Aliya Janell

Aliya Janell Brinson, known professionally as Aliya Janell, is a dancer, choreographer, creative director, and entrepreneur who transformed the filmed dance class into a vehicle for both artistic visibility and commercial opportunity. Growing up dancing informally and in hip-hop classes in Los Angeles, including at Millennium Dance Complex, Janell began her professional career in 2014 touring with singer K. Michelle. After several years dancing behind artists, she wanted a space centered on her own choreography and teaching voice.

In 2017, Janell launched Queens N' Lettos as a recurring heels-dance class in Los Angeles, renting studio space and promoting through social media. The class combined heels choreography, performance coaching, and an explicitly confidence-oriented atmosphere, drawing both working dancers and people outside traditional professional training pipelines. That same year, her filmed class to Nicki Minaj's "Itty Bitty Piggy" became her decisive breakthrough. Minaj reposted the performance, and it accumulated millions of views. This attention led to a professional relationship that included choreography connected with Minaj's "Chun-Li" visual and later projects.

Queens N' Lettos expanded from a recurring class into a digital channel, touring master-class experience, apparel and lifestyle identity, and podcast community. The QNL channel's long-form class edits preserve more than a final polished performance: they document warm-up atmosphere, multiple casts, featured groups, and students interpreting the same phrase differently. That visibility helped make a commercial class function as serialized dance media, establishing a model in which a choreographer could build direct audience recognition independent of traditional artist commissions.

Janell's later credits span dancing and choreography with major artists including Nicki Minaj, Jennifer Lopez, Beyoncé, Chris Brown, Megan Thee Stallion, Drake, and Anitta. She performed on Beyoncé's Renaissance World Tour and Jennifer Lopez's It's My Party tour, and worked on material surrounding Minaj's Queen era. Her choreography typically couples a low, weighted base with rapid isolations, sharp directional switches, hair and torso accents, expansive walks, and floorwork that treats the heel as part of the line rather than a decorative accessory. Musical phrasing often follows vocal texture and production details; she has used sound effects to connect movement to music.

By 2025, Janell described opening a Los Angeles studio with choreographer Chuck Maldonado while continuing QNL classes, brand work, and digital production. Her career illustrates how a choreographer can use full-length class documentation—not just short clips—as both an archive and a route into major commercial commissions, while maintaining direct connection to an audience of dancers and students learning her work.