Jimmy Ma was a concert pianist who performed at Carnegie Hall (via his Icenetwork.com bio), but now he’s also the figure skater who performed to “Turn Down for What” at the U.S. Championships.
Ma’s program including the 2013 DJ Snake and Lil Jon hit -- which went viral.
“The idea was to just be different, have fun with it,” Ma, a 22-year-old from Queens, N.Y., who has studied finance at Fordham University, told Icenetwork. “I don’t really care what other people think, but I wanted to have fun on the ice. I wanted to bring my personality out on the ice. It was just, like whatever, but I’m really happy people liked it.”
Ma placed 11th in the short program and has no real chance at making the PyeongChang Olympic team of three men.
But he lit up the crowd, unzipping his jacket mid-skate and adding a Michael Jordan tongue wag.
How did he choose “Turn Down for What?” USA Today has that story:
He will perform Saturday night’s free skate to a very different artist.
“It’s Rachmaninoff,” he said. “Boring. But, like, that’s my style on the ice. I like to show people that I can skate to this, but also I can skate to this. It’s two different ends of the spectrum that I like to show people because my personality is not poetic whatsoever.”
Ma performed to Eminem music last year (video here). What does he have in store for next season?
“Next year, that’s a long story,” said Ma, who listed “card magic” as a hobby in his International Skating Union bio. “There’s no story to that. I have no idea. I have not thought that far ahead yet.
“Raise the bar.”
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