If you watched N.E.R.D. and Rihanna‘s music video for their recent collab, “Lemon” and found yourself thinking, “Who is that dancer?” you’re not alone! We were immediately mesmerized by Mette Towley‘s incredible solo performance, and needed to find out everything we could about her. Here are the five things you MUST know about the backup dancer who nabbed the hottest gig of the year:
1. She’s one of Pharrell’s backup dancers. It wasn’t by chance that Mette landed the solo spot in the video for Pharrell Williams‘ band N.E.R.D. seeing how the 26-year-old has been working with the singer as far back as 2014. She’s part of his group of backup singers affectionately called “The Baes” and the singer seems especially fond of her. “Mette is the scary one to me because she walks around with a psychic force,” Pharrell said in a 2014 YouTube video as part of his “Meet The Baes” series. He’s definitely not wrong!
2. She earned a dance degree from the University of Minnesota, where she also studied the theory behind her craft. “As a dancer, I think a lot of the times people assume that all you do is count to eight, and maybe your knowledge is only contained in your body and not as much as your mind,” Mette said in her “Meet The Baes” video. “For myself, I think that what happened when I went to school for dance was I had the opportunity to learn dance theory. I had the opportunity to study classic cultural texts and literature that really opened my mind to the symbolism of what it means for me to be on stage.”
3. She helped inspire an Adidas Originals clothing line. As one of Pharrell’s Baes, Mette picked her favorite shade from Pharrell’s Adidas Originals Supercolor release so that the athletic company could come up with a design created with her personality in mind. She chose a bright cerulean that looked fantastic on her, which is no surprise since we’ve also seen her washed in blue light in the “Lemon” video.
4. She used to teach Hip Hop fusion classes to teens. Mette returned to her home state of Minnesota in Nov. 2016 to teach a master dance class at the Main Street School Of Performing Arts in Eden Prairie, MN. Although the lesson was ideal for 13 to 17-year-olds, all ages were welcome to learn from the professional dancer.
5. She’s going to be dancing live again very soon. N.E.R.D. will be performing at ComplexCon in Long Beach, CA on Nov. 4. If her recent music video spot and this Instagram post is anything to go off, we’ll all be able to see Mette do her thing again in no time. In the meantime, you can re-watch her jaw-dropping performance in the video above!
HollywoodLifers, what do you think of Mette’s dance moves in N.E.R.D. and Rihanna’s new video? Let us know below!
