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Tracee Ellis Ross Reveals Her #SecretProject

Black-ish actress let's us in on her "fun experiment."

She's probably heard this before, but Tracee Ellis Ross definitely got it from her mama.

The award-winning actress and sometimes rapper has been teasing a #secretproject on her Instagram account, and this morgning, she revealed that it's an ode to her iconic mother, Diana Ross.

"I decided to recreate my Mom’s Work That Body video from 1981 as a fun experiment and a surprise for my mama!" she wrote on her website, where the full video exists.

BLACK WOMEN DOMINATING TV

Tracee was conflicted at first, "I am keenly aware of how we as women (and most specifically women of color) are presented and portrayed in media and how we present ourselves. And here was my mama from almost 30 years ago on the surface doing something that often snags me in videos ... I was watching and thinking: why does watching this woman dancing around in barely any clothes with her tush to the camera make me feel joyful and empowered when the same kind of image in most music videos today doesn’t give me that feeling?"

She realized, it has nothing to do with the viewer. "My mom felt whole and connected …and in her body in this video. I have spoken before about encouraging women to shift our gaze from how we are seen to how we are seeing and, more important, feeling. And I saw a woman feeling joyful in herself as a whole being; she didn’t seem to be presenting her a** or saying look at all the ways I can make myself look appealing to YOU. She seems to be saying, 'this is ME feeling good and I am strong and sexy and joyful in ME'!"

"Work That Body" is a song of Diana's 1981 album, Why Do Fools Fall in Love.

"Hope you have as much fun watching it as I did recreating it," Tracee captioned the IG clip, "but most of all I hope it inspires you to find and be in the joy of your own body! #WorkThatBody2015 #RossFamilyRocks #TraceeEllisRoss."

See the snippet below.

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(Photo; Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The New Yorker)

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