tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. .rtist known as "lil buck" i assure you it's one of most incredible things you will see. we are glad you can join us. a conversation with "lil buck" coming up right now.

>> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. tavis: charles riley, known professionally as "lil buck", can attest to the power of his doll of dancing is known as jookin'. it has won him a devoted following as well as stints with madonna and cirque du soleil. let's take a look at "lil buck" performing with yo-yo ma at china's national theatre for the performing arts.

♪ tavis: it's hard to watch you and not look at your feet. i find myself just staring at some nice those are shoes you've got on. >> thank you.

these are made by designer name ricardo. he is an upscale designer. he just collaborated with kind of street sneaker where. they were a gift from madonna for my birthday. [laughter] madonna, i wear a size 12. i will take some of those, those are nice. that was nice of madonna. we will come back to madonna, maybe. let me start with my friend yo-yo ma. has been a guest on this program so many times. how did you hook up with him? >> we hooked up through a guy named damien, a former principal ballet dancer for the new york city ballet. he found a video of me dancing to the swan, i believe i was 18 or 19 years old. i was still a company member at

this ballet studio i was part of in school back in memphis, tennessee. i did a performance with the company and it was for kids in arkansas. we drove down there and just did the performance from the swan. it just turned out to be a beautiful outcome, and the kids loved it. their faces were just blowing. glowing.blowing they thought it was incredible and they were already working with jo jo mann at the time. at the time. ma a ma had an yo-yo established relationship.

damien reached out to me on facebook. you tell me you love my style and that he wanted to get me and jo jo together. i looked them up, like who is this yo-yo guy? the last time i heard you you -- yo yo was in the middle school bathroom. i looked them up and found out all the amazing things he was a part of an all the awards he had one. how he was this prodigy at a very young age playing for all our presidents. i just thought it was amazing, this is an incredible opportunity. i was living in l.a. at the time that they reached out to me. this is when i was 19 or 20 years old. and joew i was in l.a. jo happened to have a concert at the walt disney concert hall here. so i met up with him there and the first thing he said to me "lil buck", and he

just gave me a big hug. the only thing he said after that was, i want to try something. he opened up that his case and brought up the cello and started playing right there in the moment. to be there and see that magic happen for the first time, after that we gave each other ahead -- a hug and knew we had that chemistry together. the next day we did the performance that spike jones caught on camera. the very next day. tavis: hold on. o meet one day, and on his -- on the spot he pulls out his cello and says you want to try something. and you recorded it the very next day? >> the next day they had a meeting for the president's committee on arts and humanities. tavis: hold on.

the biggest uber agent, you were hanging out at his house? go ahead. >> i think it was just supposed a be yo yo by himself for nice little intermission, but that thought it would be fun to throw me in there with him and see what happened. the reaction is just phenomenal from the people. i will go into your back story, it's a very short story, you are so young. how did you come into the presence of the kinds of persons andjust mentioned, artistically, i get the sense that you were not intimidated at all. >> i wasn't, because i was just always doing me, you know?

nothing has changed from when i was in memphis and i moved out to l.a.. i just gained even more drive. i mission from memphis to l.a. just to gain a global mass amount of notoriety. i wanted people to know about it. it is the goal i had for the danced out. we had been underground for so long and i will get more into that as you talk to me about my younger days. but i wanted more notoriety for the dance. of these put in front people, i just tell myself, you have to be you, so that is what people love. i'm not really too starstruck or anything like that. people just fall in love with the talent i have and it's a great gift. tavis: take me back to memphis where it all began in tell me developed thisce

love affair. >> i can tell you right now, i've always been dancing. around, listening to music as a little kid. i was always hyper. i really got into dance when i was 12 years old. i came home from school in memphis and in the living room, my sister was dancing. she was doing this crazy thing with her knees. it looked pretty cool. i had never seen her do this before. i asked her, what is this you are doing right now? .he was like, i am jookin' my friends from school taught me how to do this. that's when i got into it. we made up our first routine in the living room. we made up our first little jookin' routine.

i really took it seriously when i turned 13 in next year. j-is: i should spell it, o-o-k-i-n. go ahead. you and your sister were hanging out. >> that's what happened. i saw her and i got inspired by her just doing that in the living room. that is when i jumped into it for fun, and i got serious with it when i was a teen. the next year i really started seeing it more in my school when i would go out of my friends two different skating rinks. they are places back in memphis where you would see a lot of this being done. you would see a lot of jookin' being done in an empty parking lots and skating rinks. how does the choreography of it all work?

>> that's the magic of it. it is a freestyle dance style. maybe 40% originality, because we do have original steps that make it what it is, that separate it from other dance styles. it started out as like the k and the dance evolved to what you see right now. i sort of created my own style within it. ankles are like rubber. >> they are super flexible. i found out they were really flexible when i was in middle school. i was doing things like this. tavis: do that again. >> i could always do this with my ankles. you scared me with that.

>> when i started dancing, i told you it was a freestyle. originality and the rest is all your creativity. tavis: so you have never done the same thing twice. which is great. with freestyle, you get into the spirit of what ever you are doing with whoever you are performing with. >> it's all in how you feel in the moment. i'm always an abundant person, so i'm always feeling good. based is a freestyle dance style. it does have originality. you would see some movies you are familiar with like the k, there are quite a few original steps.

you don't really see the true essence of it unless you ounce.e balance >> blow did a feature on me -- vogue did a feature on me. choreographers of the 21st-century. they wanted to do a feature on me because i was one of the main dancers in the big show with jr that he was choreographing. me in the feature on magazine as well as a video. to play this video. it's so much easier for people to see how brilliant his artistic genius is. is much easier to see them for me to sit in this chair and describe it. ♪

♪ tavis: i know what i see when i see this. saw yourfull when i gift on display that way. what do you see? , liket people mention what you said, and they mention my expression, how happy i am when i dance. looking at that video, i see a lot of hard work to get to that point. i have been dancing every single day, i never missed a day since

i was 13. everyeen doing jookin' day. it's been like 14 years now. tavis: why did you make the move from memphis to l.a.? what were you hoping to accomplish by being in l.a.? >> i made the move to l.a. because -- i don't know if you heard this before, but i was flown to l.a. for my first music video through youtube. one of the most amazing people i have met in l.a. so far, who helped me so much in my career. , did a video back in memphis one of my great friends and my manager, young j. i was jookin' to one of his songs. i danced to it and we put it on

video, it was fun of -- one of my first youtube videos ever. she thought it would be amazing to get me out to l.a., so she brought me out here for three days and she let me bring my good friend ron as well. he just did the billboard music awards with michael jackson. l.a. and we got flown out there for three days. we just saw all the opportunity compared to memphis. memphis is wonderful, i love it for all the sole i got from living in memphis. it's just a beautiful place. as much as iid think i could do in memphis. i wanted more elevation. i wanted to expand my horizons even more. l.a., i saw out to

all the opportunities, i saw the palm trees, also all the girls. i was like wow, this is just incredible. i know i can do something with jookin' out here. the biggestof places to make it. that is why i made the move there. hows: give me your sense of you think the exposure for this art form will lead to greater acceptance of it. you are hanging out with yo-yo .a and wynton marsalis .e is exposing your gift what is your hope in your dream for the exposure of this art form, which i think will lead to greater acceptance of it? >> my overall goal for what i'm , i'm trying to

bring it out to the world. my number one goal is for it to be respected. to beeve it has the power in the same category as modern, jazz, ballet, hip-hop, jookin', its own thing. i strongly believe it's such a beautiful dance, and it's so different because you have the majority of control in it. you are not really learning it from anybody else. and then the basics you just tap into your own creativity and you get to learn more about yourself. it's more than a dance. it's like a lifestyle almost. tavis: the flipside, i would think, to being introduced to so many millions of persons on the internet is that people might

think of you as a ballet dancer. they see you hanging out with classical trained dancers. >> some people have an idea like collaboratee when i with a lot of people in classical, that's when i got a lot more notoriety. people really don't know much about before, they mostly know about the aftereffects from jookin'. but i've been moving the same way. nothing really changed. there is no dramatic -- no dramatic change in my style that made me elevate even more or for people to call it ballet or whatever. the style of jookin' stays the same. i took ballet for two years from 17 to 19. the thing i did get from ballet was the overall core strengths.

the knowledge of how to really use your core strength, just knowing about all these things. i got that from ballet and i know a lot of flexibility from ballet. my style was already elegant. my ballet teacher into my style, she saw all the elegance already. of thesell characteristics that you compare to ballet. i'm basically just doing the same thing, when it's done to different music. i'm on my toes a lot. i've never put on a pair of point shoes. i just enjoy being on my toes a lot. your family is still back

in memphis? how are they processing all this? watching is probably this. she is like my number one fan on social media of all sorts. my family, they love it. they love what i'm doing. they are proud that i kept it going. no matter how many times my mom told me to stop dancing in the kitchen. they all know now it was worth it in the end. tavis: as you travel around the country, are you seeing the art form? >> i definitely am. when you two came out, that was like one of the most amazing things that could have happened as far as people knowing about jookin'. was one of the people who actually made the first dvdin' overall structured for every neighborhood that was

doing the style. as i go around the world, i would look at the different dance styles in different areas. everywhere, like in europe they have a team, they have a jooki'' league out there in europe. it's crazy how much no variety it gets. memphis has done that a whole bunch of different fronts. to say nothing of the barbecue. you old memphis a great deal. will let you get out of here so you can get back to what ever you are working on next, but i am so honored to have you on this program. i enjoyed it. to see the way you work those person is amazing. >> i try.

seconds, tell us about the nickname, "lil buck". >> it's really simple. he came from two things. when i first started i was 12 years old, 13 when i got serious. y.was a real short he .here are two styles in jookin' , -- one is called bucking and one is called chopping. i was this little kid doing all these crazy, explosive moves. >> so you were little and you were bucking. .lil buck"

>> my real name is charles. i didn't want to be known as chuck. tavis: you can call him charles, uck, anywayl him b he is a bad man. i have so enjoyed this. i'm sure everybody is going to youtube to watch these videos. that's our show for tonight. thanks for watching, and as always, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for a conversation with a war veteran about his book, seriously not all right and then arturo sandoval. that is next time. we will see you then.

>> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> be more. pbs.

next on "kqed newsroom" should fair and open internet access be debated? environmental crime on the rise, stealing off redwood trees. >> the most blatant cut we've seen, five yards from the road way. >> yosemite turns 150 years old. the history on display. >> the sacredness of that landscape whether you've seen it 100 times or been there 100 types is so overwhelming and beautiful. ♪ ♪