This where-are-they-now piece on Michael “Boogaloo Shrimp” Chambers made me smile. I loved watching him. I’m glad to hear he is up to great stuff.
Of course, cinema life and real life aren’t the same thing. In Breakin’, Turbo and his pal Ozone show off their skills at Venice Beach. While Chambers did spend time dancing by the ocean, his haunt was the Redondo Beach Pier. The South Bay teen would head to the Pier on weekends, where beachcombers watched as he pumped up his boombox and worked out a style he calls “liquid animation,” a mix of fluid movements and stop-motion-inspired poses. At the beach, Chambers could end up with $100 or more inside his tip bucket at the end of a performance. “That let me know that I could earn a living with my talent,” he says.
That he did. Chambers has worked on a lot of cool projects. He fondly recalls sharing his moves with both Michael and Marlon Jackson. He was also the basis for MC Skat Kat in Paula Abdul’s “Opposites Attract” video and choreographed Bart’s moves in the “Do the Bartman” video for The Simpsons. He even played the Urkelbot in Family Matters