Lil Buck

Charles "Lil Buck" Riley was born on May 25, 1988, in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Memphis, Tennessee. A dancer, actor, and model, Riley specializes in jookin, a style of street dance rooted in Memphis. He first encountered the form at age 12, when his older sister demonstrated basic moves in their living room. Guidance from neighborhood mentors deepened his practice, and he gradually set aside earlier interests such as drawing and basketball to concentrate on dance. At 17, he was featured in a locally produced jookin DVD titled Memphis Jookin Vol. 1.

Riley pursued formal training on scholarship at the New Ballet Ensemble in Memphis, where he studied ballet for two years. He initially accepted the scholarship on the condition that he would not be required to wear tights, though he eventually agreed to do so in order to perform with the company. It was at the New Ballet Ensemble that his instructor Katie Smythe introduced him to Camille Saint-Saëns' Le cygne and the concept of applying jookin to classical music, leading to his first performance of The Dying Swan. Riley relocated to Los Angeles at age 19 to pursue a professional dance career. In 2010, he appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and co-choreographed the music video for Janelle Monáe's "Tightrope."

A turning point came in 2011, when director and former ballet dancer Damian Woetzel paired Riley with cellist Yo-Yo Ma for a performance of The Swan. Woetzel had learned of Riley through his wife, Heather Watts, who had discovered a YouTube clip of Riley dancing to Saint-Saëns at a New Ballet Ensemble school performance in West Memphis, Arkansas. Watts shared the clip with Woetzel, who then showed it to Yo-Yo Ma. Contact with Riley was established through Katie Smythe via Facebook. Director Spike Jonze recorded the resulting performance on his cell phone and uploaded it to YouTube, where it accumulated over three million views by November 2015. Woetzel subsequently invited Riley to serve as artist in residence at the 2011 Vail International Dance Festival and arranged a second collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma at the 2011 U.S.-China Forum on the Arts and Culture in Beijing. That trip marked the first time Riley had traveled outside the United States and was documented in a short independent film, Lil Buck Goes to China, directed by Ole Schell. Following the trip, Riley was photographed by Bruce Weber for the Spring 2011 issue of VMan magazine. Also in 2011, he danced for Madonna during her Super Bowl XLVI halftime show after winning the Dance for Madonna Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange Competition, and later joined her MDNA Tour as one of 22 dancers. Dance Spirit magazine named him one of its Most Influential People of 2011.

In 2012, Dance Magazine included Riley on its annual 25 to Watch list. That year he modeled in a national GAP campaign and appeared in two NOWNESS videos, one directed by choreographer Benjamin Millepied and another by Jacob Sutton, who submitted an extended version to Cinedans, a Dutch film festival dedicated to dance on film. Riley spent much of 2013 performing in Cirque du Soleil's Michael Jackson: One. He appeared on The Colbert Report, spoke at the Aspen Ideas Festival, and modeled in an eight-page GQ spread. A third performance with Yo-Yo Ma, again directed by Woetzel and held at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City, earned Riley and his cousin Ron "Prime Tyme" Myles a Bessie Award. He made the cover of Dance magazine in August 2013 and briefly appeared in Spike Jonze's film Her as a busker and dancer.

In 2014, Riley performed at the TEDxTeen conference in New York City, danced in the New York City Ballet's Spring premiere choreographed by artist JR and scored by Woodkid, and served as a guest judge on season 11 of So You Think You Can Dance. He also appeared in the opening credits of Spike Lee's Da Sweet Blood of Jesus. The following year, Riley performed in Versailles with dancers from Benjamin Millepied's ballet company and rejoined Madonna on tour in support of her album Rebel Heart. He appeared in a commercial alongside Mikhail Baryshnikov for rag & bone, modeled for French retailer Kaporal, and partnered with Versace to create a line of sneakers sold online and at Versace's New York City store. In November 2015, he appeared on the cover of The Wall Street Journal's Innovators Issue. In 2016, Riley collaborated with dancer Jon Boogz and artist Alexa Meade on a video titled Color of Reality, which addressed gun violence.

Riley made his Broadway debut in 2021 in Freestyle Love Supreme. Outside of performance, he is vegan, has seven siblings, and is married to dancer Ai Shimatsu. While jookin remains central to his identity as an artist, he has also expressed an affinity for flexing, a street dance style originating in Brooklyn.