Of black artists. Paving the way for a white performers success is hardly uncommon in the entertainment industry in recent years. This pattern has emerged time and time again on tiktok black creators and bene- dance white users. Perform that dance and the influencers who get the most followers and money out of these viral crazes typically end up being white. Now we of us in march when influence our addison. Rae went on the tonight. Show with jimmy fallon to teach. The host dances that have mainly been created by black people and in response to the backlash over raise. Appearance fallon invited. The creators of those dances on his show the following week on our last show before break. We did a bit with addison. Rae where she taught me. Eight viral tiktok dances now. We recognize that. The creators of those dances deserve to have their own spotlight right now. Some of the creators will join me to talk about. How their dance when viral and then perform the dance themselves up. I got my nicole. Johnson and chris cotter who created the viral dance. Two cardi b.'s. Up but after meghan stallion released her latest single earlier this month black creators on tiktok decided to try something different. I never thought. I'd live to see the day that we actually go through with it and see just how much some young us especially with making dances that chucker rip off and say that y'all created it. That's a tiktok user who goes by the handle. Captain can knuckles explaining why many black creators decided to go on a strike. Yeah for my mill naked brothers and sisters of all of the african diaspora own. We are on strike yet. We are on strike. We're not making a dance for sorry. We're not making dance where we just go and let them keep flailing and it just shows how much y'all need us steel dance into say that it's a new big thing so instead of making a new dance to megan thee stallion song. They want white tiktokers to see what happens when they don't have a dance created by black people to copy here with me now to discuss. This strike is tons of rene stidham entertainment writer for the route. Thanks so much for being here tonya. Thanks for having me melissa. All right let's just be honest. I'm old. I'm not a tiktok user. You are so Topped me about when you first learned about the strike. The eric lewis was t. h. e. e. r. i c. k. l. o. u. i. s. I saw his video is started making the rounds on twitter. Actually which is a very common for tiktok when it goes viral. It goes over to twitter. Basically he uploaded a video with megan thee stallion song. I'll be radio for the say. That each in the everett and he seems to be getting ready to bust out like an eight counts of the song which is usually right for a tic tac. Dance right like that song was like very very you know applicable to its exact dance but instead he checked his middle finger to the camera and captioned it this apple be nothing without black people. It was so brilliant because white tiktokers simply copied. The video without knowing was a dupe right. So it definitely proved that they just copy and paste. The black raiders work without eighty cents a context reverence or respect in the original content quote unquote. That came out of that from the black. A drought is just at the y. Craters were like flailing about on the camera. So it was hilarious and we were all making fun of him and improving their own rhythmic creativity. So to speak is non-existent. Let's pause for a second. Because i want you to help us understand what's at stake now. I don't. I don't wanna say that maybe my friends and i used to always make fun of the three or four lovely white kids in college. Who would come to the block parties and dance and we were like while. They're having a good time. I see them trying there. So i mean it's not that i'm that i'm unfamiliar with the racial flail and this sense but talk to me about what's at stake. That's what was happening at college. Parties in the pit versus. What's happening on tiktok yes. This is very significant. A difference because of course in first we were having a good time at joke about enrolling them but then as it starts to fall we started seeing that it was pretty much a strike Similar to like a labor issue or the fight for workers rights and so the black creators decided to stop making. These dances to stop waiting. These dances because they knew that white tiktokers were appropriating it and schilling their content without crazy them and they weren't getting any other benefit for their own creations which was abysmal. so what what is the benefit. Yeah and that's a good question. Because there are some popular soccer's of such as addison. Rae or maybe charlie demilio who have like a bunch of followers right. They have like in the upper multimillions followers and so of course brands and corporations they want to get in on that with marketing like free marketing for them for the socrates popular take soccer's to maybe promote a brand promote something so they get these sponsorships they get the agency reps and other major deals from his platform and again. They're doing this without crediting the creators and so when we do call them out on it they may you know at a state meet here to play or what have you or there are like consolation prize such as like the effort. Aforementioned jimmy fallon appearance where he invited the black raiders. After the fact after that he platform addison. Rae with these dances. That the black raiders created. There's like this virtual signal right at least no real intention or reward for the black raiders. Who deserve it. Let me understand this in the context of this longer history. So i'm i'm thinking back to a time when music industry would have actually been a black musicians. Perform the music but then would literally put on the cover right on the album. Cover white musicians in order to crossover right in order to sell. And then maybe come forward to like an elvis time where the music the the dance actually comes from black folks but who aren't sold or played on top forty mainstream radio and instead right elvis ends up with the credit for things that are created by by black creators but in the tiktok context aren't all to talk about equally available to everyone. I mean in other words. I'm asking if i'm just sort of a free market person you know wouldn't i just say well. Hey look people prefer to see the white folks doing it. And and that to they're following. That's the thing these white creators. Have this privilege right because there is this this whitewashing right of standards of beauty and such things such as that. So they're usually a pretty much pushed to the forefront of these things anyway because of high society pretty much presents them. What's funny about tiktok. What's great about tiktok as a platform in the creation of the platform is that is unique in that it allowed creators to receive credit and it kind of limits that you know that amount of research relation theft that happens when you download upload a video research later over and over because they place watermark on the video over and over right but in this case we have other creators who are recreating the danes. So they're making their own video and making their own continent but not actually crediting the original creator and say that this is their dance. I find it stunning and really smart to put the watermark right. That's like indicative of understanding how that intellectual property works. Have you heard about other possible ways. That black creators are.