FEBRUARY 2019 InSTYLE 125her r ie Si lver r ushes into a coffee shop in the West Nor wood
neighborhood of London, hair flying wildly around her face,
offering an apology and a breathless hug for being late. One
can’t help but forgive the charming 24-year-old choreogra-
pher, who hasn’t spent three nights in the same place since
bursting onto the global scene last summer as the dance mas-
termind behind the explosive, racially charged music video
“This Is America” for Childish Gambino (actor Donald Glov-
er’s musical alter ego). She showed up for her InStyle shoot
straight off a plane from New Zealand, where she had per-
formed with Glover at his experimental Pharos festival, and is
leaving the next day to join him for meetings in Los Angeles. So
what ’s their connection? “ Work ing with Dona ld a llows me to
be weird,” says Silver. “As you can probably tell, I’m weird, but I like being different
because that’s how you innovate.”
That ca ref ree v ibe is ev ident in Si lver ’s spir ited da nce v ideos that she’s fi lmed
in over 34 countries and that continue to attract millions of views to her YouTube
cha nnel. Now other st a rs, li ke R it a Ora , with whom she worked on the Victor ia’s
Secret show, and brands such as Whole Foods, Nike, Target, and Chobani are also
calling. And though she can’t confirm it, we’re pretty sure we recognized some of
her moves in “Guava Island,” a new video co-starring Rihanna that Glover teased
at Pharos. “It’s just all catching up,” Silver says sighing, settling into her chair as
her iPhone repeated ly bu zzes with a ler ts a nd tex ts. “ I ca n act ua lly feel it .”
Silver, clad in some of the free Nike swag that comes with those sorts of big-brand
partnerships, initially found her groove while attending university in London,
although she never imagined her hobby would become a career. She started off act-
ing in the 2010 film Africa United before developing her signature dance style, which
pairs African moves with her own frenetic creations. After posting her routines on
YouTube, including one she filmed in front of the Egyptian pyramids (where she was
nearly arrested), she quickly garnered attention online. The clips were discovered
by the niece of Glover’s manager, who immediately hired Silver to work on “This
Is America,” a video that has accumulated 442-plus million views, been nominated
for four Grammys, and won three MTV VMAs last August. Silver attended the
VMAs “on behalf of the team” and even accepted Glover’s awards for him onstage.
“It just shows that as a dark-skinned girl from Africa, you can achieve all these
things,” she says before reminiscing about her glamorous look, a glittering green
gown by Galvan London, that night. “I don’t know if it was the camera, but I just
looked like some black shiny Barbie doll, and my hair was like, ‘Hey, how are you?’”
“ Th is Is A mer ica” d id n’t just br ing Si lver into the spotlig ht. It a lso helped
popularize the South African dance move gwara gwara, as well as Silver’s own
move, the neza—a rounded-shoulder-and-chest-focused shuffle she created
wh i le on set. That t y pe of ingenu it y, blend ing A f r ica n st yles with A mer ica n
hip-hop, is part of the choreographer’s inventive appeal.
Much of Si lver ’s deter mination ca n be d irectly traced to her mom, Florence,
who moved Silver when she was 5 from a small village in war-torn Rwanda to
London. Silver’s father had died just a month before she was born, and she attri-
butes her education and opportunities to her mom’s fearlessness. “It was just me
and her, and obviously she didn’t have the financial support that she needed,” Sil-
ver recounts. “It was very difficult. Going to the well to get water, things like that.
So she just wanted to secure a better future and education for me.”
Now Silver’s mom has a thriving career in the U.K. as a maternity nurse, with a
schedule just as packed as her daughter’s. And while the younger Silver has had her
own share of hardship, including being bullied in school for her darker skin tone,
her mom’s ability to be patient and forgive taught Silver that anything is possible.
“Her struggles have been crazy—they don’t even compare (CONTINUED ON PAGE 135)