Tiny Toones | Tuy K.K. Sobil | Breakdancing Activism

Cambodia’s Tiny Toones founder Tuy K.K SobilTuy ‘K.K.’ Sobil, a onetime member of the Long Beach Crips, whose amazing breakdancing skills serve him well as a role model for Cambodia’s kids. We should mention that K.K. didn’t go to Cambodia willingly, but was deported from the US in 2004 after serving eight years in prison for armed robbery.

We meet up with K.K. — short for Krazy Kat — as an adoptive parent worrying that his 5-year-old son, Unique, won’t eat his vegetables. 

A quick Google search doesn’t put K.K. and Sokvannara Sar on the same dance stage, but we have no doubt they will meet in the future. Dancing in and out of Cambodia was the subject of our March review Bass | Sar’s Two Step in ‘Dancing Across Borders’.  

Sar has transitioned into a new life of classical ballet without leaving his old roots behind.

In fact, K.K.’s kids are a perfect project for Anne Bass and friends. We find Bass multi-dimensional and believe she could go for a little breakdancing — only as an observer, of course.  Then again, Anne Bass has stayed in marvelous shape … 

Break-dancing for Change

Using his legendary breakdancing background, K.K. tries to achieve in Cambodia what’s probably impossible in Long Beach.  In Cambodia, 32-year-old K.K. is determined to keep thousands (money is required here) of street children from making the same mistakes he did. 

Don’t think that K.K. breakdanced his way out of jail and into Cambodia. Reality is that he hadn’t break-danced since age 13. It was Cambodia’s street urchins showing up at his doorstep that prompted him to break a few moves. 

Before long, he left his job at Korsang, a nonprofit drug treatment center, to start the Tiny Toones youth center, housed in a run-down building with surging electricity, rats and leaking walls. Poverty, gangs, drugs and family abuse, a legacy of decades of war and dysfunctional government, left thousands of orphans and street children badly in need of help.

Although rapping, break dancing, beat boxing and deejaying — and K.K. — are the center’s trademark, its real mission is to empower youngsters, help them kick drugs and teach basic language, arts and computer skills.  via the LATimes Brand X

We don’t have a tidy ending to this 21st century Tiny Toones story. K.K. insists he was innocent in his US conviction, but doesn’t spend time making excuses about his past life. He’s increasingly worried about his role as peacemaker in Cambodia, where the police are slow to respond to disputes and gang life proliferates. 

Simply stated, we like this high-cred story about a former US gang member gone solid citizen, even if we didn’t want his butt in America. Perhaps tough love has worked in this case. 

We’re establishing a small group of projects that we can hug tighter on a long-term basis, than Vanessa Woods embraces her bonobos. 

The Tiny Toones Facebook page is here. We want to know them a lot better. So should you. Anne

Breakdancing, Phnom Penh-Style

Tiny Toones FULL PROMO-Part 1

More reading: Bass | Sar’s Two Step in ‘Dancing Across Borders’