entertaining for everybody. MIKE SONG This is a unique experience for me because I feel

like I m doing something that I normally do, but pairing it with him kind of just changes

everything. I definitely want the viewers to just, after watching it, to know that that's

something they've never seen before. MIKE TOMPKINS I'm excited to just to to get going.

MIKE SONG My name is Mike and I am a dancer choreographer. I guess if you had to narrow

it down to where I get my inspiration from, you wouldn't be able to actually. You wouldn't

be able to narrow it down (LAUGHS). The best inspiration just comes from the most

unexpected places. I've been inspired by things like cartoons, anime, sports, video games,

a lot of nerdy things actually. Like video games and cartoons have been a huge inspiration

to my my dancing. I'm obsessed with these things and dance is just my way to channel

these inspirations in the only way that I know how to channel it out. MIKE TOMPKINS

(SINGS) My name is Mike Tompkins. I am a acapella musician slash video artist. At this

point I've been making cover songs and my goal has been to kind of make these songs

sound as close to the original songs with no instruments, just using my voice, mouth,

hands, chest, whatever. (SINGS) I was eight when I heard my brother beat boxing for the

first time. I thought it was really cool and I started doing it and then I would I was

really into Lego as a kids so I would I would be building Lego and like beat boxing and

it was like literally hours of building Lego and beat boxing. And for some reason it just

that was what I did. The first song I ever did was Party in the USA, Miley Cyrus' song

and to me it was like I had this idea to to make these songs with just my voice and

my mouth. It really wasn't supposed to be a song, cause it was like a song. It was supposed

to be like one video and I was like this this will be funny and see if my friends like it.

It was supposed to be more or less just a joke. But after that it started to kind

of like pick up speed and people were like, people who weren't my friends were really

really liking it and ah (about) my fourth video (in) it went viral. MIKE SONG When I

found out that I was being paired with Mike Tompkins, I looked him up and I was I was

blown away, first off. I'd never seen anything like that. I'd never seen, I've heard of beat

boxers but I never heard beat boxers I guess compile songs to that much detail and sing

them. That was something that really stood out to me. He literally labels it, he goes

like snare (SOUND EFFECT) you know. He's doing the bass (SOUND EFFECT) you know. And that's

kind of exactly what I do with dance. I wanna just be like a iTunes visualizer and

and show what the music looks like and, so that even if you heard the song I would be

able to show you hey, this is the this is the cymbal, this is the snare, this is the

melody of the piano. And he's doing the exact same thing actually. MIKE TOMPKINS Mike Song,

I saw one of his videos, it was him doing this dance to this Nintendo thing and I was

freaking out when I saw it. He just has such a cool, unique style that I've never really

seen in anybody before. Working with Mike Song will definitely inspire me and and I

hope working with me inspires him. MIKE TOMPKINS Dude [What s up, man?] MIKE SONG [What s up,

man?] How are you dude? MIKE TOMPKINS Nice to meet you, man. MIKE SONG Yeah, likewise

brother. MIKE TOMPKINS Yes, I'm a big fan. [You you do great stuff.] MIKE SONG [Oh, likewise,

man. Totally bro.] MIKE TOMPKINS I saw, a while ago I saw your Nintendo ah thing that

did. MIKE SONG [Ah you did] MIKE TOMPKINS [That was so dope.] MIKE SONG [Oh dude (UNINTELLIGIBLE)]

MIKE TOMPKINS I was freaking out when I saw you, you were doing this thing. And I was

like, this kid is crazy. MIKE SONG Word. Yeah, likewise, dude, I've been looking at a bunch

of your videos, man. I saw your performance on Ellen. MIKE TOMPKINS Thanks, yeah. MIKE

SONG That was crazy. All your videos were pretty, I'm just tripped out by the fact that

you can just do the whole song by yourself. I've never seen that before. MIKE TOMPKINS

So you do like, I was watching some of your videos and you like a lot of like Dubstep

stuff [and stuff.] MIKE SONG [Yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah.] MIKE TOMPKINS That s crazy. I've

never done Dubstep before. MIKE SONG Yeah. MIKE TOMPKINS So ah, but I've really

wanted to start getting into Dubstep. MIKE SONG Dope, man. MIKE TOMPKINS I kinda have

this idea, ah where um this song kind of like starts off kind of like chill and like smooth.

I ll play it here [for you and see what you, see what you think.] MIKE SONG [Ah dope, man.]

MIKE TOMPKINS I saw his one video and it had ah, it was kind of like a chill beginning

and then it would just like bust out in this crazy like Dubstep stuff and he was going

wild. So I kinda had that in my head as I was making the song. So um when I presented

it to him I just kind of explained and this is what my my thoughts were when I was creating

this song. I had, I was creating this song with you in mind. MIKE SONG Wooooh. When I

first head the song, you know in the beginning it was really chill. Vocals come in, I m like

okay, this is nice, you know. And then right when it gets to the drop and he started

throwing out all the (SINGS), that sounds like dope. Ooooh, ahhh. Dude, that was dope,

man. MIKE TOMPKINS Can you do something with that? MIKE SONG Hell yeah. Hey I m excited.

So now we just gotta put together a co-lab performance. MIKE TOMPKINS Yeah. He went into

explain his like his idea, which was like completely something that I never really even

thought about. MIKE SONG I'm like the cartoon guy going inside, if I had to like go inside

the screen and I'm like trapped inside, there s like a different plane. I'm on the base,

you know I'm like going through. MIKE TOMPKINS That s awesome. MIKE SONG And it's like you're

like recording your voice into it or something I guess. MIKE TOMPKINS Yeah. He's like I wanna

layer myself too. So it's like I'm walking and I'm kind of like going through like almost

like different portals, different space, which I thought was crazy. I would never have

even thought about that. MIKE SONG I could even just like break through the wall once

and it's like MIKE TOMPKINS [Yeah, yeah yeah yeah.] MIKE SONG cause it feels like that

the most, you know. MIKE TOMPKINS Just smash through, yeah yeah. MIKE SONG Just like aghhh

(SOUND EFFECTS) and they just [come alive. Boom, and just melts me kind of a feel.] MIKE

TOMPKINS [Yeah, yeah.] MIKE SONG Through the shapes is like open up, what s that, oh my

gosh, the beat kicks in. MIKE TOMPKINS That's dope. MIKE SONG Then I m like oooh, there

s a beat to play with, you know. MIKE TOMPKINS Yeah. MIKE SONG And then once I'm like chillin

with this, there s a ooh, what s that one? And this can be like the biggest one. MIKE

TOMPKINS Yes. MIKE SONG The first moment that I recognized male dancing to be cool, it was

an episode of 90210 when David Silver, it was at a spring dance and David Silver

did just splits at the dance. And I just remembered thinking to myself, I didn't tell my sisters

or anybody, I just thought that was pretty cool. And every since then that was when

I started thinking oh guys, it s cool if guys dance too. I did a routine with my friends

in high school and that was the first time my parents had ever seen me perform. Wooooh.

To get that moment of approval from my parents was a pivotal moment in my life. MIKE TOMPKINS

(SINGS) I go through times where I am just creatively like dry, I guess like that's the

only way I can really explain it as. Um it's tough. It s probably the hardest times of

my life really to to go through. You know I don t feel like I can do what I love to

do most. Even today I still kind of struggle with confidence in in my own you know singing

ability or producing ability or whatever. I think anybody creative you know struggles

with with confidence issues. MIKE SONG I'm the weird one of the crowd and Mike Tompkins is

the weird one of the crowd and it's kind of like two odd balls of their respective worlds

coming together to make a super odd ball performance. (TOMPKINS AND SONG DANCING) MIKE SONG Fun.

MIKE TOMPKINS That was good. Let s do it. MIKE SONG Yeah. MIKE TOMPKINS Let's go. MIKE TOMPKINS

The thing that excites me the most about this upcoming performance is just the energy I

know is is gonna be there. Having Mike alongside with me on stage, it's gonna give me energy

and I hope that I give him energy. I'm really excited about the next steps forward. MIKE

SONG Ten years ago I would've never have imagined to be sitting here and be working on a collaborative

performance hand in hand with a musician. MIKE TOMPKINS Mike s whole vibe really like

just influenced the song in in a huge way, you know he has such a unique style. Connecting

with Mike was just something that really inspired a unique style of music for me, a new thing

that I've never really done before. I feel like this experience has really taken me out

of a period in my life where I've kind of like felt a little uninspired and I'm just

really excited to to move forward. MIKE SONG I think it's awesome that this show is creating

a platform for dancers to be showcased as artists as opposed to being an accessory to

an artist. Because all my life my vision of a dancer was just the highest point that could

be reached would be to be behind an behind another artist, which is cool too, but it's

just, you know in my mind I had just never even though of a the dancer being at the forefront.

The journey to become one.