Everyone is going gaga over Kanye West’s new video ‘Fade‘ but more specifically, Teyana Taylor’s moves in it.
Teyana is clearly the talk of the town as she stars in the bizarre and explicit music video where she’s showing off her incredibly fit body, which she has gotten back just 8 months after the birth of her daughter June. The music video was premiered by Kanye at the MTV VMAs on Sunday night after he delivered a 5 minute speech.
In a chat with Vogue, the singer-rapper-dancer has opened up about the making of the video, how the concept came about and reveals the startling fact that even she hadn’t seen the video before it aired. She was not even sure if Kanye was going to premiere her version or something else.
You must be having a surreal morning. What was it like watching the world premiere of this video?
I was literally shaking because Kanye is very secretive when it comes to projects that he’s very interested in. We hadn’t even seen the video before last night. So when I heard that the video was going to be premiering at the VMAs, I was like “Oh my god, it’s tonight! Do I look good? Do I look great? Is he going to change his mind and not premiere it?” At that point I had already told all of my family, but even when he went onstage and I saw him, I thought he might just wind up doing something completely different because you just never know with Kanye.
Then he said what he had to say and presented his video. My heart started beating so fast because it’s one thing to see a video, but to do the video and not see it and just to be in shock with everyone else, it was just crazy. When they played it and it said Teyana Taylor and I was walking through the bars, I was like, “Oh my god, it’s about to go down!”
What went through your mind after the video premiered?
I was shaking. I was on Twitter and Instagram, but my phone was shaking because my hand was shaking. I was so nervous because it was really a do-or-die moment. I’ve worked so hard and I didn’t know that that moment was going to be that huge because I didn’t have time to mentally prepare. But it was dope that I was able to really sit back and really take in the whole moment. It’s emotional because I’ve been in the industry for so long and I’ve never understood why certain things weren’t happening. And now I feel like my story, everything that I’ve been through, makes this moment so much more special. Though it took so long for this to happen, I don’t feel like it could’ve happened at a better time.
How did you become the star of this video?
It was actually crazy because I was in the studio recording and Kanye came by to the other studio next door to record and asked me to come over real quick. And he was like, “Yo, you killed the Lil’ Kim tribute.” And we talked about that a little bit and then I don’t know how we got into a conversation about me and Iman. We just started talking and I was just rambling and rambling about Iman and to him it was a dope moment to just see love like that, to see that you can really have it all. Even with him, his relationship with Kim is so dope. They have kids, they’re married, they have a friendship. Even Kanye having kids has changed him a lot. He was like, “Dang, you’re singing. Your husband just won a championship. You just had Junie.” I think that really inspired him for the video. Literally when I left the studio and went back to my recording room, [a head representative from G.O.O.D. Music] came up to me and said Kanye wanted me to dance to one of his songs—for “Fade.” I was like, “Oh my god, you’re lying.”
How did the concept for the video come about?
When they first reached out about the video, all I knew was that he wanted me to dance. At that point he didn’t have to tell me twice. Our music studio has this room for office storage and so I went in there and I played the song in this room super loud and I’m already dancing and rehearsing. I didn’t even know what the treatment was but I recorded that rehearsal and sent them the video. We later all had a meeting and went over different ideas and the inspiration for the video.
By the way, the dance scene at the very, very end, maybe the last eight counts that I did; me and one of my homeboys Matthew Pasterisa actually made that choreography for Beyoncé for when the “End of Time” came out. She loved it but she wound up not being able to use it because she was pregnant, but back then the world didn’t know. All this time that choreography was just sitting there. And as soon as I was freestyling it just came out naturally.
Read more at Vogue.
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