Usher utilises Crazy Hype's MVP dance moves in new video
Published:Tuesday | August 16, 2016 | 12:00 AMKimberley Small
Local dancer Michael Graham, more popularly known as Crazy Hype, has had his dance move, MVP, featured in the latest music video of International R&B superstar Usher.
On August 8, Usher released the music video for No Limit. In the choreography-driven video, Usher reminds everyone why he has remained a sensation all these years. Much to Graham's delight, the grooving crooner's choreography included his MVP dance moves.
"I get videos every day from dancers all over the world," Graham told The Gleaner. He then reposts these videos on his own Instagram profile, highlighting his influence on the dance scene and how organic the popularising of his creations truly is.
However, for Usher's latest video, Graham says he had nothing to do with the actual choreography, a testament to his limitless influence.
"I don't know them, but I found out who it is," Graham told The Gleaner. The choreographer is an African American called Marc Marvelous, who appears to have worked with other international stars like Fergie, of the The Black Eyed Peas; and performed with Kendrick Lamar during his sensational Grammy performance earlier this year.
"Usher doesn't skimp on choreography in his latest visual offering for the Young Thug collaboration," wrote Adelle Platon for Billboard.com after No Limit's premiere. Rolling Stone wrote that Usher's elaborate dance moves - a choreographed web of swoops, punches, squats and slides - [took] full flight in his minimalist video for No Limit."
Serendipitous or deliberate, Madeline Roth of MTV wrote in her review of the video, "Sure, the young 'uns give Usher a run for his money as the vid's dance MVP, but give him credit: He's pushing 40 and there's still no limit to how smooth he can be."
LASTING IMPACT
Graham has been making what seems to be a lasting impact on the international dance scene. Recently featured in The Gleaner, Graham was highlighted for his role in the emergence of dancehall as a dance style, with enough structure and impact to be aligned with other
global dance moves.
Graham has for some time now been conducting workshops and leading master-classes with participants in the hundreds and thousands. Though holding dancehall workshops, particularly targeting a foreign market has become commonplace among popular local dancers like Latonya Style, Global Bob, among others.
But the inventor of the 'crazy hype' dance craze, has evolved from just dancer into a choreographer and toastmaster - his dance classes taking his students through all Jamaica's indigenous dance styles, from mento, to ska, to rocksteady and dancehall.