Music
Even when Teyana Taylor is at the top, the only way is up
As Red Bull’s documentary film Assembly Required delves into the sweat and tears that went into making her first-ever House Of Petunia show, we look back at the life and career of Teyana Taylor.
Teyana Taylor first appeared on our screens in 2006. Starring in MTV’s mid-00s hit show My Super Sweet 16 – a programme in which well-off teenagers threw their dream birthday party – and her star power was undeniable even then.
She arrived in a life-size Barbie doll box carried in by four topless men in Santa hats (she’s a Sagittarius), before erupting from the box and breaking into a full dance routine with an army of back-up dancers to match. Pharrell Williams and Atlanta rapper T.I. were both in attendance, hyping up a crowd of screaming teens. “I’m definitely the Queen of New York!” she declared. Maybe even back then she knew that she’d become the Harlem rose we’ve seen blossom so spectacularly on record and who dominates the screen so forcefully throughout Red Bull’s documentary film, Assembly Required.
As a teenager, Taylor was into skate culture and drew influence from Harlem’s urban aesthetics (graffiti and dance battles peppered her Sweet 16 bash). Before that landmark birthday, becoming a pop star and dancer wasn’t on her radar at all – she was just busy being a kid, albeit one who was hard to ignore. When a friend of her mum’s introduced her to Pharrell, though, Taylor hit the ground running. Williams signed her to his Star Trak imprint, and soon after she was credited as a choreographer for Beyoncé’s iconic Ring The Alarm routine and appeared as a dancer in JAY-Z’s video for Blue Magic.
Pharrell eventually introduced Taylor to Kanye West during the latter’s Glow In The Dark tour. Both big fashion followers, West invited Taylor into the studio to check out some clothes he’d designed with Parisian fashion house Balmain. It was just hours before he was due to submit his fifth studio album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, and, showing the same determination we see in Assembly Required as she creates a blockbuster concert from scratch, Taylor decided she was going to guest on it no matter what, humming along to a playback to get his attention. It worked.
Teyana Taylor
© Ryan McMahill/Red Bull Content Pool
By lending her soulful voice to Dark Fantasy and Hell Of A Life, Taylor made her mark on West’s masterpiece – and it was a moment that would change her life forever. She signed to G.O.O.D. Music shortly after and released her debut album VII in 2014, an intoxicating blend of R 'n' B slow jams and hip-hop bangers, featuring Fabolous, Yo Gotti and Pusha T.
The grind has always been integral to Taylor's story, and, as you’ll see from her intensity and relentless drive to get things right in Assembly Required, she doesn’t do things by halves. In 2018, she finally released her seismic second album K.T.S.E. “Teyana provides something that's so R 'n' B, so black, so 'hood, so missing, so necessary in the marketplace,” West gushed at the album release party.
Expressing her desire to succeed, the album – its title an acronym for Keep That Same Energy – flew through sensual R 'n' B, playful pop and fierce vogue beats in just 22 fiery minutes. If VII was Taylor’s introduction to the world, then K.T.S.E. was her opportunity to flex those muscles.
Exploring themes of perseverance, female sexuality and the strength that motherhood had given her, the album is a portrait of a woman in control – the same major theme that runs throughout Assembly Required. Recorded after major milestones like her marriage to basketball star Iman Shumpert and the birth of their first daughter, June, and with her mum Nikki doubling as her manager, K.T.S.E. showed how important family is to Taylor, both professionally and creatively.
"You can be superwoman. You can have it all, that balance in your relationship, your family and your career,” she once told Paper. On Never Would Have Made It, she expresses her gratitude for Nikki and baby June from the bottom of her heart: “Never would have made it without you/ You are the highlight of my life/ You are the sunshine in my night,” her voice soars. “I'm wise enough to take control/ My mama told me everything I know.”
On K.T.S.E., Taylor harnessed her sexuality and her passionate relationship with her husband, who starred alongside her in a steamy shower scene for Kanye West’s Fade video and is a major presence in Assembly Required both on and off stage. She made her desires clear with the playful and flirtatious track Hurry, in which she patiently waits for her lover to come home: “Hurry, hurry/ Late night get like all this real magic/ Ride it automatic ‘til the sun come up.” Her music encourages women to nurture and own their sexuality, and turn it into power. “I want to inspire other women to be great. I know a lot of people say that, but I actually mean it,” she has said.
These boots are made for walking…
© Ryan McMahill/Red Bull Content Pool
Her biggest love affair of all, though, is with Harlem. Taylor plays homage to her hometown in everything she does, whether that’s through her smash hit A Rose In Harlem, where she describes her own rags-to-riches backstory, or in her dance choreography, where she’s indebted to the New York vogue scene that inspires her moves. She even opened up her own ’90s-style nail salon called Junie Bee Nails, furthering the cause of Harlem-inspired nail art.
All these homegrown influences crystallise on the documentary film Assembly Required – a behind-the-scenes, fly-on-the-wall look at how Teyana Taylor created her first-ever House Of Petunia show at Red Bull Music Festival New York. Following Taylor’s creative journey from start to finish, from auditioning dancers to surfacing from the top of a bright red, altar-like staircase kitted out in a monochrome Queen Of Hearts chess-piece gown, the film shows that Taylor is a woman with full agency over herself.
Checkmate for Teyana Taylor
© Ryan McMahill/Red Bull Content Pool
The homecoming show that Taylor creates is a spectacular knock-out – but she thinks differently. “Anything that can go wrong, will,” she says in the film. Feeling deflated after a “bad show”, her mum Nikki attempts to comfort her as she sits backstage, surrounded by doting friends and family. “There were a few missteps,” admits Nikki to the camera. “The naked eye would never know that, but she's a perfectionist and she is super-critical of herself.”
Taylor is a fiercely passionate artist – she says it herself in Assembly Required. Aside from being a chart-topping artist and businesswoman, she's also earned a spot in Forbes 30 under 30 list, built a fitness empire, launched fashion lines and rubbed shoulders with her creative heroes (meeting Rick Owens was particularly special). To the outside world, it would seem like she’s made her wildest dreams come true already – including building the House of Petunia on display in Assembly Required. But even when Teyana Taylor is at the top, she’s still always looking up.
