First, the bad news - after dancing their Asian-American hearts out on a reality show, Kaba Modern was eliminated from MTV’s America’s Next Dance Crew this week. Here’s a performance of Kaba, Fysh N Chicks and JabbaWockeeZ - the eventual winner.
Phil from angryasianman brings up something that many people might be thinking:
Did Kaba and Jabba [another predominately Asian-American dance crew] fans somehow split the vote? Does it sound too bitter to suggest that the competition might’ve been rigged? Was it too much for MTV to have two Asian American-heavy crews at the top? It’s lame, but it’s a thought.
I’m bummed, obviously. As to whether the results were rigged, well, I don’t think so. The producers of the show like Kaba Modern, as evident by the fact that they used them to promote the show for a local morning news program in the LA area. If anything, it could be the curse of elimination-based talent shows on television - we live in a society where people vote for the underdog with the cool background story, with the assumption that other stronger contestants will have enough votes to remain in a competition, but get eliminated instead. (Remember the brouhaha years ago when Tamayra Gray or LaToya London were eliminated from American Idol? Like that.) That being said, I wouldn’t be surprised if MTV did go a little overboard with their editing, as per one YouTube commenter:
is it true that there is a video of the episode where jabba and kaba were in the bottom 2, and people were booing and yelling recount? but mtv edited it over as if they were cheering?
Apparently? Totally true.
At the end of the day though, Kaba Modern might not have won the competition on MTV, but they came out HUGE winners overall: They have international media attention, if you count E! as such. They actually gave UC Irvine some credibility*. Traffic from their web page has gotten so high that they had to post their audition results for their 2008 crew on their MySpace page. And if I were a betting man, I’d bet you that the number of people trying out for Kaba would increase next year, with more non-Asian Amercians trying out. A surge in popularity with your dance crew? That’s a pretty awesome consolation gift.
* Oh c’mon, I’m joking. I went to UC Davis; there’s a little bit of rivalry there.
Other posts you might be interested in:
Blog RSS Blog Comments RSS
8Asians.com » Kaba Modern on America’s Best Dance Crew: An Asian American/Asian Canadian Blog wrote:
[...] Final Update: Kaba Modern was eliminated this week. Was the race card played? [...]
Posted on 22-Mar-08 at 2:51 pm | Permalink
Giun Sun wrote:
Personally, I like JabbaWockeez the most, but I think it was somewhat early for Kaba Modern to leave. Phil brings up a good point that I didn’t think about…since Kaba and Jabba are (mostly) Asian groups, perhaps it may have split the vote. Kaba definitely left the show with a big bang though and are winners either way…just not in this how, lol.
Posted on 22-Mar-08 at 8:50 pm | Permalink
Efren wrote:
Dude, rivalry between Davis and Irvine??? Cows and anteaters?!
At least MY school has a badass mascot, the Highlanders (but he was known before as Scotty the Bear, in a f***in’ kilt, no less).
Posted on 22-Mar-08 at 10:00 pm | Permalink
bucky wrote:
I’m a big fan of Angry Asian Man’s website, but give me a break, let’s not play the race card for every little situation, especially when it’s just a reality show that really doesn’t matter compared to the important things in life. You start to lose credibility pretty quickly when you do that.
I’ve been a huge fan of ABDC, watching all the episodes. The judges have heavily favored Jabbawockeez and Kaba Modern in their comments. If it really were a conspiracy, they would’ve at least had the judges give the third team Status Quo some compliments. The judges basically totally dissed Status Quo last week.
As with any fan voting contest (all-star games, American Idol, etc), the results are very inconsistent and definitely do not have to correlate to performance. KM and Jabba are both from SoCal and mostly Asian American. Status Quo is from east coast and African American. It’s pretty likely that KM and Jabba had a very similar fan base, and split their votes. Mario Lopez said that Status Quo had a very slim lead, so the vote could have been SQ 35%, Jabba 33%, KM 32%. I predict that almost all of KM’s votes will go to Jabba, and they will annihilate SQ next week.
Posted on 23-Mar-08 at 12:29 am | Permalink
Xxxtine wrote:
^^ I agree with bucky. When I watched the first episode I could already see who would make it to the finals and actually had a discussion with Ernie that the other group that would knock them out of the competition would most likely be Status Quo.
In this case, I honestly don’t think ethnicity was EVER an issue, only statistics.
Posted on 23-Mar-08 at 7:58 am | Permalink
jun wrote:
i think kaba was too pure and too true to just “dance”.
Jaba and Status had the ability to make the crowd go wild, for example see when that dude in status qou got hurt and the next episode they did that crazy backflip off the stage. And in last weeks epidsode jaba went into the crowd and got them hype. Kaba prob danced as good or better than the other two teams but they lacked a little in showmanship. Sad to see them go though…
Posted on 23-Mar-08 at 6:55 pm | Permalink
CaliStunna wrote:
If there was a card played, it was the “COAST” card and not the Race card. I don’t think you could make a case that they didn’t want Asians in the finale because JABBA is made up of mostly Asians. It makes sense to have Status Quo (East Coast) vs Jabba (West Coast) for the finale because that’s where the Votes were coming from.
A lot of people also still go crazy over the tricks Status Quo does, even when it’s not even dancing. Kabba Modern was great in terms of working as a team, but I think people got bored of their routines. This is MTV, where every little thing is blown up so I can understand why Status Quo made it to the Top because they were simply more entertaining to some people. I also think it’s the same reason as to why Jabba got far, a lot of their routines were entertaining as well.
Oh ya, and Filipinos are Asian…not Pacific Islanders. Please stop with that bullshit because I can break down every reason as to why Filipinos are Asian. You are only enforcing stereotypes if you do not think so.
If you want to continue on this whole “ASIAN” vote, well check out Ramiele Malubay who also wants to be the first Asian American Idol. She is Filipino and has every right to claim “Asian” as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGOVAMWFjwE
Posted on 24-Mar-08 at 2:24 am | Permalink
Jason wrote:
It’s been clear for a while that Jabba is the best dance crew and Kaba is the second best on the show. Status Quo just got the most fan votes, even though they get out of sync pretty often and rely way to much on gymnastic tricks. That’s just the way it goes. Hopefully, things will work out properly and Jabba will win next week.
Posted on 24-Mar-08 at 10:22 am | Permalink
Barry wrote:
I don’t know how SQ got the most fan votes. Their last performance was …”average” comparing to Kaba or J…
Posted on 25-Mar-08 at 3:32 pm | Permalink
8Asians.com » Kristi Yamaguchi: Dancing with the Stars: An Asian American/Asian Canadian Blog wrote:
[...] know some of my fellow 8Asians writers like America’s Next Dance Crew…I know “hip hop” is popular, and break dancing is much more sexier and grittier [...]
Posted on 13-Apr-08 at 9:30 am | Permalink
DarkSouJah wrote:
1. Regarding :Final Update: Kaba Modern was eliminated this week. Was the race card played?
Yes.
“In this case, I honestly don’t think ethnicity was EVER an issue, only statistics.”
“If there was a card played, it was the “COAST” card and not the Race card. I don’t think you could make a case that they didn’t want Asians in the finale because JABBA is made up of mostly Asians. It makes sense to have Status Quo (East Coast) vs Jabba (West Coast) for the finale because that’s where the Votes were coming from.”
Are you saying racism does not exist in America - or you can say it in a ‘more positive’ way, people have excessive pride in their own race/culture/demographics? In terms of dancing ability, Jabbawockeez and Kaba Modern should have made it to the finals.
Note: This is a changing culture - asians are sparsely populated in North Central and South U.S. - If Status Quo was eliminated, there’d b an uproar amongst the African Americas. If Kaba was eliminated, there’d b an uproar amongst the Asians (which did happen). If Jabbawockeez was eliminated, hell would break loose for MTV/Viacom. They had to settle down on Jabbawockeez because they are a bit more well known - through Step It Up 2 and also for the fact that they have MIXED ethnicities - as in there’s various cultures - not only Asian (1 African American + R.I.P Gary). So yeah. - it’s been planned out…
2. Look at the mtv website: http://www.mtv.com/ontv/dyn/dance_crew/crews.jhtml
since day 1, the crews were placed in the order from winner-> loser - I won my bets =] - sadly though I wondered what they’d knock Kaba Modern for and what excuse they gave status quo to remain on stage. -> eventually the page will get shifted.
“Mario Lopez said that Status Quo had a very slim lead, so the vote could have been SQ 35%, Jabba 33%, KM 32%.” ——-> sorry dude, it was already set up.
3. MK Modern and Mobility =]. Go Ags! (Davis student also)
feel free to argue against me - email : dhmai2@yahoo.com
Posted on 15-Apr-08 at 2:43 pm | Permalink
asile wrote:
I watched this at the gym tonight, and I thought that Kaba Modern were 300% better than everyone else. But, maybe that’s just my taste. I was very surprised that they didn’t win since I thought it was obvious they were the best.
Posted on 15-Jun-08 at 4:20 pm | Permalink