Jabbawockeez: 1st Season America’s Best Dance Crew Champions

I was watching our local version of a noontime variety show last Sunday and I just thought, okay not another bunch of dancing, singing and the like. Then suddenly, something caught my interest. 7 men, dressed in blue coveralls, wearing white masks and caps, were dancing a slow hip-hop song (I think the title was Apologize). And what a dance number! I can see a lot of their fans in the studio enjoying the dance and my curiosity got all fired out. What’s the name of their group? Where do they come from? Who are the members? Where do they perform? All these questions were racing through my mind. So I have to seek the answers, right?

Okay, first stop. The group’s name? Jabbawockeez. I know I’m late by like a year and a half in terms of knowing this group but for this Hubmob, I thought about writing a hub for them – mainly about the answers I sought. So without much further ado: the Jabbawockeez.

Jabbawockeez is an all-male dance group. The group hails from California. Their genre? Hip-hop. This group won the first season of the America’s Best Dance Crew in March 2008. There are 11 members of the group but only the original six members performed during the show. They were supposed to be seven but the seventh member, Gary Kendell, died shortly before they started performing in the show. Their win in the ABDC launched them to stardom and they haven’t looked back ever since.

To introduce them briefly, here are the six original members of this group:

Jeff “Phi” Nguyen – from Phoenix, Arizona. Residential address: LA, California. He’s a hip-hop instructor and a dancer, at the same time.

Rainen (or Rynan) “Kid Rainen” Paguio – Yep, this guy’s a Filipino (hence my interest in this group). He’s a professional dancer from San Diego, California.

Ben “B-tek” Chung – Also a dancer from Mission Hills, California

Kevin “Keibee” Brewer – the oldest member in the group. He is from Sacramento, California. He is a certified Apple Technician.

Phil “Swaggerboy” Tayag – the youngest among the members featured in this hub. Also from Sacramento, California, this one is another Filipino member of this group.

Chris “Cristyle” Gatdula – Another Filipino (the third one) who’s hometowns are Las Vegas, Nevada and San Diego, California.

The other members are:

Eddie “Eddie Styles” Gutierrez

Saso “Saso Fresh” Jimenez

Randy “DJ Wish One” Bernal

Joe “Emajoenation” Larot

Alvin Paul “Albenergizer” Saflor

The group has performed in various shows, commercials and music videos. They were featured in the commercials of Pepsi and Gatorade. They performed in the Ellen DeGeneres Show, Live with Regis and Kelly, MTV Movie Awards, MTV Asia Awards, and the NBA All-Star Game (2009 with Shaquille O’Neal). This is just to name a few. In 2009, the group was one of the front acts in the Full Service Tour of the reunited New Kids on the Block. The group also did a cameo appearance in the movie Step Up 2 the Streets (where Rynan Paguio was one of the dancers).

And that’s basically it. I seldom get impressed with dance groups (having two left feet, I just end up envying them) but for this one, I was really, really impressed (and that was before I knew that some of the members are Filipinos). I hope to add on to this hub in the future (like more information about the members). Shown below are just some of the videos I collected from YouTube. So for all of you Jabbawockeez fans out there, enjoy!