While it can be common practice to identify and credit music used in TikTok clips, when it comes to choreography, most users simply learn the dance and upload their video without considering the source. Creators like choreographer JaQuel Knight are thus left in the dark when someone uses their moves – but recently, Knight has worked to change that status quo by helping innovative dancers receive proper credit.
Last summer, Logitech and Billboard launched the Song Breaker chart in an effort to shine a light on as many creators like Knight as possible. “We wanted a chance to really call attention to the creators who were driving this, this very important sort of discovery mechanism,” says Meridith Rojas, Global Head of Entertainment at Logitech.
Best known for his big-name collaborations with artists like Beyoncé and Megan Thee Stallion, Knight just debuted at No. 15 on the Song Breaker chart for his choreo to the latter’s recent “Body.” Knight’s ultimate goal is to make space for younger creatives to innovate without fearing they won’t be able to make a living, and has started to do so by helping choreographers gain and protect their IP across all mediums — music, commercial, film, television – the same way Logitech helped him. Over the next few years, he hopes “to build a space where we all feel safe.
“People are starting to learn the proper way of doing things, as far as giving credit to the original creators,” Knight continues. “I think our next step, something that we’re trying to act on, is just as influencers and music producers — beyond getting credit, they’re also receiving some sort of royalty monetization in the process.” Knight says he wants dancers and the choreographers to be seen as peers to music producers and songwriters, and believes that every role that helps make a performance memorable should be compensation as such.
When Billboard spoke to Knight for a cover story in 2020, the Atlanta native had begun his fight to copyright his moves in earnest. Now – as short-form videos have only become more ubiquitous – Knight has successfully copyrighted his iconic moves to Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),” with the help of Logitech, who joined Knight in the fight to properly attribute artists and streamline choreo copyrights.
“It’s a visual world,” says Knight. “With social media, things like TikTok and Instagram, dance is able to live on far beyond the original and sole purpose that it was created for. So it’s about time that we start to give credit and understand and accept that choreography is here to stand on its own.”
So far, Logitech has worked with 10 choreographers, including Knight, to get their work protected under copyright using labanotation. “It’s basically a structured system to analyze movement with symbols. And so it’s beautiful.” Rojas says. Labanotation was how Knight was able to copyright his signature dance to “Single Ladies,” which has been seen everywhere from SNL sketches to the Alvin and the Chipmunks movie.
“The songs were getting celebrated, the artists are getting celebrated, the dances themselves were getting celebrated, but the person who kind of lit the fire was getting a little bit forgotten,” adds Rojas.
While labanotation is used for legal copyright, there is still a long way to go until it can be applied comprehensively to an app such as TikTok in order to track moves. In late 2021, when Megan Thee Stallion’s “Body” choreography was mashed up with Adele’s soaring track “Water Under The Bridge” as a fun audio-video contrast, the challenge became frustrating for Knight, who created the dance back in 2020. Suddenly, his moves were being performed by dancing skeletons and wisdom teeth removal patients, and eventually being viewed by millions, with most users not linking back to the original choreography.
The technology isn’t perfect yet, but it’s inspiring Knight to create something that can actually protect content creators like himself. “We’re in conversation with parties over at TikTok to sort of figure out how we can help control and follow those creators, and make sure they’re getting [credit],” says Knight. He later uploaded his own version of the TikTok challenge.
In the meantime, Knight says he did recently mention the “Body”/Adele dance trend to Megan Thee Stallion herself. “That was a part of our conversation – joking about when the Megan Thee Stallion and Adele collaboration is gonna happen,” he says. “We’ll see. The energy is out there, the spirit is out there.”