of dancing to this style of music, but we always had funk music of the 70's. I don't think the media really knew how to harness or define this culture that was coming up in L.A. The catalyst was New York-this "yo," "fresh" and the Kangol and the gold chains and the big sneakers. New York was more flamboyant then L.A.
I think it was a matter of mismanagement, because there were a lot of huys that were working, but some people maybe partied too hard or they wouldn't really take the business side serious. You have all these great dancers out there, but a lot of them were going to clubs just to battle and prove that [they're] the best dancer-but you didn't make any money off of proving how good you were.