That Girl Lay Lay is part of Lay Lay’s overall deal with the studio that encompasses programming, music initiatives and a consumer product line of books, toys, clothing and even a doll, all promoting the outgoing personality that she broadcasts to 4 million followers across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. When Young Dylan - Tyler Perry’s first foray into producing kids’ content - premiered in 2020, it garnered Nick’s largest ratings for a series premiere in three years and now reaches 1 million viewers a month on linear and streaming. Gilmer releases original music as part of a separate record deal, writes his own raps for the show and has hosted shows for Nick like NFL Slime Time Live. Beyond That Girl Lay Lay, one of Nick’s highest-performing brands is Tyler Perry’s Young Dylan, a Fresh Prince of Bel-Air-style show starring Dylan Gilmer, a 14-year-old rapper who first gained notoriety after his father posted him rapping on Instagram. The most surefire way to give them that is to build a franchise around talent’s real-life personas. “It’s because they can watch whatever they want, whenever they want.” According to Olin, the children watching these shows are most passionately looking for representation and authenticity as well as for programming - and stars - that reflect their culture, their point of view and the lives they have or hope to have. “Now more than ever, there’s a level of sophistication and expectation that happens at earlier and earlier ages,” says Zack Olin, co-head of live-action series and films at Nickelodeon. Hit live-action kids shows are more rare now, especially compared with the animated space (out of 27 currently airing shows across Nick and Nick Jr., 19 are fully or partially animated). Nick’s current execs are aware that they can no longer replicate a type, look or sensibility ad nauseam the audience is too savvy not to notice. “I grew up watching and loving Nickelodeon, but I didn’t see someone like me on TV, I didn’t see someone like me on Instagram,” says Lay Lay, hanging out in one of the mixing rooms at Icon Studios, surrounded by her father, her younger brother and her publicist. The star-making factory found kids they could mold, and while it worked well, it required more of a leap of faith and relied entirely on the taste of the adult executives. It’s easy to remember a time when Nickelodeon was churning out new child stars as quickly as the Oakwood Apartments could turn over its sublets: Jennette McCurdy, Ariana Grande, Victoria Justice, Melissa Joan Hart, Josh Peck, Nat and Alex Wolff, JoJo Siwa. Why try to beat virality when you can co-opt it? Lay Lay fronts her own self-titled Nickelodeon show and is the beacon for the studio’s renewed strategy to work with social media fame instead of in opposition to it. The 16-year-old runs her own multiplatform empire, forging a path for a new kind of child star - one who is self-made, self-grown and only then turning to Hollywood to unlock another level of success. Now, barely five years later, Lay Lay’s dad, Acie High, is the one in the passenger seat, this time in his daughter’s new G-Wagen as she drives them to Icon Studios in Atlanta’s West Midtown. “Little boys don’t play me/No Reeboks just J’s please … Tweety Bird, Bugs Bunny, can’t never be a dummy/Takis always hurt my tummy.” Her father’s simultaneous pride and bewilderment as she flows is palpable, and the comments on the clip that would go on to garner millions of views in a matter of weeks are those of disbelief. A speck of a thing, she’s checking herself out in the car’s visor mirror (“Hold on, Daddy, lemme make sure my edges on fleek and my lip gloss is drippin’ “) before she launches into the three-minute-long freestyle that introduced her to the world. Lay Lay, as she calls herself, is rapping with the talent and tenacity of someone twice her age. THR Issue 18 Kids Power! Photographed by Chrisean Rose
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |