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Daniel Price: The King of Memphis Jookin Who Wrote the Book on His Own Culture

From Memphis nightclubs and high school talent shows to Broadway's Signature Theatre and an augmented-reality dance app — how DPKOM built the foundation for a style now studied as "advanced ballet."

By Dance Mogul Magazine  |  Originally featured December 2017  |  Updated and expanded 2026

Daniel Price — Dancer, Choreographer, Historian of Memphis Jookin | Photo: Dance Mogul Magazine Archives

Dance Mogul Magazine will always bring you the latest and greatest as it pertains to dance and dance culture. Our articles are meant to inspire and guide our readers to a place of power — ultimately leading them to live the life they desire. Back in December 2017, the second installment of our "Let's Talk About It" series took us to the South, where dance was becoming as much of a gold rush as the music surrounding it. Daniel Price, the King of Memphis Jookin and Co-Founder of Digital Dance Culture, sat down with Dance Mogul Magazine to drop some knowledge on the future of one of America's most distinct street dance styles.

Nearly a decade later, that conversation reads as a blueprint that came true. Daniel didn't just predict where Memphis Jookin was heading — he spent the years since building the infrastructure to get it there: a published cultural text, a Broadway-adjacent choreography credit, a technology venture, and a teaching platform that keeps the style's most technical vocabulary alive for a new generation of dancers.

The 2017 Interview: The Future of Memphis Jookin

Dance Mogul: Daniel, you and your peers are responsible for taking Memphis Jookin to new levels of dance and business acceptance. Can you tell me what you see for the future of Memphis Jookin?

DP: Memphis Jookin is heading into a larger cultural spectrum as older generation dancers have gained influence around the nation and world. New professions and hobbies are being adopted by new generation Jookers due to their knowledge of what generates popularity and consistent income. Highly respected Memphis dancers are now DJs, music producers, entertainment business executives, and recording artists. Memphis has become a city to watch for street dance, and its presence will continue to reach the world through its multi-talented arts community.

Daniel Price — Memphis Jookin in motion (Dance Mogul Magazine, 2017)

Dance Mogul: Who are the leaders, and who are some of the newbies to look out for?

DP: The Jookin community has often been led by few in the past, but many factions have strengthened their presence over the years. Today, Memphis Jookin events have been solidified by its consistent promoters such as Terrance "G.Nerd" Smith, Jacquency Ford, Montrell Britton, and Telly Albright. There are also some out-of-town supporters of the culture who intend to highlight the style alongside other known cultures. Jookin had some breakout dancers join the culture, in turn becoming famous and well connected to the mainstream industry. Some of them are Charles "Lil Buck" Riley, Trent Jeray, Ron Myles, Keviorr Taylor, Marico Flake, Ladia Yates, and most recently Phyouture Hart.

Dance Mogul: With the internet making everything so accessible, young kids and dancers from all over have fused several Memphis Jookin moves within their style. How can a level of ownership be retained amongst those that helped cultivate and push the culture?

DP: The future of Jookin features some technological advancements for the spreading of the culture, notably MemphisJookin.com. The subscription-based website features exclusive content based on the Memphis-born dance culture, including tutorials, event footage, and unreleased dance productions. In addition, Memphis Jookers have made themselves known to the nation via social media and console gaming with the intent to strengthen its familiarity.

From Gangsta Walk to Global Style: Building Memphis Jookin's Foundation

Daniel Price's relationship with Memphis dance goes back to the age of five, growing up immersed in the Memphis Urban Dance tradition that blends jazz, ballet, and the foundations of early street dance. His major influence was the Gangsta Walk, a style that rarely left Memphis nightclubs until high school kids in the city picked it up and carried it into talent shows and school hallways. Price started at Raleigh Egypt High School in the fall of 2001, at age 15, during a period he has described as pivotal for the culture's next generation. He has credited early rivals and dance partners — Rome, Tarrik, Dr. Rico, Mike D., Lil Gino, and promoter Shunn Gunn — with shaping the environment that eventually produced Memphis Jookin as the world knows it today.

What separates Daniel Price from many of his peers is that he didn't just dance the culture — he documented it. In 2010, working alongside Tarrik Moore and Marico Flake, he wrote "The Jook," a historical and analytical manual breaking down Memphis Jookin's movement vocabulary and cultural lineage. It remains a foundational text for anyone teaching or studying the style, outlining core movements and the essence of the style's cultural expression. That written record is a large part of why Vail International Dance Magazine has referred to Jookin as "the Advanced Ballet" — a level of technical respect rarely extended to a street dance style, and one Price has pointed to as validation of years spent building the culture's infrastructure rather than just performing in it.

In 2012, that documentation work translated into one of Price's most significant credits outside Memphis: he choreographed Katori Hall's play "Hurt Village" for its debut at the Signature Theatre near Times Square in Manhattan — teaching cast members Ron Caphri Jones, Corey Hawkins, and Charlie Hudson III the Gangsta Walk as it would have existed in the housing projects the play depicted. It was, by his own account, an honor to give those actors a true, unfiltered sense of Memphis male perspective on stage in New York.

Where Is Daniel Price Now?

The technological future Daniel Price described to Dance Mogul Magazine in 2017 has continued to take shape in the years since. He served as a driving force, alongside Menfes Interactive and UPG-Corp, behind the Memphis Jookin AR Dancer app — a mobile tool that uses augmented reality to deliver 3D animated Jookin sequences based on the movement vocabulary he laid out in "The Jook." Released on Android and later iOS, the app drew more than 10,000 users, extending Memphis Jookin's reach into gaming and technology spaces most street dance styles have never touched.

Price has continued building on the business side of the culture as COO of Digital Dance Culture LLC, the same organization referenced in his 2017 Dance Mogul interview, and has more recently been associated with Memphis Urbane Dance LLC, a venture focused on unifying the business side of Memphis dance culture. He has also opened his teaching directly to the public through Memphis Jookin Master Classes, a structured curriculum covering the style's most technical vocabulary — Heel Throws, L-Steps, Buckjump variations, Wings & Strings upper-body concepts, and the Heel Swivel Crossover, the move he is most known for on YouTube and the technique that gave rise to the Jookin concept known as "Icing." The classes are booked directly through his own platform, a far cry from the informal talent-show circuit where he first learned the style.

His impact on the culture has also been formally institutionalized. In 2015, the Memphis Battle Dance League created The Daniel Price Award, an annual honor recognizing a rising dancer carrying the culture into its next era — a direct acknowledgment of Price's status as the G.O.A.T. of Memphis Jookin among his peers. According to his own biography, Price has also pursued academic study in cultural anthropology at the University of Memphis, aiming to develop frameworks that help Memphis's dance and arts community build long-term creative credibility independent of the mainstream entertainment industry — the same kind of ownership he told Dance Mogul Magazine in 2017 the culture needed to protect.

The dancers Price has mentored, cited, and worked alongside over the years — Charles "Lil Buck" Riley, who went on to tour with Madonna's MDNA World Tour, Ron Myles, who appeared in the Chipmunks films, and Ladia Yates, a featured dancer for Usher and Missy Elliott — are living proof of the pipeline he described building back in 2017. Memphis Jookin didn't just survive the transition from nightclub to global stage. It has its own historian, its own technical curriculum, its own award, and its own app, and Daniel Price had a hand in building nearly all of it.

Why Daniel Price's Story Matters to Dance Mogul Magazine

Dance Mogul Magazine exists to inspire self-empowerment and preserve the legacy of dance culture in every form it takes — regional, global, mainstream, or underground. Daniel Price's story is a direct example of why that mission matters specifically for street dance and regional styles that rarely get the institutional respect given to ballet or contemporary dance. He told this publication in 2017 that ownership of a culture has to be actively protected as it spreads. He then spent the years since proving how: by writing the book, building the app, teaching the classes, and choreographing the stage production that carried Memphis's specific dance language to New York audiences.

His designation by Vail International Dance Magazine as producing "the Advanced Ballet" of street dance styles is exactly the kind of cross-genre respect Dance Mogul Magazine was built to document and amplify. Memphis Jookin sits alongside hip-hop and every other dance style this publication covers as proof that technical mastery and cultural depth exist everywhere dancers are willing to write it down, teach it, and defend it.

It also matters because Daniel Price represents a model too few dancers get to follow: staying rooted in your home city while building institutions — a curriculum, an award, a technology product — that outlast any single performance. That is precisely the kind of legacy-building Dance Mogul Magazine was founded to celebrate.

The Legacy Continues

Daniel Price's 2017 interview with Dance Mogul Magazine captured a culture at an inflection point — a regional dance style gaining national attention, with the dancers behind it thinking carefully about how to protect what they had built. Nearly a decade later, the infrastructure is in place: a written history, a technical curriculum, an annual award bearing his name, and a technology product that puts Memphis Jookin in the hands of anyone with a smartphone.

Dance Mogul Magazine will continue documenting the dancers who don't just perform a culture but build it — the historians, the choreographers, the app developers, and the teachers who make sure a style survives its own popularity. Daniel Price is one of the clearest examples of what that looks like, and Memphis Jookin is stronger today because he treated the culture like something worth writing down.

Daniel Price Memphis Jookin DPKOM Gangsta Walk Digital Dance Culture Hurt Village Lil Buck Street Dance The Jook Book Where Are They Now Memphis Dance

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