Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing with Feo Duncan and Candace Hinton Back
Oct 3, 2012
By Tracey Bivens
I have put my fingers back on the keyboard to conduct a series of interviews with winners from this year's WLSC 2012. Since 2004, this couple has paraded across stage after stage, dance floor after dance floor, competing with some of the best performing steppers out there. They have both had their share of ups and downs as it relates to steppin but I consider this an up moment and I am very proud to have this opportunity to represent the Michigan glove and two of its most prominent fingers. Here they are…the 2012 WLSC 1st place New School winners…Feo Duncan and Candace Hinton.
Tracey: Feo…let me ask you this. I’ve looked back at some of the old interviews I’ve done with you and Candace. The bulk of the interviews have consisted of how people saw you two as stepper since 2004 and how they felt you could improve your steppin.’ Now that it’s all said and done and you have a1st place win in 2012…how do you feel about what all those people said?
Feo: Well I have agreed with most of what they were saying. I… myself… like us all, take from what others say we think or what we think. I just over did it. I’m an all-out type of guy so when something’s not working for me or I see good reason to try and fix it… then I will do all I can. So what they told me was VERY important but my perception of reality from what they gave was misrepresented. It was me…not them that was the problem.
Tracey: What would you tell the Feo and Candace back in the WLSC 2004 beginners contest if you could go back in time? What type of advice would you give those two kids?
Feo: I would tell them to slow down smooth it out and with all the information that will be giving to you good and bad the most important thing is to remain you take the advice and use it as and add not to make new. As I told Ed… no matter what myself Keesha, Drew, Sherry, Candace and others tell you… it is important that you take it without losing who you are in it. Because I lost myself trying to show and be what everyone was telling me. Trying to WIN that one contest. I removed myself and became a host of others’ thoughts of what I should be doing in order to win.
Candace- Yeah I would say slow down. Waaaaaay down. (Laughing) But outside of that… enjoy the ride to come. I don't think I would change to much though cause I don't think our dance would be the same without the good and bad feed back and moments.
Tracey: What do you think you both did differently this year to secure your win?
Feo: Well I really don’t know. To be honest… the only thing I did was stop caring…stop trying to be what I thought everyone wanted. At the blackout while dancing with Tykmyn, Charnice and Darrel Davis… Tyk pulled me to the side and said, "You got it but the most important thing you got to start having fun”. That shit blew my mind. Cuz I thought I was…(Laughing).
Candace - For me I think it was me not worrying about doing or not doing what everyone else expects from us. That's just toooo much pressure. (Laughing) And WE went back to just flat out having fun. I think that for a min it was either Feo had fun or I had fun but it wasn't to many times of US having fun together. This was the first contest in a while that my heart wasn't racing halfway through our dancing or after we danced. Now before the contest I was back at the Step On Unlimited table and my heart was running laps around the building. (Laughing)
Tracey: Who was your biggest competition? The two of you or the fictitious rivalry between other contestants that the public set up?
Feo: (Laughing)…competition…ha…it was myself and her. To me… trying to stay with them dayum girls and just turn me into with since Jeff’s I LOVE STEPPIN party…that is when the change began. Cheena, Keesha, Candace all dance different all make me have to do different things to get what I want from them and still where it's inside of their time and their comfort. They make me lead in all kinda different ways and I MEAN LEAD all of it…everything or they do nothing and it has helped in leaps and bounds. But the music was the BIGGEST way they helped me regain my ear for the music because it was stripped from me when learning 123,456,78. No one… when we started…taught us anything about the music. It was numbers. This came natural to them but I'm a guy and hard headed at that so I needed one thing or I needed for it to be taught to me…one in the same. No one ever said how to dance. They just told you to dance. Until Donnie spoke to me about it at Mr. Ice Ray house in the basement. He said, "How can there be dance with no music?” Which is simple for some but that statement was very complex to me and made me go back and look at how they dance before our time and not look at the watered down bullshit that I see by the masses on a week to week basis. From there…what Tyk an Charnice said started to make more since. .So when the "GIRLS"… the big three… brought it to me, I then began to understand the rhythm and the flow and whose it was, how to take it… but put it back… speed it up and slow it down. From there… it was the only other thang that I hadn’t gotten that I needed that change the entire dance for me. So for the last six months… and the real difference makers in my dance completion… were those women. Without them… I'd still be searching for me. What they gave me allowed me to find myself and thus… my interpretation of the dance as I see and feel it.
Candace: My biggest competition was Candace. My daddy taught us in martial arts that we can't worry about the 6'6 275 pound fighter. You start thinking about what he/she can do you tend to lose focus on what you are capable of doing.
Tracey: Did you two do your best dance or did the other contestants come unprepared?
Feo: Our best dance? I don’t think so whether they were unprepared… I don’t know. I had fun that is all and she (Candace) didn’t have an attack like she usually do so whatever we did was the right seasoning for the food the judges ate.
Candace - I can't say it’s our best. I can say it’s not our worst. (Laughing) I think that we had real deal fun and did our perception of dance and it worked out.
Tracey: Candace…I remember when Chicago women used to tell you to slow down your dance and change your style of dance to a more smooth and relaxed style of steppin. Yet…I see more energetic women competing and winning. How do you feel about drastically changing your style to the way you dance now?
Candace: I think that it was a good change especially considering you can't pay me to watch a lot of our earlier steppin' footage. LOL. But any change that I made based on what someone pointing it out I had to see the good or bad in it to keep or remove it from my dance. They said slow down… then I saw 2004 WLSC DVD and was like, "yep Fa sho, Fa sho gotta slow that mess dooooown.” (Laughing) I think that my dance fits who I am and is still changing and their dance fits them and either dance can win depending on the night and what the judges want to see.
Tracey: Feo…you were clearly humbled by your win and chose to dedicate the win to Tyk Myn who was not able to compete this year. What’s behind the dedication?
Feo: He’s really been everything to me far as the dance goes always teaching me not charging me. I pay him anyway. We have talked for hours about the dance and what it really is, how it’s really done, what I should be doing, what the most important thing for me… he’s the reason I lost ALL my confidence since 2006. He’s one of the main reasons I got it all back in 2012. He always been real with me with what I need more of when I need less…when he thought what I did was good…when I didn’t. He’s like my father figure over the DANCE as a whole but he’s the cool dad… (Laughing).. My mom on the other hand…she not about that mess… (Laughing). love you Neicy!!!
Tracey: Candace…were those tears of joy, tears of "whew…finally!”…what made those tears fall Saturday night?
Candace: Dang so everyone could see that huh? Smh. (Laughing) Dem wasn't tears my eyes was leaking first of all. (Laughing).. No, umm I think it was a lot of things. Since 2004 people told us they wasn't going to let us win, I've had people ask why we kept doin it saying we should give it up, oh and did I mention they said we wasn't going to win? I hate for someone to tell me what I can't do. So it was whew finally, joy, allllll those that talked messed could shut up, don't tell me what I can or can't do and one of my best friends recently lost her mom and her dad last year. Her losing her mom a few weeks ago just really was a eye opener to embrace every moment you have with your parent or loved one cause one moment everything was looking good then she was gone, so I was happy that my daddy was able to be there for something that I already know he’s proud of me for and he got me into. He had came to so many Worlds Largest and we lost. So yeah....... lol.
Tracey: Now that this win has occurred, will the nation be able to see you two at Michigan events like the Detroit White Party?
Feo : HELL NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! to the white party.
Candace - Tracey........... (you know me and can see the face) (Laughing).
But you will see me at Michigan events.
Tracey: People often say when you secure a major when, you should pass the torch? Are you both going to sit back next year and let others compete or go out on top with your 1st place win?
Feo: Loser say that one win is luck hell…you can knock a fly out the sky with a rock at least once but to do it again or even again that is something. I want to be a winner… hell anyone can win once but will you have or do you have it to do it again. So yeah I won’t be sitting down for some time.
Candace - Nope not sitting down unless I have to get some work done to my knee that don't allow me to dance by contest time.
Tracey: Now that the WLSC has out of towners dominating all categories, what categories should be added and which ones should be taken out?
Feo: I don’t know. We can’t say the out of towners are dominating. Detroit alone dominated this year but what’s to say they can do it again next year? Or the year after? You have to be consistent to claim this thing. Tyk, Maurice, West Side, Dre…those guys can say that cuz they did for years not just once so until the out of towners and myself can do that this was just one drop of water in a OCEAN. You see how they came for Drew? When we can bring all of them out like that… then you’re dominating. Drew was doing that in walking not once but twice with two different women. They came for him. He has a target on his back not only from me but from them…so hell I’m trying to help him get one off his and have them come for us both. There is always strength in numbers. (Laughing) So lets get to work if yall wanna say we dominating we got lots of work to do.
Candace: I think the categories are fine the way they are. And one thing I want to say about the whole domination thing. I am very proud of and proud to be one of the out of towners that won. Like Feo said…it has to be consistent to say dominating, but dominating ain't never been what it was about for me. It was always about gaining respect that someone that's not from the Chi can do it like the Chi learning on numbers, 8 counts, whatever count cause to me at the end of the day it ain't always where you live but what you gonna put into this dance to get it.
Feo and Candace created history September 29, 2012 and anytime history is made…a legacy is born. This couple has proven that time and perseverance can help you to grow into a role model for future steppers and pave the way for unlimited workshops/privates. Feo and Candace proved to 50 countries that a couple from Flint could stand from underneath Detroit’s shadow and can finally stand in their own spotlight.
