“Fifteen years later I’m competing all over the world”
Originally I’m from the Bronx, New York. I’m a dancer. Growing up in the Bronx, in the ghettos, a lot of kids they didn’t have no way of getting out and showing any type of talent to the world. I started off dancing just with some community kids from the neighborhood who wanted to do better for themselves. Years went by, people started feeling like dancers were weak in the ghettos, you know what I’m saying, stuff like that. I was trying to create a future for myself. I want to be in Hollywood, you know, so I stuck with that. I kept to myself and just stayed with dancing. I was on So You Think You Can Dance, Street vs Stage and other couple of shows, commercials for Samsung. A lot of opportunities come from dancing.
Actually I just lost a friend a couple of weeks ago to a drive-by shooting. That rarely happens in New York. He’s someone I’ve known since my career and I’ve been dancing for 15 years. It kind of made me look back after that. Like if I wasn’t dancing where I would be. I probably would be in a jail or 6 feet under, you know what I mean, from just being in the neighborhood, even though you are a dancer. I was glad that I was able to get out, at the right time and make the right decisions to do what I’m doing and stay successful and positive.
I was into action figure toys. To be honest, my family is from the Caribbean so we didn’t have money growing up, before I started dancing and street performing. I was making toys where I was taking paper and making stick men. I would make them flip and do like breakdancing and stuff like that. I would just be doing that every day and then I would run off and practice. That was my toy, it was like being able to see something from a toy and then being able to do it in real life. That was the fun of having a toy, for me. I didn’t have certain opportunities other kids had growing up. I would make the stick man dance, then I would try it. I would do that everyday after school. My homework would be the last thing I would do. I would make sure that I would do that. Fifteen years later I’m competing all over the world.