If I hadn't start crumping, I would be in jail for sure, or I would have got caught up in something that would have me killed very early in my life.
Cause I was around drama and violence, but dancing always kept me away just at the nick of time.
I didn't have friends, shot and killed.
People that used to crump in the DVD, shot and killed, shot in the head.
Golf, carrying the cell phone, looking at crump footage from the cell phone, so I might walk up and shoot him in the back.
Golf, this happens like that, so I know if I wasn't dancing, I wouldn't have had anything to keep me from the bad things.
I'm sure I would have felt victim to it.
So, jail or dead, that's where I would be.
It wouldn't be no tight eyes, no nothing, nothing.
And I know that's what's right.
Crump is all people have sometimes.
So, when they dance, that's all they have.
And if they don't feel like they delivered, or they did what they wanted to do, or you didn't feel it, you come down harming yourselves.
Like, man, this is all I have.
What stopped me from getting to that level?
They come back.
Actually, dancing is the most happy part of my life.
So, the facial expression, you see, you can't look pretty doing it because it takes a lot of power.
So, sometimes you're going to make a crazy face, but it's acceptable because people understand what it's taking to push it out.
And the more people can pull out of you, the more the help you get to your happy place.
You see what I'm saying?
Your crump round is your journey to your happy place, to that place only.
Yeah, I did it. I did something.
I'm here. Everybody knows me. Everybody loves me.
This is what I need.
Crump helps you get there.
So, we scream, we pull it out of you.
We let you know you see our faces, we're in your face.
Crazy faces, hats flying everywhere, people pulling on your shirt.
But it actually helps you go up.
What child doesn't want to feel that?
What family wouldn't put their child where they can feel something like that?
So, that's why crump is good because it's uplifting, it's always going up.
Yeah, it looks like it's angry, but that's only what you see on the outside.
But what's going on in here, we're actually happy about what we're doing.
It takes a lot of might and strength to be.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Every culture, every style of dance has its own, something they could call home.
EDS gave crump something we could call home.
It was the first time we could call home.
Everybody goes, fly from here, fly from there.
Train here to a bus there to a plane there.
Everybody flies just to come to this one place because it's gave crump a home.
And I think that's very important.
Now we have something we could call our own.
We don't got to go to another event and get a five-minute slot.
Hopefully we could dance.
Hopefully they like what we do, but maybe they will understand it.
Maybe they won't.
Maybe they will like it.
Maybe they won't.
That's something totally dedicated to what we do.
And it gives us an outlet to feel comfortable in what we do in a crump atmosphere.
You can dress crump because you're around crump people.
You can be crump because you're around crump people.
You can act crump because you're around crump people.
Your B-boy wouldn't know how to respond to that.
Your popper wouldn't know how to respond to that because he's a popper.
So that's the thing it gives us.
It gives us a lane to feel comfortable in.
That's what it's for.
My childhood was really insane.
Barely any good came out of my childhood life.
So I'm spending so much of my time trying to do things to cover over that darkness.
So crump, before the dance, before the thought even came, I was trying to make home.
I was trying to make home.
My grandmother was here.
My grandmother raised me.
My mom was on the street doing her thing.
My dad just left.
So my granny, she was of age trying to raise another young adult.
So I did what I could to take the load off of her.
But I came from home to where my grandfather was always drunk.
He was an alcoholic every single night.
I don't remember a night where he didn't drink.
And I had to go to school at 6 o'clock.
He would talk to me from 11 p.m. till 5 a.m. and I would get one hour of sleep.
And I couldn't apply myself in school.
And then mom comes back home, brothers are in the picture.
He's off somewhere in Georgia.
So we had to spend time away.
And then we end up not even knowing each other until crime.
He comes back, fights happen.
I get shot by my grandfather trying to protect my mom.
It's darkness.
So I had to find somewhere to go.
So I used to find friends, hang out with my friends and make up dance moves.
Go to dance class.
Even though it was considered gay to do ballet in LA.
It was pretty girls in there so I did it for the girls.
I had an excuse.
But after a while I started to like it.
And I started to try to use it.
I feel happier when I'm dancing.
When I'm at home, so I will stay later to rehearsals.
And when I needed to, they would build a set foot of plays that would do like the musicals.
I would just stay there.
Because I liked it better than home.
So I kind of grew up in the performance scene.
So when I'm crumped for me to put on that person, it's easy.
Because I always had to mask something.
I always had to cover something.
But what crump did, how it changed me.
Crump is actually me.
And I can finally show you who I am.
I can show you.
My name is Chez Ray LeRon Willis.
Before tight eyes, that's my name.
You can see him.
As well as tight eyes.
Because of crump.
And that's how I changed my life.
It made me, I'm comfortable showing you who I am.
I'm all the scars, I'm comfortable.
And I'm kind of happy about it.
And without that, I wouldn't be here.
