- My name is Jaquel Knight, and I'm a dancer.
I'm a choreographer, I'm a creative, I'm a artist.
But when I disrupt the game, I shake the room!
And change the world, baby.
(dynamic music)
I discovered my love of dance
in my grandmother's living room.
Growing up in the South, we always have a family reunion,
a family cookout, a family something.
And it's always music blasting,
and food cooking on the grill, fish frying.
Those were like my first moments of dancing,
seeing my family dance.
Atlanta was the hot spot when I was growing up.
Just coming out of the age of Freaknik,
and then moving into just from Atlanta-based music
to this new sound of crunk&b,
all of that played an influence on who I am.
I've seen many styles of dance come through the city.
I've seen the sound of Atlanta grow.
Lil Jon was a driving force of what it sounded like.
Through all the eras, from the bass, from Atlanta crank.
Being able to witness all of that as a child.
The city has done a really great job
at raising this little Black boy right here.
"Remember the Times" were one of my favorite videos.
It was something about that dance break
that Fatima had them do.
(Jaquel scatting)
You know, it was something.
It was something about that dance break
that you had to know it!
And then that moves me into kind of what
inspired me today in how I create movement.
TLC "Creep" was a big video
that you would do the dance to.
♪ I'm just creeping on the down low ♪
(Jaquel humming and laughing)
That was like the first sense of understanding
social dancing, and what simple choreography could do,
and everyone could do it.
But it just made you feel so good,
every time that hook came on you knew exactly what to do.
In those moments I had no clue I wanted to be a dancer.
Honestly, I really, I guess I can say
I didn't know dance was a job, dance was a career.
Even though I was seeing it, at that moment,
I didn't know that was something you can do,
or something I was able to do, being,
I was born in North Carolina, raised in Atlanta,
I really didn't get it.
I had no glimpse that dance, choreography, music,
creative, direction, all of that,
I had no idea that was in my destiny at all.
Throughout my middle school, high school career,
I was a musician first, people knew me as a musician.
I played saxophone, then I started playing mellophone.
I started writing music.
I just knew, once I got into middle school,
music was kind of my vibe.
And then around my junior year of high school
my best friend, Tiffany, she took me to a dance workshop.
At that moment my world was flipped upside down.
It was with Shane Sparks, Laurieann Gibson,
Brian Friedman, Chuck Maldonado.
And it just blew my mind that it was really a space
where people who love dance as much as I did
could come and learn it,
and soon do it, and get paid to do it.
Right after that we started our own dance troupe.
True Styles Dance Troupe,
which was a high school dance team.
But we also performed outside of the high school.
That started, was the first beginnings of me being a dancer,
a choreographer, and creative director even.
Once I graduated from high school I moved to LA.
And maybe within a year,
Frank was holding a audition for Michelle Williams.
And it was that audition that kind of set the tone for
what would be our working relationship.
But then from there, he was like, oh,
can you come choreograph for Michelle's entire promo tour?
And after the whole Michelle Williams project wrapped,
he said, I may have a gig for you in a few months.
Keep doing your thing, you're awesome.
You have a awesome future ahead of you.
But standby, if something comes up I'll give you a call.
Three or four months went by
and I got the call, got THE CALL.
Like got THE CALL OF CALLS, okay.
(Jaquel laughs)
This is a call.
And he was like, hey, I have this Beyonce record.
Can you get to New York tonight?
You'll stay for a few days.
If she rock with you you'll stay
for the length of the project.
If she's not really feeling it, I'll get you back to LA,
and I'll figure out what's next.
I got to New York, that record was "Single Ladies".
Since "Single Ladies" here we are now, talking you guys.
And it has not stopped.
I realized I had the power to shift people's mood,
a tad bit I can say, in high school with my dance crew.
We used to get so many people coming up to us after
and saying, oh my god, you guys make my day.
I can feel your joy through you dancing,
through your performance.
And I'll say "Single Ladies" was kind of
the first thing to go viral during this past, what, decade.
Like the first of its kind, viral moment.
And to be able to see all kinds of people,
Black, White, Yellow, Brown, old, young,
girls, guys, everyone in between.
Everything, seeing everyone do it.
That blew my mind.
At that moment I realized there's
something special about my gift.
And if you use it wrongly, it will be accepted that way.
So it was always on me to do right by it.
It was definitely the moment of seeing
the impact of "Single Ladies" that has
made a shift in myself as a artist.
Knowing that I'm able to shift the energy of the room.
Creating during the pandemic,
let alone creating something that goes down
in the history books, besides it being
one of the hardest things to do, it was quite a actual task
considering the state of the world, right?
Considering the state of Black culture
at the time where we were creating.
History was happening in front of our eyes.
And, I'll say, if you were on the same side of history,
making and creating something,
creating anything that wasn't going to last
there was no point in creating.
My favorite moments from the BET Awards performance
with Megan, I mean, it was the whole setup for me.
It's the whole thing for me.
It's the being in the desert, it's not being in the studio,
It's creating your own rules.
It's the motorbikes, it's the scaffolding.
It's the girls looking buff.
It's the car, it's the confidence.
I mean, that was our breakout performance.
That was the performance that started all performances.
What people know Megan now as, would not be,
if it wasn't for that BET performance.
The Cardi and Megan Thee Stallion collab
was the collab of the year.
Let me just make sure I go on record saying that.
The collab of the year.
And it was them trying new things.
It was the rap girls coming for like culture, right?
Bigger than pop culture, like coming for culture period.
To be in the middle of history,
and to have my hands in the Play-Doh,
because that would go down as a historic moment in music.
Body, body, body, body-ody, ody, ody, ody, ody, ody.
Body, kids, it makes my people happy.
What the energy of that record.
I remember Megan playing it for the first time for me,
we was actually in the process of getting
all the BET Awards stuff together.
And she was like, I have to play you this record, Quel.
I gotta play you this record.
Literally in the moment of her playing the record,
I saw the movement instantly.
I saw how I wanted people to feel,
I knew exactly the energy I wanted to
convey through the choreography.
So when it came time to put it on wax, it was easy.
I wanted people to get up and dance.
I wanted people to have a good time.
I wanted everyone, regardless of your race,
your sex, your gender, to be able to get up
and feel good in your body,
feel good in the skin you're in, and have a good time.
Being a driving force of Black culture
is a humbling position, right?
To be able to be the face of all those Black
and Brown people who look like me,
all those kids who grew up in the hood,
all those kids in the country.
People who don't know,
people who don't know how the field works,
how music works, how the entertainment industry works.
Being able to put on and inspire those
who look just like me, it feels good.
It feels really damn good.
Since I've started this whole journey as a choreographer
and been able to inspire the world,
not only through my gifts and talents,
it's been really, really important to me to make sure
I was able to just give, just be able to give.
And through that birthed the Jaquel Knight Foundation,
which is on a mission to impact, encourage,
and inspire the next generation of artists,
the next generation of creators,
the next generation of dancers, choreographers, directors,
anyone in the arts field.
And that came about last year, 2020.
And through the pandemic we launched our first initiative,
which was the Dancers' Relief Fund.
It has been a truly inspiring and moving project.
I say, if I can do that every day of my life,
if I was able to give, and just work at that every day,
that's what I would be doing.
I hope my legacy would be, I was someone that inspired,
someone that looked like you and inspired you
to get up, and get out, and do something.
To be bold and go.
To know that, close your eyes to what you see
and open them to what you don't.
I hope when I leave this place
that people are still inspired by the name,
and the story of, the journey of.
That's what I hope is the legacy.
Being a culture disruptor means to me
is that I don't give a, I don't care!
And I think that's a huge part
of being able to disrupt culture.
You have to know that you have the power.
I have the power to cause all this.
I'm gonna go and set fire to this.
I'm gonna blow that up 'cause it's on me.
I can do that.
I can change the game 'cause I wanna change the game.
I'm Jaquel Knight, and I'm a Disrupter
because I walk in boldness, and greatness,
and I know exactly who I am, baby!
(dynamic music)