If you've ever taken a New York subway,
chances are you've seen our next guest.
They are 10 dancers from the Bronx
whose videos are constantly going viral.
I said I wanted them here, but we
couldn't get a subway car all the way from New York,
so we built one.
Please welcome The Waffle Dance Crew.
[MUSIC - KID THE WHIZ, JOHN O & ARNSTAR, "JOHN O CLAP"]
(SINGING) Know what it's like just to roll with the crew.
Just to roll with the team.
Just to roll with WAFFLE.
Keep the [INAUDIBLE].
DJ, turn around and bring it back.
Get ready to dance and hit the John O clap.
We can do it like this.
We can do it like that.
Swing your arms left and right.
Hit the John O clap.
Yeah, hit the John O clap.
King Kongs even did it, as a fact,
but I got to let you know it's a John O clap.
Call me John O when I step up in that circle.
Killer moving and grooving, it's gonna hurt you.
We gonna dance all night, it's no curfew.
Spend around, knee drop, hit the clap, look cool.
Yeah, and don't forget the slow motion.
We gonna get the Whiz smile when they zoom close in.
100,000 plus every time that we posting.
World Star rise when we post it.
Hold up.
Wait a minute, everybody fall back.
John O, how y'all even make the John O clap.
Well first I went like this, then I went like that,
then I wiggled two times and I hit the John O clap.
DJ, turn around and bring it back.
Get ready to dance, and hit the John O clap.
You can do it like this, you can do it like that.
Swing your arms left and right for the John O clap.
Hit the John O clap.
Yeah, hit the John O clap.
King Kongs even did it, as a fact,
but I got to let you know that's a [INAUDIBLE] clap.
Creative culture.
Inner city.
Swag on a million.
B bop my ditty.
[INAUDIBLE] and we make it look pretty.
And we still cool to act silly.
Hit the nilly.
[APPLAUSE]
Woo!
Hi.
Hello.
Hi, hi.
Hello.
Hi.
How you doing, Ellen?
Hi.
How are you doing?
Nice to meet you.
Y'all are awesome.
Am I supposed to pass these around for everyone
to have something to say?
Yes.
All right.
Somebody in the back.
Thank you.
OK.
Y'all are awesome.
Let's start with the name.
Why do you call yourself WAFFLE?
First of all, Ellen, we would like
to thank you so much for having us here today.
We truly appreciate this moment so much.
I appreciate this moment.
Y'all are awesome.
I'd be stupid not to have you on.
All right.
So WAFFLE, where's this come from?
Well--
WAFFLE.
It's simple.
It stands for We Are Family For Life Entertainment.
It was inspired by Sister Sledge, "We Are Family."
(SINGING) We are family.
And you guys just heard it.
But yeah, so our founder, Andrew Saunders,
he just loved the song, so he put that.
And then the acronyms came, and we finished it off later.
For Life Entertainment kind of came, just running together
as a team.
I love that.
I didn't know it was based on that song.
I love that song.
I've loved that song for a long time.
All right, so how did you start dancing together, and then why
the subway?
Well, lifey is the dance style that we do.
And we all met each other through the [? lifey ?]
battle event.
And it would cost money to get inside the event.
And subway performance kind of, like,
brang us together to make money to even get inside the event.
And over time, we realized performing together
as a unit is better than competing with each other.
So we are family is like really something that's
important to us.
Being a family is important.
All right.
Seriously.
So you're on a subway, and when you start dancing,
how do people react when you appear?
When we first step on the subways,
it's like, people are confused.
What are these kids doing?
Like, they have a radio in their hand.
OK.
Some people suck on their teeth.
We have people smiling ear to ear,
like OK, I know what's about to happen.
But the tourists from around the world, they love it.
Yeah, because a lot of people know who y'all are--
Yes.
So they travel just to see you.
Yes.
Hoping you're going to be on a subway.
Exactly.
Do you announce which subway you're
going to be on so they know when to find you?
No.
You just show up on different subways?
Yeah, randomly.
Yeah.
And do you sometimes get off and not know where you are?
Or, I mean-- you go back to where you came from.
Yeah, basically.
We just go cart by cart.
We usually do like 40 carts a day.
Yeah.
Which is a lot.
Like, each cart is a minute.
Yeah.
But everybody's reactions is always the best,
because all we try to do is give them our great energy,
and positive, and we want them to come out smiling and--
Yeah.
Real happy.
You know?
What a great--
Sometimes people in New York city have a lot of trouble--
Yeah.
Or working all day and night sometimes.
We don't know what they're going through, but--
Exactly.
At the end of the day, we just want
to come across that we want you guys to have great energy.
Yeah.
What a great thing to do.
[INAUDIBLE] greatest move.
Hopefully you have a lot of hand sanitizer.
Those things got to be filthy.
Those rails--
All the time.
Those railings are filthy dirty.
So this saved a lot of you-- a lot of you
were saying that the dancing has saved your lives.
Right?
Yes.
Why is that?
Simply because, you know, coming from a big city like New York
City, there's a lot of dark spaces
that you can sucked into.
And coming from the inner city, I mean, just being blatant,
it's not easy.
So [? lifey ?] was kind of like a way.
It was pretty much our way of, kind
of, cultivating our own self, and making a voice for ourself,
and saying, hey, you know, we're not like everything
that everybody else is saying.
This is what we want to do, and we
want to change our lives through dance.
Yeah, very, very positive thing.
I would also like to add, because dancing really
saved my life, because there was a time and a point
where I stopped dancing, and I was like chilling
in my neighborhood.
And where I live, it's totally just a bad environment,
and I was held at gunpoint.
So for me to come back to dancing,
it really kept me away from that path,
and everything has just been great since I've been dancing.
Yeah.
That's great.
OK.
So what's the biggest tip you've gotten on the subway?
So yeah, the biggest tip I ever got was $50 to $100.
On a regular, we get singles, $5 bills, $20 bills.
$5,200?
What?
No, $50--
$50 bills--
Oh, $50 to $100 I was like $5,200?
Everybody's like, I'm going to start dancing on the subway.
So $100 is the most that you've gotten.
Yeah.
Yeah, and then sometimes--
And sometimes it's just singles and stuff.
All right, well I want to be the first to give you a tip.
OK?
And for the past few seasons, we've
been partnering with Walmart to bring smiles and help
people across the country live a better life.
So Walmart is committed to supporting communities.
And when they step in, they really make an impact,
so they want to give you $10,000.
All right?
So the bigger the hat, the more money.
All right.
Wow.
Are you kidding me?
Wow.
All right.
So that's a hat.
Can you bring this with you?
Is that going to be OK?
I would love for it.
Yeah.
So $10,000.
And I think, let's do another $10,000 as well.
All right.
This is $10,000.
But then, Andy, I want another $10,000, because this--
it looks like--
What?
All right.
Cha-ching.
Right.
Andy, let's do another $10,000.
[APPLAUSE]
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
Andy, one more $10,000.
[APPLAUSE]
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
Andy, you know what?
There's 10 of you right?
So let's do $100,000, so they each get $10,000.
[APPLAUSE]
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
Oh my god.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
The WAFFLE Dance Crew is going to perform one more time later
in this show.
We'll be back.