Teyana Taylor’s “Fade” Choreography Was Originally Meant For Beyoncé

Carl Williott | August 30, 2016 10:39 am

Nobody could’ve guessed that one of the most talked about names from the 2016 MTV VMAs would be Teyana Taylor. But that’s how striking her performance was in Kanye West‘s “Fade” video, which premiered during the awards show. After a couple days of the internet ogling her body, trying to decipher that cat-people twist ending and praising her moves, the G.O.O.D. Music signee has shed new light on the visual, revealing that some of those moves were originally meant for Beyoncé.

“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,” the now-viral dance star tells Vogue. “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.”

Taylor also touched on the cat-people ending — and all the sheep shit.

“Let’s talk about these sheep first, though. They were shitting all over the place—there was poop everywhere!” she says. “We filmed that cat scene first. We didn’t shoot the video in order. I was in three hours of makeup and prosthetics to get that thing on my face. The director Eli [Linnetz], he wanted it to be a little bit sexy, so I drew my own brows on the cat face.”

But Taylor played coy when it came to explaining the scene’s significance: “It was definitely something deep. The whole video is deeper than people probably processed it…I get it, but I want them to really figure it out and really understand what’s going on. And for them to understand, they’re going to have to watch it 20, and 30, and 40 times.”

Previously, one of the video’s creatives said she interprets the closing shot as “a lioness” protecting her baby.

Read Teyana’s full interview for more about how Kanye’s “Fade” video came together.