PicoDash

M-Bone, a dancer in the hip-hop quartet Cali Swag District, was killed in a drive-by shooting on Sunday night in Inglewood, Calif. Though not a household name, the 22-year-old born Montae Talbert has become part of an enduring dance craze, one that's been viewed more than 50 million times on YouTube and imitated by everyone from Elmo to Ellen Degeneres to Michelle Obama.

The dance move called The Dougie originated in Dallas, but Cali Swag District made it big nationally with their song "Teach Me How To Dougie." Before their hit, they were four unknown teens from a rough neighborhood in the southwestern part of Los Angeles county, looking for a way into the music business. M-Bone was their dancer.

Jeff Weiss, a freelancer for the Los Angeles Times, interviewed Talbert and the group earlier this year. Weiss says that M-Bone was integral to the group's success.

"When you're a dance group at least one of the guys in the group needs to be really good at it," he says.

Weiss says that all of the groups members could do the dance, but that M-Bone was the smoothest. He was smooth with the ladies too, according to Weiss, and tried hard to stay out of trouble.

"They grew up in Inglewood so they had seen people get into gangs and end up getting killed," says Weiss, "but he was pretty adamant about not being like that."

Despite the success of "Teach Me How To Dougie," the group has had a hard time getting their label to release a full length album. It is now scheduled for release in October.

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