History

## Origins

Mike Song had an obsession with Choreographed dance at a young age which ultimately led to him seeing Ben Chung for the first time at a dance event. Mike was really impressed by Ben's movements and techniques and would follow his journey til they eventually met at a dance event that Mike's sister had told him about. Mike would eventually meet him again in College in which Mike was pushed by Ben to join his former crew Kaba Modern, but eventually Ben would join the Jabbawockeez. The 2 crews battled against each other on the first season of America's Best Dance Crew where Kaba Modern placed third and Jabbawockeez won.

Jabbawockeez went to perform shows in Las Vegas after their victory which separated Mike and Ben.

In 2010, Mike Song would call on his friends to form a crew for an event. Anthony was also in this crew. This crew would eventually perform on a project known as ANBU Black Ops. The routine was heavily inspired by the Japanese anime series Naruto. After their event Anthony and Mike felt that this should not just be a one time thing. At this point the Kinjaz were born. However the crew was unsuccessful in its initial stages. Mike had grown mass fame doing performances around the world. It would not be til Ben joined the Kinjaz in 2014 that they began to see success. At this time Mike and Anthony really wanted to grow their brand so that they could dance full time as a career. They would later get wind of ABDC returning for season 8 where they would compete against past champions of the show.

## America's Best Dance Crew Season 8

Kinjaz competed on season 8 of ABDC, they were the only crew in that season who were not past champions making them the underdog of the competition.

Their first performance would be a dance to Chris Brown's Fine China. This was also their first television appearance.

This season also was the debut of one of their greatest performances to the song 'OG' by Troyboi where the crew used moving panels as props during their dance. A similar performance would later debut on NBC's world of dance to the song 'Change(KinjaBang)' by Troyboi.

The crew would eventually make it to the finals to face off against Super Cr3w and Quest Crew. They came in 2nd in the competition, losing to Quest Crew. The final round of ABDC season 8, the winning group would be decided by the viewers. However fans have speculated that there was viewer bias as popular youtuber and former judge of the TV series 'D-trix' was on Quest Crew. That D-trix had asked his fans to vote for his crew in the final round. D-trix would later admit that some of the moves were off in the final round and that some of it was edited to make it seem as if it wasn't in a reaction video on ABDC season 8. Kinjaz had ended their ABDC performance with 'I see fire' by Ed Sheeran which was choreographed by Anthony Lee.

## Kinjaz Dojo

After their defeat in ABDC the crew also amassed a lot of attention which meant more opportunities came their way. The crew would also gain more fans and supporters. In 2015 the crew would crowdfund their Kinjaz dojo via indiegogo, a dance school and also practice hall for the Kinjaz and its students. This was a milestone for the crew, prior to this they were teaching and practicing their dances at The Lab which was also a dance school who has recently been very active in sending their students into dance competitions.

$127,876 USD were raised with their goal only being $100,000 USD.

## NBC World Of Dance

One year after ABDC, Phil Garvin would inform the Kinjaz that Jennifer Lopez would be producing a dance show based off the idea of the World Of Dance Competition presented by Paul Mitchell. The Kinjaz would decide to compete this time with a larger group than what was seen on ABDC. 13 members would compete on the show. These 13 members were Anthony Lee, Mike Song(Kaba Modern), Ben Chung(Jabbawockeez), Vinh Nguyen, Pat Cruz, Jawn Ha(GRV, Mos Wanted Crew), Darren Wong, Bam Martin(GRV, Mos Wanted Crew, Boxcuttuhz), Tony Tran(Jabbawockeez, Kaba Modern), Mike Fal, Charles Nguyen(Poreotics), M-Pact and Vilin Lor. The competition would also feature Keone and Mari competing in the Uppers Division. Keone had originally been asked to join the crew however Keone felt that for his debut on a dance competition television show, he would want to do it with his wife if it were possible.

The crew auditioned for the show with their I see fire performance and also the Can't kill us performance for the producers. The producers had said that they wanted something similar to be shown in the competition. Anthony and Vinh would eventually recreate their dance to 'High For This' a cover by Ellie Goulding which had originally been choreographed by Anthony a long time ago prior to the show.

The Kinjaz would surprise the judges using panels as props for their performance to the song created for them known as Change (Kinjabang) by Troyboi. Derek Hough had said that the performance was the $1 Million routine they were looking for.

In the cut the group would perform to the song "No Limit" by Usher and grabbing a score that would crush Super Cr3w once again.

In the Divisional finals, a piece that represented the hard work and dedication by their parents. The piece had the message that alone reaching your goals would be difficult but together as one you can reach and grab your goals/ the sword. The Kinjaz would lose to Swing Latino in the divisional finals.

Fans have speculated that Jennifer Lopez was biased when it came to Les Twins and Swing Latino, for example in the divisional finals JLO would disapprove of Ne-yo's comment that the group felt a bit lackluster in their performance and say they were. However in the final scoring, JLO would give the exact same score of 90 to the Kinjaz which was the same score as Ne-yo's. Derek Hough was the only one to give a 95 to the Kinjaz and also the lowest score of the three to Swing Latino 94. Swing Latino had also worked with Jennifer Lopez in the past which adds more reason to believe that their was some bias when it came to deciding the scores in the divisional finals.