Detroit’s ‘King of Hip Roll’ finds his way among Hollywood elite

As a shy, introverted kid, Sebastian “Bash” Johnson danced in the comfort of his grandmother’s basement on Detroit’s west side.

Now the dancer and choreographer is putting his stamp on Hollywood, performing alongside megastars like Mariah Carey and Kanye West and as a film dance double for Marlon Wayans. 

Johnson, a self-proclaimed foodie, is also building momentum in Los Angeles with the startup catering business “Dash of Bash,” which serves celebrities like Tamar Braxton and Kimora Lee Simmons.

Before Tinseltown, Johnson cultivated his passion for dance and cooking in Detroit, where he embraced the traditions of family and ran the streets with his clique. The Cristal Boyz were a force to be reckoned with in the city’s teen dance battle scene in the mid-2000s.

“I was active in the streets,” Johnson told BridgeDetroit. “Everybody was cliqued up. You had Gutta Squad, The Fresh Boyz, The 100 Doughboys, Dough Girls, The Franchise Boyz, The Franchise Girlz, The Original Ladies 100, Soldier Boyz, Soldier Girlz, Sweet Tech. It was an era.”

The groups faced off at teen parties, including those organized by Lamont Leak’s “Monty Mont Productions,” and Decarlos “Kool-Aid,” Knighten’s “The Rec Teen Club.” 

Knighten, who hosted battles at venues like Saint Andrew’s Hall, the Northwest Activities Center, and The River Rock, said his parties served as a springboard for Detroit rappers like Kash Doll and Tee Grizzley, and R&B singer and former Cristal Boy, Detroit Zeus.  

At “The Rec,” Johnson, known for his innovation, showmanship, and bodacious confidence that bordered the line of cockiness, was a shining star. Knighten said Johnson could do it all, but his calling card was the hip roll.  

“He could tick and water wave with his hip roll, and he had this chopping move where he would chop right, chop left, and chop right, going side-to-side while hip rolling,” Knighten told BridgeDetroit. “He had this move where he’d form his body like the letter S. He had this other move where he’d be running in place real fast while hip rolling, then he’d drop down – it was sweet.” 

Johnson first won The Rec’s 24/7 Hip Roll championship, a title he defended on the spot at parties whenever challenged by a hopeful competitor. He was later crowned “The King of Hip Roll.”

“Sebastian wasn’t losing those titles. All people could do was wait until he aged out,” Knighten said. 

But not everyone was willing to wait. Before one battle at the Liberian Hall off Puritan Ave and Schafer Hwy, somebody scratched up the music CD Johnson had been rehearsing with for the past two weeks. He was forced to freestyle, but he incorporated the skips in the music caused by the scratches into his performance. This earned him a standing ovation – or “house” as it’s called in the dance world – and the victory.

“I was like, ‘Yeah, y’all was hating on me and I still won. What do y’all gotta say now?’” Johnson remembered. “I was definitely popping my shit.”   

That supreme confidence that oozed out of Johnson at these battles was something he developed over time through dance.

Becoming ‘Bash’ 

Dancing runs in Johnson’s family. Before he was born, his mother attended the now-defunct Toni’s School of Dance Arts on Detroit’s west side, racked up awards, and taught jazz dance, tap dance, and ballet.

“She could’ve really taken it there on a Paula Abdul level,” Johnson said. “In Detroit, there’s a lot of lost talent. Sometimes we get stuck in the streets, and she got stuck in that.”

He spent parts of his childhood living with his grandma. He believes his mother’s talent was passed down through genetics, but he taught himself how to dance as a child, copying moves from the Michael Jackson “Moonwalker” film and “The New Dance Show,” the Detroit version of “Soul Train” that aired locally in the 90s.

When he wasn’t dancing in his grandma’s basement, he was in the kitchen helping her cook. Every weekend, she took him grocery shopping at Eastern Market. One of his first words as a toddler was “cook, cook,” which became his family nickname. 

“I used to want pots and pans for Christmas,” Johnson said. “Not the toys – I’m talking the real pots and pans that I used to see on the infomercials. And I was three or four years old.”

His grandma kept him busy with extracurricular activities with the Detroit Area Pre-College Engineering Program (DAPCEP) and the Reggie McKenzie Foundation. These helped him break out of his shell as he made new friends, but still, he remained too shy to dance in public. 

That changed during his sophomore year in high school when he transferred to Southfield-Lathrup High School just weeks before homecoming. He went to the dance as an unknown and remembers standing around, watching everyone else have fun when the DJ spun one of his favorite ghettotech dance tracks. It could’ve been the “Godzilla” remix by DJ Slugo, “Bangin’ the Beat” by Detroit’s DJ Assault, or a remix to George Kranz’s 1980s breakdance hit “Din Daa Daa.” 

Bash doesn’t remember, but it didn’t matter. He closed his eyes – something he always does before he starts dancing – and freestyled by himself,  zoning out for what felt like an eternity. When he finally stopped and opened his eyes, he saw all eyes were on him. 

“Everybody was screaming like, ‘Damn, you killed that, boy,’” Johnson remembered. “The next day of school, people would see me in the hall and say, ‘Bust a move where you at.’ Like everybody wanted to know who I was.”

That homecoming dance set the tone for the rest of his time in high school. He found his tribe and formed The Cristal Boyz. Every day after school the group stocked up on Faygo, Better Made potato chips, and Hot Cheetos – or scraped up $5 for a “Hot and Ready” from Little Caesars – and headed back to school to practice in the hallway for upcoming parties. Bash brought the boombox and CDs with music he downloaded from LimeWire and got his crew custom-made shirts from Northland Mall. 

Ronnie Irons, better known as R&B singer Detroit Zeus, was a Cristal Boy and was crowned by The Rec “The King of Footwork” for his jit. He said Johnson, by forming the group, set the trajectory for his life.

“I’m working full-time in entertainment and making a good living,” Irons said.  “I grew up on Plymouth and Evergreen, so there were a hundred other things I could’ve been doing, but being in The Cristal Boyz kept me away from the peer pressures that come from the hood.”

After the Cristal Boyz aged out of teen parties, Johnson joined the locally televised dance show “D-Party,” better known as “Dance Party,” which was akin to the “The New Dance Show” program Johnson watched as a kid. 

And like others who aged out of “The Rec,” he transitioned to the strip clubs, performing at Watts Mozambique and Henry’s Palace.  He described his time as an exotic dancer as “uncut” and “raw,” noting that performing in a strip club forced him to become comfortable in his own skin. 

Meanwhile, his passion for cooking hadn’t abandoned him. 

He found mentorship in R&B and pop singer Taja Sevelle, who was once signed to Prince’s Paisley Park Records and first gained recognition for her 1987 single “Love is Contagious.” Around 2004, Sevelle founded the nonprofit Urban Farming and began planting community gardens across the country. She planted her first three gardens in Detroit.

Johnson worked and studied under Sevelle, helping her prepare food for her Urban Farms clients and in 2008 serving as her sous chef on a Fox 2 News cooking segment. At the time, he studied culinary arts and performing arts at Schoolcraft Community College and Oakland County Community College. 

During the day, it was school and working as a cashier at Kroger, and at night, it was the strip club. 

“In my heart, I didn’t want to be an exotic dancer. I wanted to be Michael Jackson,” Johnson said. “I wanted to go on tour and visit foreign countries.”

Johnson got that opportunity to work as a professional dancer in another country through connections he made on the set of “Dance Party.” A dance duo needed a third member for an upcoming tour in China. He was offered the opportunity on a Monday and left that Friday. 

“I told my grandma, ‘Take me to the airport. I just signed a contract with a company in China.’ She did not believe me,” he said. 

What was supposed to be a three-month tour turned into a year-long contract. The company, Kingcraft Fun Entertainment,  hired him to be its creative director and choreographer. One of his first big projects involved choreographing a show for Raz B from B2K. For Johnson, it was a full-circle moment. All the work he had done as the leader of the “The Cristal Boyz” – coming up with dances, selecting their music, designing their outfits – was a foreshadowing of his future.

China is where Johnson adopted the stage name “Bash,” short for Sebastian. He grew a mohawk and had his new name lined in the left side of his haircut. 

In 2012, he returned home to find out his mother was dying from cancer – a secret she kept from Johnson.

“I’m like, ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ and she was like, ‘I saw you striving for your dreams, and I didn’t want to interrupt that,’” Bash recalled. “I think she saw herself in me. She wanted to dance, but it didn’t work out for her, so I think she was living vicariously through me.” 

His mother died a few weeks later. He moved to Chicago for six months before spending another year in China, touring with Raz B and working with Ashton Martin and L’Oreal Paris.

He returned to Detroit, and looking to plant his seed in a city that’d offer him consistent work in entertainment, Johnson packed up his 2005 Honda Passport and set his sights on Los Angeles. 

Bashin’ Hollywood

Johnson had made a name for himself in Detroit and China, but in Los Angeles, he had to start from scratch. 

Though he did some background acting work, found a job dancing at Bar mitzvahs, and taught dance at an after-school program, he struggled with securing housing. He arrived in LA only to find out that the friend who initially offered him a place to crash was in the process of getting evicted. 

Johnson moved into a sketchy shared living space he found on Craigslist, sharing a bunk bed in a cramped house of about 15 people.

“Then one day, this lady comes in,  and she’s like, ‘What are you people doing in my house?” Johnson remembered. “It turned out the so-called landlord who rented out the rooms didn’t own the house. He put bunk beds in this lady’s house and charged people $300 a month.”

Johnson, again, found himself homeless, squatting in vacant homes. The Honda Passport he drove from Detroit to LA broke down on him.  

The doors began to open when he landed a choreographer and stage manager job at Club Med Resorts in Florida and the Bahamas. There, Johnson was able to save his money and generate new material for his portfolio.

He returned to LA eight months later and started working full-time as a dance teacher at Hollywood High School. He uploaded all the work he did for Club Med Resorts to a casting site called Casting Networks and, without the help of an agent or manager, he booked his first international campaign with Lee Jeans. He was featured in print and digital ads across Europe. 

That led to him signing with his manager and performing as a backup dancer during Kayne West’s 2015 808 & Heartbreaks concert at the Hollywood Bowl. 

And in another full-circle moment, Johnson was tapped to be Marlon Wayans’ dance double for a strip club scene in “Fifty Shades of Black,” a 2016 comedy co-written and co-produced by, and starring Wayans. The scene called for Johnson to dance in a thong, a callback to his days at  Watts and Henry’s.  But stripping in front of women at the club back home in Detroit was a much lighter task than dancing in front of Hollywood heavy hitters on a movie production. 

“And this is Marlon Wayans’ movie, so he’s there on set,” Johnson said. “And I’m supposed to be him in this scene, and he’s watching me. So, yeah, I had butterflies. I had to tell myself, ‘OK, Bash, this is your time.’”

Since then, Johnson has performed on the “Ellen DeGeneres Show, ” danced in the music video for Mariah Carey’s 2018 single “A No No, ” and appeared in the Doritos 2019 Super Bowl commercial featuring Chance the Rapper and Lionel Richie. Around that time, he spent a third year in China, where he served as the choreographer and creative director for the Shenzhen Fringe Festival.

He has worked on projects with Zendaya and Daddy Yankee and modeled for brands like Cointreau. This year, he will be featured in one of Taja Sevelle’s music videos scheduled for release this summer. 

Though Johnson’s career has kept him busy, growing the “Dash of Bash” catering business he started during COVID-19 is also a top priority. Johnson offers private chef and catering services for high-end and celebrity clients. He doesn’t work out of a brick-and-mortar. Instead, he uses the pop-up kitchen model. Right now, he’s negotiating a contract to cater a private event with a well-known yacht company.

“I think I manifested my life from dancing to cooking. I was meant to be who I am, but I didn’t know it would go this far,” Johnson said. “With all the other circumstances I was going through with my mom dying, and being in the streets of Detroit – it’s a lot of stuff that can just take you off your track, but I remained consistent and focused, and I locked out a lot of noise.”