Teyana Taylor

Teyana Me Shay Jacqueli Taylor (born December 10, 1990) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, model, dancer, choreographer, and music video director. After choreographing the video for Beyoncé's 2006 single "Ring the Alarm," she signed a recording contract with the Neptunes' Star Trak Entertainment, an imprint of Interscope Records the following year. Taylor appeared on MTV's My Super Sweet 16 prior to the release of her 2008 debut single, "Google Me." She gained further attention for her uncredited guest performances on Kanye West's 2010 songs "Dark Fantasy" and "Hell of a Life" — both from his album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010). She parted ways with Star Trak and Interscope in favor of West's GOOD Music, an imprint of Def Jam Recordings two years later.She appeared on the GOOD Music compilation album Cruel Summer (2012), which peaked at number two on the Billboard 200. Her debut studio album, VII (2014), was met with positive critical reception and peaked within the top 20, along with her second and third studio albums, K.T.S.E. (2018) and The Album (2020); the latter peaked within the chart's top ten, while K.T.S.E. spawned the single "Gonna Love Me" (remixed featuring Ghostface Killah, Method Man, and Raekwon), which received platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).In her acting career, Taylor made her film debut in the 2010 dance drama Stomp the Yard: Homecoming, and appeared in the Tyler Perry film Madea's Big Happy Family the following year. In television, Taylor had roles in two seasons of Star (2017–18), and the Amazon Prime film Coming 2 America (2021). She and her then-husband Iman Shumpert were given a reality television series, Teyana and Iman, by VH1, which aired from 2020 until 2023. She received critical acclaim for her starring performance in the 2023 film A Thousand and One, for which she won the Breakthrough Performance Award from the National Board of Review.In other ventures, Taylor has been credited with music video directing under the name "Spike Tee". She has done so for artists including herself, Diddy, Schoolboy Q, and Queen Naija. She won the BET Award for Video Director of the Year in 2020 and 2023.