Too early to tell if Apple’s AirPods is a home run product, but one thing’s for sure: people are going crazy for the wildly talented dancer in the big AirPod commercial. Apple has a certain aesthetic, and a performer has to bring not just creativity but polish and poise to represent the brand that makes the word’s most famous interfaces. Freestyle dance master Lil Buck fits the bill and then some. AirPods hope to usher in the great untethering, freeing listeners from tangled wires and giving them freedom to be themselves. No one looks more free or more himself than Lil Buck as he defies gravity in his AirPods.
Lil Buck is Charles ‘Lil Buck’ Riley, a Chicago-born 28-year-old performer from Memphis, Tennessee. He tweets at the indisputable handle LILBUCKDALEGEND. About the Apple spot, Lil Buck says, “Y’all have seen me dance…but never like this!” A choreographer and activist as well as a dancer, Buck is behind MOVEMENT ART IS, an org “focused on using movement artistry to inspire change in the world.” He’s most famous for the dance style known as “jookin” — or “Memphis jookin” — and has jooked and danced with Madonna, Ellen DeGeneres (who hasn’t?), Cirque du Soleil and more. But perhaps the most incredible Lil Buck performances are his teaming with legendary cellist Yo-Yo Ma. See below. BTW: the music in the Apple AirPods commercial is by Marian Hill Music.
Y’all have seen me dance.. but never like this! I’m hearing and feeling the music like never before! Music by @MarianHillMusic #Airpods pic.twitter.com/BiSADamZpV
— LIL BUCK (@LILBUCKDALEGEND) January 14, 2017
