Thank you so much for being here.
And I'm such a fan.
Obviously I know your little brother Kida.
But-- so I've been following you for a while,
and I'm so excited that you're here.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you.
Thank you for inviting me.
I'm happy to be here.
I'm excited to be here.
And I'm grateful.
Thank you.
And it's great to see you and meet you.
[APPLAUSE]
Absolutely.
And also, congrats.
You also made your film debut in Sound of Metal, which was also
nominated for six Oscars.
That has to feel good, right?
Well, it felt so good.
I'm felt surprised.
I'm shocked.
Many deaf people talk in the movie is not normal.
I'm happy there's many deaf people in it.
I feel like I'm not alone anymore.
It felt great.
And it teaches about deaf culture, about how deaf people
frustration, struggle, understanding enough that--
And I know that's very important to you.
But before we focus on that, I want to know
when did you start dancing?
I started dancing when I was 11.
I followed my dad.
So my dad inspires me to dance.
So because I never seen my dad before--
I never met him before--
my family showed me a thing on him dancing.
I feel inspired.
And I want to be like him.
Mm-hmm.
Now, I guess that's my next question because obviously
being deaf and being a dancer would present its challenges.
So how do you stay connected to the music?
How?
I feel the vibration.
I don't hear.
I feel.
People who can hear can dance.
Me?
Deaf.
We feel.
Mm-hmm.
Now, I also understand that educating people
on deaf culture is very important to you.
What are some of the things that you want to pass along?
I want people to understand with deaf culture, like, patience,
communicate.
Sometimes deaf people have a hard time understanding.
Like, for example, people want to say, never mind.
That's not right.
I want to know too.
I want to understand what you're saying too.
It's OK.
We can help.
The problem is we can't hear.
That's the difference with that.
So I want to understand from people to colab.
We can work together.
I can teach ASL.
If we can't understand each other,
communicate with each other.
That's amazing, right?
Absolutely.
Exactly.
And I think that's also why I think
that this is so important because we're learning
from each other, right?
This is a conversation that I think a lot of people
need to hear, is that even though we might maybe
need to learn like ASL or different ways to communicate,
that doesn't mean that we can't communicate.
We can still build bridges together,
even if we have to learn a little more to do so.
Man, well, listen, I know that I appreciate you.
I respect you.
And, bro, I have to see you get down.
I have to see you get down.
And I don't think you all understand what you
about to witness right now.
My man is incredible.
Will you dance with us?
Yeah.
I'm ready.
Let's go.
Here we go.
Let's hit it.
Yeah.
[APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Hey, now walk it out.
Walk it.
Walk it out.
DJ.
[RAPPING]
[CHEERING]
Incredible.
Incredible, incredible, incredible.
That was amazing.
Now I know you were really excited to be on the show
today.
So I got something for you.
Boom.
Whoa!
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
And also--
What?
Boom.
We got all the Ellen swag that you have right here.
Also these underwear are very comfortable.
Very, very comfortable.
All right.
Thank you so much for being here today Shaheem.
I appreciate you.
I know we're going to be seeing you a lot more.
And please, keep shining.
Make sure you all follow this guy.
He's incredible.