TIGHT EYEZ KRUMPING WORKSHOP HHI 2012

The Original 2012 Report

That short report was written on the floor in Las Vegas during Hip Hop International’s 2012 championship week. It promised more on Tight Eyez “coming soon.” Fourteen years later, this update keeps that promise. It sets the workshop in its larger story: who Tight Eyez is, how krump began, and why a room of students learning from him in 2012 still matters to anyone who dances today.

Who Is Tight Eyez?

Tight Eyez is the dance name of Ceasare LaRon Willis, a Los Angeles dancer and actor. In the krump community he holds the rarest kind of standing: he is widely credited, together with his close friend Jo’Artis “Big Mijo” Ratti, as a creator of the dance itself. Krump teachers around the world still introduce the form that way. New York’s Brian “HallowDreamz” Henry, for example, lists “Mijo and Tight Eyez” as his inspirations in his teaching bios, and krump workshops from Sydney to Toronto describe the dance as created by the two men in South Central Los Angeles.

He is also a performer whose work reached far past the street sessions where krump began. He appeared as himself in David LaChapelle’s 2005 documentary Rize, in krump films that followed, and in later television and commercial work. In 2021, REVOLT described him as a “krumpographer,” a word that captures his double role as dancer and creator of movement.

How Krump Began: From Clowning to a New Language

Krump did not appear from nowhere. Its parent is clowning, the high-energy party style that Thomas “Tommy the Clown” Johnson started in Compton in 1992. Tommy the Clown performed at children’s parties and built crews of young dancers who painted their faces and battled each other. That gave kids in South Central a positive place to put their energy during a hard time for their neighborhoods.

By the early 2000s, a group of dancers who had come up around clowning wanted something rawer and more personal. Tight Eyez and Big Mijo are widely credited with pushing in that direction. The dance they shaped dropped the clown make-up and the party routines. In their place came chest pops, stomps, arm swings and an intensity that looks almost like a fight but is driven by release, not violence. Many in the community explain the name as “Kingdom Radically Uplifted Mighty Praise,” reflecting the faith that some of its founders brought to it. Others treat that phrase as a later backronym, and DMM presents it as one explanation the community uses, not a settled fact.

Like the punk rock of hip hop.

— Tight Eyez describing krump to NPR, June 2005

There is one more point every reader should know. Some early coverage blurred the two styles. In 2005, for example, NPR credited Tommy the Clown with starting krumping in 1992. Most dance histories and krump practitioners today separate them: clowning came first, and krump grew out of it. DMM follows that distinction and credits both lines: Tommy the Clown for clowning, and Tight Eyez and Big Mijo for krump.

Rize: When the World Found Krump

The turning point for krump’s global reach was Rize, the feature documentary by photographer David LaChapelle. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2005, where Lions Gate Films acquired it. It opened in U.S. theaters on June 24, 2005. The film followed clowning and krumping crews in Los Angeles, and Tight Eyez appears as himself, credited as Ceasare Willis.

For many dancers outside Los Angeles, Rize was their first sight of krump. Teachers abroad often date their own start to the years right after the film. The same year, a direct-to-video documentary, Styles of Krump, listed Tight Eyez in its cast, according to IMDb. Krump was no longer a neighborhood secret.

Hip Hop International 2012: Teaching the World

Seven years after Rize, Tight Eyez was on the teaching staff of Hip Hop International’s Urban Moves Dance Workshops in Las Vegas. HHI’s own recap of the 2012 week names him among the instructors, alongside Chachi of the 2011 America’s Best Dance Crew champions IaMmE and the French duo Les Twins. Parris Goebel, choreographer for New Zealand’s Royal Family, drew large crowds at the same workshops.

The setting matters. HHI’s 2012 championships drew national champions from a record 43 countries, and more than 6,000 spectators filled the Orleans Arena for the World Finals. That meant the students in a krump workshop that week could come from almost anywhere. A dance that started in South Central Los Angeles was being taught, by one of its creators, to a room that looked like the world. Dance Mogul Magazine was there, and our photographer caught him in the hallway holding a copy of DMM.

To understand why HHI became the gathering point for that kind of exchange, read our feature Hip Hop International: The Olympics of Street Dance.

Watch: Tight Eyez on Film

Career Timeline

Where Is Tight Eyez Now?

Tight Eyez has never fit the usual celebrity mold, and his recent public record is thinner than his influence. Here is what DMM could confirm, and what we could not.

His name still opens the history of the dance. In 2023, 2024 and 2025, krump teachers in New York, Ontario and Australia continued to name Tight Eyez and Big Mijo as the creators of the form in their own published bios and workshop listings. That is the clearest sign of where he stands: the next generation keeps telling his story in the first sentence of theirs.

His work reached the mainstream. In November 2021, REVOLT reported that a Hennessy ad featuring Tight Eyez performing his choreography had gone viral. Social media users even mistook him for the rapper Jeezy. That marked a long road from street sessions to a national ad campaign.

His lineage keeps growing. Krump now has its own world championship. The European Buck Session (EBS) Krump World Championship brought the global krump community to Düsseldorf, Germany, in September 2025. Dancers who trained under the Street Kingdom name, and younger artists who carry versions of his name, such as “Baby Tight Eyez” and “Jr Tight Eyez,” teach and compete across the U.S. and Europe.

What the Next Generation Should Learn

1. Your story can become a style. Krump started as young dancers expressing what they lived through. The form grew because it was honest, not because it was polished.

2. Know your roots, and name them. Clowning came first; krump grew from it. Crediting both Tommy the Clown and the krump founders correctly is part of respecting the culture.

3. Teaching is how a dance survives. A workshop like the one at HHI 2012 is how a style moves from one city to the whole world, one room of students at a time.

4. Energy needs direction. Krump turns anger and pressure into release and community. That is a life skill, not just a dance skill.

Why It Matters to DMM

Dance Mogul Magazine exists to document lived stories that help people become better versions of themselves. Krump is one of the clearest examples in modern dance: young people in a hard environment built something positive out of what they felt, and it spread across the planet. When we photographed Tight Eyez in a Las Vegas hallway in 2012, holding our magazine, we were recording a creator of that movement passing it on in person.

His story connects to others in our archive. Read how a new generation carries krump forward in our profile of Red Bull Dance Your Style champion J-Reamz, explore the roots of other forms in our Dance Styles Hub, and find more updated history in The DMM Archive and the DMM Video Vault.

Tight Eyez: Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Tight Eyez?

Tight Eyez is the dance name of Ceasare LaRon Willis, a Los Angeles dancer and actor who is widely credited, with Jo’Artis “Big Mijo” Ratti, as a creator of krump. He appeared as himself in the 2005 documentary Rize.

Who created krump?

Krump is widely credited to Tight Eyez and Big Mijo, who developed it in South Central Los Angeles in the early 2000s. It grew out of clowning, which Thomas “Tommy the Clown” Johnson started in Compton in 1992.

What is the difference between clowning and krump?

Clowning is the earlier party style built around Tommy the Clown’s crews, often with face paint and routines for audiences. Krump grew out of it in the early 2000s and is rawer and more personal, built on stomps, chest pops, arm swings and intense emotional release.

Was Tight Eyez in the movie Rize?

Yes. David LaChapelle’s documentary Rize, released by Lions Gate on June 24, 2005, credits Ceasare Willis as Tight Eyez, appearing as himself.

Did Tight Eyez teach at Hip Hop International?

Yes. Hip Hop International’s recap of its 2012 championships in Las Vegas names Tight Eyez among the instructors at its Urban Moves Dance Workshops. Dance Mogul Magazine covered his workshop that August.

What does KRUMP stand for?

Many in the community explain krump as “Kingdom Radically Uplifted Mighty Praise,” reflecting the faith some founders brought to the dance. Others see the phrase as a later backronym, so it is best described as one explanation the community uses.

The Story Continues

In 2012 we wrote that more on Tight Eyez was “coming soon.” This update is that promise kept, and it is not the final word. The best version of this story is the one Tight Eyez tells himself, and our door is open.

Until then, the proof of his impact is in every cypher where someone stomps, swings and lets it out, and in every krump teacher who begins their own bio with his name.

Sources & Further Viewing

© 2026 Dance Mogul Magazine LLC · From the Archive, Updated · A Black-owned dance and empowerment publication since 2010