Too Hot To Handle

Singer-songwriter, actress, dancer, choreographer, director, and model—Teyana Taylor does it all. No wonder she’s No. 1 on our Hot 100 list

- By Jordan Riefe. Photography by Gilles Bensimon

In case you can’t tell by the cover, Teyana Taylor is an easy pick for the face of the Hot 100 issue, and the No. 1 spot on the list. A graceful choreographer-dancer, actor-director, and top ten recording star, she has brains, talent and, well, the photos show the rest.

“I’ve followed Maxim for a long time and I’ve always felt like I should be on the cover,” she tells us from her home in Atlanta, where she lives with her husband, professional basketball player Iman Shumpert. “So to actually get the call saying they want me on the cover really meant a lot. I was like, what? They want me on the cover? Okay!”

Thirty and loving it, Teyana is turning a corner in her career, focusing more on film work, like her show-stopping number “Gett Off” in Coming 2 America. In a barely PG-13-rated dance sequence, she is presented as a prospective bride to Lavelle Junson (Jermaine Fowler), long lost son of Prince Akeem, played by Eddie Murphy.

“It was like a dream come true, especially to be a part of something so iconic and so legendary, everything’s so surreal,” Teyana says of the movie, a sequel to 1988’s Coming to America, one of Murphy’s biggest hits, garnering roughly $290 million at the box office. “He’s from New York, so it was a lot of New York energy. So we could talk our shit, and I love that.”