When his agent told him he didn’t book Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl LIX halftime show, Jalen Granville told her to check the list again. He still wasn’t on it.
“I gave myself five minutes to go outside and boohoo,” said Granville, who goes by the stage name Jalen Rashad. “Then I was like, ‘OK, something is going to come.’”
He was right. Another agent secured him a spot dancing in rapper Doechii’s Grammy performance. A few days later, Rashad received a call he thought was to confirm that gig, but instead, he learned he had booked the Super Bowl.
“I was ‘fangirling’ in my living room, right here in my studio apartment,” Rashad, a University of Virginia School of Engineering alumnus and professional dancer, recalled.
The first thing Rashad did after hanging up the phone was call his mom. The second thing he did was call his grandfather and tell him he had to stay alive to watch his grandson dance at the Super Bowl. The same day, his grandfather transitioned into comfort care.
On Feb. 9, Rashad danced in the most-watched Super Bowl halftime show on record, with more than 133 million viewers nationwide.
“We weren’t like this,” Rashad said of his grandfather in a Zoom interview, crossing his middle finger over his index finger. “We were like this.” He held up just his index finger.
While Rashad and the other dancers were rehearsing in January in Santa Monica, California – amid multiple location changes due to the Los Angeles wildfires – Rashad’s grandfather died.
Rashad poses with his grandfather following his high school graduation. Rashad’s grandfather’s funeral was held the day before the Super Bowl. (Contributed photos)
The funeral was held the day before the Super Bowl in Alexandria, Louisiana, a roughly three-hour drive from New Orleans, where the Super Bowl was hosted. An American flag covered the casket, as is customary for military funerals. The next day, Rashad, dressed in blue, formed the flag with his fellow dancers during Lamar’s performance of “Humble.”
“The Super Bowl with Kendrick aligns with all the lessons that he taught me during my upbringing, that being a Black man in America is not easy,” Rashad said. “It was beautiful to see how the two connected for me, personally.”
Rashad has danced in music videos for Bad Bunny and Pink and performed live with rappers GloRilla and Metro Boomin. That’s in addition to his day job as an engineer for the defense company Northrop Grumman.
[“Independent” by Webbie playing in the background]
This Super Bowl was his second. In 2023, he was one of the 80 dancers who joined Rihanna onstage for her Super Bowl performance. He even got to hand the singer her water bottle between numbers.
Unlike many dancers of his caliber, Rashad didn’t start dancing seriously until he came to UVA.
“Growing up in Louisiana, you just know how to move,” Rashad said, noting he was known for being great at the Cupid shuffle and the wobble.
Once he came to Grounds, he decided he needed to find an identity outside of his academic performance. He noticed different dance groups highlighted during the activities fair, and the competitive hip hop dance group X-Tasee caught his eye. After a three-day audition process, he made the cut.
“I was so shook because I’d never danced real choreography a day in my life before,” Rashad said. “I continued training and going to these conventions and competitions, and it just blew up from there.”
Rashad dances on stage with Karol G. Since moving to Los Angeles, he has danced for artists like Bad Bunny and Pink. (Contributed photo)
Rashad became the group’s president during his third year and continuously contributed choreography for multiple performances. During his second year, X-Tasee performed during ESPN’s College GameDay. As a fourth-year student, he joined the professional dance company MOTUS and started working for Lockheed Martin just before he walked the Lawn during Final Exercises. After a year at Lockheed Martin, Rashad took a job at Northrop Grumman and moved to Los Angeles.
“I knew I wanted to become a professional dancer, but I didn’t want to sacrifice the four years of aerospace engineering that I just put in, and also I knew I wanted to live a very secure lifestyle,” Rashad said.
His engineering background even came in handy during rehearsals for this year’s halftime show. During the performance of “Peekaboo,” the dancers arranged themselves in an X-shape on the stage. The assistant choreographer knew Rashad had an engineering degree after a training camp they did together, so she sought his advice on how they should position 26 dancers dressed in blue and 22 in red.
