Jalaiah Harmon

Jalaiah Harmon is an American dancer and content creator, who is credited for choreographing the Renegade Dance, one of the most popular dances on TikTok. She danced to the song "Lottery" by K-Camp, an Atlanta-based rapper. The renegade dance incorporated viral dances include Woah and Wave.

Early life
Jalaiah Harmon is born and raised in Fayetteville, Georgia. Her mother is Dr. Stefanie Harmon and her father, Dr. Brian Harmon.

Career
Jalaiah Harmon is a professional dancer and content creator. In 2020, Jalaiah performed the Renegade dance at the 2020 NBA All-Star game at the United Centre, Chicago. In 2021, Harmon's docuseries, "I AM: JALAIAH", aired, which explored her personal life and dancing

Jalaiah and Renegade Dance
Harmon gained popularity following a feature from The New York Times, which identified her as the creator of the Renegade dance. It became one of the most viral dances on TikTok in 2020. On September 25th, 2019, Harmon, after listening to K Camp's song "Lottery", choreographed the dance, recorded herself and posted the video first on Funimate and then on Instagram. The video gained about 13,000 views on Instagram, with different users recreating the dance video.

In October 2019, the dance was posted on TikTok for the first time by a different creator, with username @global.jones, who changed a few moves at the end. The dance went viral on the platform. The dance was posted by popular Tiktok creators like Charli D'Amelio and Addison Rae, who gained more popularity from the dance. Other TikTok users also posted the viral dance. However, no one credited Harmon. The dance soon gained traction across the world. In an attempt to get credit for the dance, Harmon started to comment on user pages that posted the Renegade Dance. The comments however, went unnoticed. Eventually, the story caught the attention of Barrie Segal, the head of content at Dubsmash who set up an interview for Harmon with a New York Times reporter.

Following the article by The New York Times, K Camp posted a video on X (then Twitter) of Harmon and her friend dancing to the song, with him in the background. In his caption, he thanked Harmon for making his song go viral. A day after this post was made, the NBA invited TikTok content creators, Charli D'Amelio and Addison Rae, to perform the Renegade dance at the 2020 All-Star slam dunk contest during Aaron Gordon's dunk attempt. Harmon was however not invited. This caused more backlash online, with some social media users highlighting the continued promotion of other TikTok users, in this case white creators, while not offering Harmon, a Black creator, similar opportunities. Following the backlash, the NBA invited Harmon for a solo performance of the Renegade dance during the 2020 NBA All-Star game.

Following the Renegade dance, Harmon was at the forefront of the issue of crediting creators, especially Black creators who create popular dances and trends on that go viral on Tiktok. Since then, more Black creators have come out to ask for credit for their creativity shared on different social media platforms.