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UK choreographer Ivan Blackstock and dancer Nafisah Baba worked on the groundbreaking Black Is King visual album, connecting with a wealth of black peers
Choreographer Ivan Blackstock was having a bad day when he got the call. It was from a director he’d worked with, Jenn Nkiru. “She said: ‘I know you’re busy, but I’ve got a little gig that came through, would you be interested?’” he recalls. Blackstock demurred and asked who it was. “She said: ‘It’s Beyoncé.’ And at that moment a tear rolled from my eye and it felt like things made sense. It felt like I’d landed.”In his early days as a dancer, Blackstock, now 34, performed with plenty of big names – Kylie Minogue, the Pet Shop Boys, Dizzee Rascal – but Beyoncé is next-level stuff. Especially the gig in question, for the visual album Black Is King, which was released in July. In this companion piece to her soundtrack for the Lion King remake, Beyoncé reimagines Simba’s story as one of self-discovery and black pride in the riches of the African diaspora.
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