J’can dance moves featured in Janet Jackson’s music video
The Queen of Pop Janet Jackson has released her first music video since 2015. The visuals are for the track ‘Made For Now’, which features reggaeton star Daddy Yankee, and is a melting pot of cultures. Jamaican and African dance moves also feature very prominently in the music video.
Blacka Di Danca, who assisted with the choreography for the music video, said that Janet Jackson was keen on having Jamaican talent be part of the video’s overall execution.
In an interview with THE WEEKEND STAR, the dance instructor, choreographer, and cultural ambassador expressed gratitude to Jackson and her main choreographers – Danielle Polanco and Amari Marshall – for ensuring that authentic Jamaican talents were used in the making of the music video. He said that the latter was extremely important because Jamaican dancers are often overlooked when huge opportunities on the international circuit present themselves. “Janet wanted to get real and authentic dancehall people like me who practise it every day. People that actually teach it and who know what they were doing. It was important to them that they got us, and they reached out to us instead of hiring some hip-hop people or anybody else who could mimic the dance moves,” he said. He was also pleased with the amount of time he got on screen. “There are a million music videos that I’ve done in my lifetime where maybe I had two seconds if I was lucky, and I had 20 hours on set. I think every dancer can relate to situations like that,” he expressed. “But when watching this Janet music video, you can see that she really took the time to make sure everybody had a highlight and that was so important.” Pointing out that it was important to him that he highlights other Jamaican dancers with this mega opportunity, Blacka Di Danca listed four dance moves that were featured in the music video; Genna Bounce (Ravers Clavers), Badda Wave (Raddy Rich), No Problem (Elite Team), and Unknown Feeling (Xclusiv Dancers). The dancer said that although he creates his own moves, he felt it was important that he also features moves from other Jamaican dancers. “It’s so important to me when I get these opportunities that I don’t just do my crew’s steps. Every time I get an opportunity I try my best and I sit with my crew. I think about the most popular steps in Jamaica, and we think of some of the crews in Jamaica that might need the look. It doesn’t make sense that I have my face and my image on a platform and I only use that platform to better myself and my crew because that’s not what dancehall is about. Dancehall is about community, togetherness. It’s not one person that makes dancehall, it’s everybody that makes dancehall,” he said.