We were lucky to catch up with Nylah & Yolanda Randall & Purnell recently and have shared our conversation below.

Nylah & Yolanda, appreciate you joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

Dance has been apart of our lives since childhood. It’s a passion, an escape, and a lifestyle.

We’ve coached many teams in the past and being the creative and driven people we are, we wanted something that belonged to us. We met coaching a dance team and had so many ideas that could not be implemented because the team was not ours. We simply did what we were told.

We learned quickly that we made a great team and our ideas flowed seamlessly. As the season began to end with the team we were coaching, we knew it was time to take the big leap and start our own dance team.

Both our favorite colors are purple. Purple is a symbolism for royalty that lead to the name, “Really Royal.”

What made us most excited for Really Royal Dance Team is being able to direct and coach in the style we knew was best while providing young black girls a comfortable space to express their selves through the art of dance.

Nylah & Yolanda, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Nylah Randal;

I’ve been dancing since the age of 3. I’m trained in various styles including but not limited to ballet, jazz, modern, majorette, auxiliary, and hip hop. Majorette became my favorite style when I did my first parade in elementary school. I continued training, but majorette was the specific style I never took a break from. I danced on the dance line at my high school, Mount Zion, and my college, Albany State University.

I started coaching teams and dance programs each summer when I returned home from school. I quickly realized teaching dance was my passion and something I must pursue.

Post college, I danced for Sophisticated Jewels, an adult majorette team for GA Mass Band. I continued to take dance classes before permanently coaching a majorette dance team with Yolanda. At the end of the season, I wanted to start something of our own due to our great ability to work together, and we put in the necessary work to now have, Really Royal.

My name is Yolanda Purnell;

Initially I gained my dance experience as a child; my mom enrolled me in dance as many other parents do- when looking for a craft or niche for their child. I loved it and stuck with it. I entered the industry from a student to a paid performer in my mid teens, and gained working dance experience.

While attending college, Tuskegee University, I joined dance teams and my dance fraternity, Delta Phi Delta, to both network and broaden my horizons. Through my dance fraternity I met my now business partner Nylah.

Post college as a working adult, I was no longer dancing as much, but I wanted to stay within the industry. I decided to focus on being less performance based; and I began to teach. I thoroughly enjoyed molding budding dance careers while teaching at different studios- and teams. After years of teaching – when Nylah presented the idea of branching out under our own umbrella I was more than excited to enter this journey along side her.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Really Royal Dance Team’s first competition was in April of 2021. From makeup to behavioral challenges, costume malfunctions while performing, stage fright, almost nothing went according to plan. Stage fright was the biggest contender for our students at the time. For most of them, it was their first competition, and no amount of pep talk would uplift their spirits. Reason being, our very first performance of that day went bad. Our captain had stage fright and ending up skipping majority of the routine to the ending. One of our students apparently lost weight and it came as a surprise to everyone (including herself) when her pants refused to stay up during the routine. We bought the girls rhinestone chocker necklaces to wear for this specific dance routine and watched them fall off one by one during this performance as well. By our 2nd dance, their confidence was already depleted, and it was hard to encourage our girls to keep fighting because our day was not over, and we still stood a chance. This set the tone and the day had a downward spiral from that moment on.

Both of us have coached teams previously and neither of us had experienced such embarrassment. Our worst fear was losing the small cliental that we just acquired due to our poor performance. It’s the coaches and directors’ responsibility to ensure their students are properly prepared for competition. From that moment on, we learned from our mistakes. We removed jewelry from our costuming and only required small diamond stud earrings. Really Royal started having required dress rehearsals. We found a new vendor to supply our team uniforms that would fit and not slide down regardless of fluctuations in weight and changed the style of our uniforms as well. Really Royal required students to send practice videos and implemented repercussions for those that did not follow directions.

With any sport, the more you practice, the better. Especially with dance since it requires repetition. We gave our dancers tough love, so they would not be nervous at competitions. We competed again 2 months later and left without a single trophy, award, or acknowledgement for the 2nd time in a row. We knew the fight to keep our students encouraged would be hard, but we’re far from quitters. This did not stop our drive to be successful. We pushed harder!

Our 3rd competition in 2021, we finally brought some trophies home! We received 1st place in the coaches & captain stand battle, 2nd place in stand battle, and 2nd place in the POMPOM routine. Our last competition in 2021, we scored higher than ever with 1st place in walkthrough, 2nd place in Halloween creative, and 1st place in stand battle.

2022 started our undefeated grand champion run. Really Royal found what works and we have continued to build on that foundation since then.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

Nylah Randall and Yolanda Purnell met through Delta Phi Delta Dance Fraternity Incorporated. We both attended different colleges, but since we are both from Atlanta, we would occasionally see each other at Delta Phi Delta events that were being held in Atlanta. We became very acquainted in 2020 when we both ironically started coaching for the same dance team. It was there that we realized, we have the same goal and mission when it comes to teaching dance. We’re very passionate about our craft, creative, and work well under pressure. We realized how well we work together as we came up with several dances together. We started hanging out outside of practice and our friendship, now sisterhood, blossomed.

We thoroughly enjoy working with children and children enjoy having us as their dance coach and mentor. Towards the end of 2020, the decision to stay as someone’s employee and have our creativity limited did not sit well. We took the leap of starting our own business, our own dance team, Really Royal Dance Team together and we have not looked back. Now here we are a few years later with over 40 students and 7 Grand champion titles.
.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/really__royal?igsh=MTIwdnlxazNiNjFlZw%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ReallyRoyalLLC?mibextid=LQQJ4d
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@reallyroyaldanceteam?si=oZY9AOBwQbqVaEKc
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@reallyroyaldanceteam?_t=8nHZv4G9DOl&_r=1