Mei
I grew up being looked at. So I learned to give people something to look at.
Where it started
Mei was born in Accra and moved to Tokyo at six when her mother took a job at an embassy. She was the only Black kid in her school, and everyone stared.
What they wanted
She wanted to disappear. Through middle school she kept her head down and her hair tied back and said almost nothing.
The wall
At fourteen a group of older girls followed her home every day for a month. She stopped going out after school.
The moment it clicked
Her cousin from Accra visited and dragged her to a dance battle under the tracks in Shinjuku. Mei stood at the back for an hour, then got pulled into the circle. A hundred people were staring at her, and for the first time it felt like they were staring at something she chose to show them.
The new path
She trained in that circle every night for three years, mixing Azonto steps from home with Tokyo house.
The hard part
She lost her first eleven battles. Some of the judges told her the style did not belong in Japan.
The breakthrough
She won the national championship at twenty and then choreographed a tour for one of the biggest groups in J-pop.
Today
Mei teaches teenage girls on Friday nights under the same tracks where she started. The Shinjuku shield goes on for every outdoor rehearsal, rain or sun.
This is Mei's locked face. Every photo and video of her starts from it, so her look stays the same everywhere her appears.
Aiko
Kenji
Ren