Mumbai based hip hop crew The Kings was recently crowned World Champions at the World of Dance competition which was held in Los Angeles. This was a moment of pride for India as no other dance crew has been able to achieve this kind of success at an international level.
They were also the first Indian group to win a medal at the World Hip Hop Dance Championship held in San Diego, California.
The Varun Dhawan starrer ABCD 2 directed by Remo D’souza was based on the life of The Kings’ choreographer and mentor Suresh Mukund, and his journey to reach the championship in San Diego. However, after the release of the movie, his partner Vernon Monteiro left the crew and the group split.
The Quint caught up with Suresh and a few members of the dance crew. On how they felt when they heard their name announced as champions, they said:
“It was an amazing feeling. When our name was going to be announced, we knew that once it was announced, our life was going to change. We went into a flashback of all the struggles and pain it took to make it so far.”Suresh Mukund and Shijin Ramesh
In a country like India where people care so much about societal expectations, dance is quite an unconventional career option. When we asked them how they coped with this constant pressure, theyhad this to say.
“Parents, of course, were against it. None of the parents were supportive initially but after the reality shows came into the picture in India, we started doing few reality shows. We won Boogie Woogie, we won Entertainment Ke Liye Kuch Bhi Karega, we won India’s Got Talent. Over time, they started understanding that these people want to pursue a career in this so they started supporting.”Suresh Mukund
The Kings received a prize money of US $1 million. When asked about what they would do with that money, they said:
“Obviously, we are going to fulfil our dreams. Each and every individual member, almost 80-90% of them had a dream of buying houses and many other dreams but buying a house was one of the important dreams.”Shijin Ramesh
The Kings are planning a world tour and will also be conducting international dance workshops in the coming future.
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