Meet Anthony Fyrefli” Gasaway

We had the good fortune of connecting with Anthony “Fyrefli” Gasaway, Jr. and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Anthony “Fyrefli”, can you talk to us a bit about the social impact of your business?
The most powerful human ability in the world is the ability to hope; the second most powerful ability is to be able to instill the awareness of that hope into others.

Everything that we do with both our crew, FyreNation Crew, and Kuma’s event, movement and outreach called WeOnFyre Cypher is about representing, defending, creating and perpetuating hope for all ages, walks of life, factions of artistry and community supporters. There’s plenty of negative news and exposure out there that gets 24/7 media attention and opportunities to negatively inspire the community, but there’s rarely any coverage on positive things happening, and it shows. When we teach our dance classes with kids and teens from various places in and around Atlanta, we see the results of the lack of free, family-friendly, positive material in the community, and how that deficit causes people to be more aggressive, demeaning, defensive and anti-social with one another. By using our brands to represent that you can be established, distinguished, and turn your artistry into a career, AND maintain a genuine love, humility, and respect for others, we begin to build a new platform that focuses on repairing areas of society that need desperate attention.

What we do has reached internationally, and the resources and opportunities we share are geared towards preparing everyone to succeed in what they want to do, as well as emphasize the importance of mutually beneficial opportunities, unified support behind positive activities in the community, education, health, prosperity, and sustainability for the future.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
FyreNation Crew was created by Kuma and I on October 8, 2020 with the intention of gathering dancers who were serious about representing their craft, training, and being “on fyre” for what they do. We wanted to represent the concept of training consistenly and dilligently to be a positive representation of HipHop and Street Dance Culture, build and sustain career in your artistry, and live off of your passion. A month later, Kuma told me the story of her dream to create a free, family-friendly community event that would promote unity, equality and positivity for artists and creatives, and WeOnFyre Cypher was born in November of 2020.

We were told a lot of negative things in the beginning about both moves we made.

Some told us that our crew wasn’t to be taken seriously, others said that WeOnFyre Cypher being a family-friendly event would never take off and wouldn’t grow because “family-friendly” wasn’t a popular move for community events. The most important thing we did was focus on accomplishing our own goals, regardless of what others said or tried to project onto our paths about us, or what we wanted to do. We focused on our missions to represent positivity and accomplish our goals, and before we knew it, we were being booked for music videos, special appearances, radio station interviews, and all kinds of opportunities that helped us build our resumes, gain allies and resources that helped us open doors for bigger opportunities.

September 28, 2021, FyreNation Crew performed at the World Games Kickoff Reception held at the College Football Hall of Fame in Downtown Atlanta, marking the first time we represented Atlanta as a whole for various dignitaries, committee members, investors and athletes who were all part of the recent World Games, where Breaking also made its first debut as a dance sport.

In January 2022, I became the first member of FyreNation Crew to appear on live TV when I danced to DJ DNice’s Timbaland Tribute on TV One’s “Urban One Honors” show.

In less than 2 years, Kuma’s WeOnFyre Cypher event concept was already being discussed for an international debut after traveling to over a dozen cities in and around Atlanta, and debuted in Uganda on September 24, 2022. Our international crewmate and liaison Profecer Mark Macollo Dagrus Kimuli helped us run the event on the ground in Uganda, and over 200 people from various surrounding villages and countries in Africa converged on Jinja City, Uganda for the first- ever international WeOnFyre Cypher Expo.

I appeared on live TV again on “Urban One Honors” for 2023 as part of the 50th Anniversary of HipHop tribute, alongside DJ Spinderella, Doug E. Fresh, and Kool Moe Dee, and shared a room with various icons of the culture including LL Cool J, Pharrell Williams, David & Tamela Mann, Tank, and various other attendees with distinguished careers and accomplishments.

February 25, 2023, WeOnFyre Cypher had it’s 2nd international event in Tanzania, and went down in history with the Tanzanian Street Dance Community as the first-ever community cypher to happen in their country.

July 22, 2023, WeOnFyre Cypher went to Zambia for the first time ever, which became the 3rd international cypher, first-ever community cypher event, and thanks to our brother and recently-added crewmate and founder of the Zambia DanceSport Federation, Humphrey “Bboy Radico” Haslet, was the first time the Zambian Street Dance Community was seen and recognized internationally. This cypher was used to help establish and push for recognition for the Zambia DanceSport Federation to be organized, which is aimed at giving Zambia’s Breaking scene a chance to compete at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics first-ever Breaking category.

August 10, 2023, FyreNation Crew was given the honor of performing for Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and Office of Cultural Affairs Executive Director, Camille Russell Love, representing Atlanta’s Street Dance Community for the HipHop 50 ATL Celebration series. Our mission as a crew was also mentioned and recognized during Director Love’s opening speech, and the Mayor’s Office was made aware of our teaching programs and community events happening worldwide.

August 27, 2023, WeOnFyre Cypher went international for the 4th time, landing in Bacolod City, Philippines where our FyreNation Crew Philippines chapter Captain Mael “Maelstrom” Doctora coordinated the event on the ground. The event made the news, bringing several generations of street dancers, vendors, and onlookers to celebrate artistry and unity, despite the typhoon that was hitting the city.

We learned a couple of major lessons along this journey. The first is that no one can stop you, they can only try to convince you to stop yourself; if you’re destined to grow, you will grow and no one can stop you. The second lesson is that success is simply the act of accomplishing a task you set out to accomplish. Being rich, or famous, or recognized are all byproducts and do not define your success in any way shape or form because the goal you set out to accomplish will be accomplished as long as you keep moving towards it. An apple seed will become an apple tree as long as it grows; whether or not it’s yielding thousands of apples, or is in a rich orchard, or someone’s backyard doesn’t matter–the seed became a tree, and that was the goal. Everything else is just a byproduct, and for us, we are honored to have the genuine love and support we show others reciprocated back to us globally.

The community chooses to share our name and our stories without us demanding or trying to force it, and that honestly is the biggest honor of them all–to leave a legacy that people are willing and eager to share with others, along with the benefits of what we do, and the resources we give freely to help others do the same.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I always say this–Best End Brewery is a definite move! Get some food, enjoy some local talent, great artistry from the ATL Beltline graffiti murals, and of course they have homemade crafted beers on tap. I don’t drink, but hey, still support the etablishment!

Up next, check out the man Robert Jarrett at Getitrena, and get hooked on his amazing homemade cuisines! Once you taste it, you’ll be hooked!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
With each article we have been interviewed in, I try to make sure I rotate out the names and give everyone their flowers–we don’t consider help “big” or “small” because help is a step forward, and any step forward is a movement towards progress so size isn’t relevant. We always thank the Most High first and foremost for blessing us with the gifts, talents and connections we have, and the opportunities that He has opened up for us to do what we do. I also thank my wife, Joy “Kuma” Gasaway, who has been a solid rock for me since we first met in 2020, counseling, advising, consoling and just genuinely supporting and cheering me on through all of the successes individually and together. She’s awesome.

Next I would also like to thank Jessica Agey, Founder and Studio Director of Generations Dance and Ballet Academy in Bremen, GA. She is an advocate for authenticity, technique, history and vocabulary components being mandatory in any dance education class, and was the first studio program to ever truly allow Kuma and I to run the HipHop program 100% from our curriculum with no interference or presets. This is important because many programs already have a lot of preexisting expectations of what HipHop education should be, and are not truly receptive to hearing what we say when we talk about HipHop being a Cultural Movement comprised of four main elements and not simply a choreography dance style, but Ms. Jessica allowed us to fully educate her students in all aspects of HipHop, and the result is that Bremen, GA now has foundationally-based youth that see more of what HipHop is than just the stereotypes and negative assumptions made by those who haven’t been able to learn or see anything different. We debuted “Novice 2 Nice HipHop Foundations” class at her studio last year, and the training modules and materials we developed and used there have been implemented in our standalone programs and other in-studio partnerships, as well as our overseas outreaches, and all of these programs have been vastly successful, and growing. Without Ms. Jessica allowing us to use her studio as our first platform to develop and grow, we wouldn’t have had a safe place to develop, test and improve our curriculum.

Next up, we would like to thank Mixdeity founder Rock Solomon for being one of our first major sponsors and supporters, even while he and his team were dealing with hardships of their own, he promoted our events, helped us find locations for our cypher events, and genuinely connected us with people who became awesome friends and assets to our movement.

Also would like to thank LUL Magazine CEO and Founder Dwyane Stovall for being an example of dedication and hard work paying off, and sharing love and support with us for years, right along with Sickflo, who is one of the coolest, most relaxed and humble artists we know. Both Dwyane and Flo are always in our corner and checking on us, making sure we know we are loved and cared for, and their friendship is irreplaceable.

Shoutouts also to our FyreNation Crew crewmates worldwide, and to everyone who supports, attends and helps share the word on what we do in the community of your own volition; without that support from you all, there wouldn’t be a movement!

Website: https://thredztyle.square.site/?fbclid=PAAabhb3pP9Vwr3YbXJFDfF-yaMgBwjo8sc7iSJMw2oH_ldqMl–ZdCt_PQ1Y

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fyrefli.il3git/?hl=en

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIPij54yojDPMC_B8-w1oDQ