EXCLUSIVE: Nickelodeon, in collaboration with Tyran ‘Ty Ty’ Smith & Jay Brown Productions, have formed a new pop/R&B girl group called Good NEWZ Girls.
This is a rare music group created by a TV network outside of a reality series. (There are no current plans for Good NEWZ Girls to headline a series for Nick.) This is part of a new larger Nickelodeon music strategy to develop and sign young artists and market them within the Nickelodeon ecosystem and externally.
While there are globally popular girls group like Korea’s Blackpink and the U.K.’s Little Mix, there hasn’t been a new U.S. girl band to make an impact in pop culture in years, since the heyday of famous recent acts like Fifth Harmony and The Pussycat Dolls. Nickelodeon reached out to music leaders Tyran ‘Ty Ty’ Smith and Jay Brown Productions, who also recognized a void in the marketplace for a female pop/R&B group, and the network and the duo jointly launched a talent search in 2019 for a new girl group.
The four singers who were selected are:
- Mikaela Astel (17 years old from Queens, NY) – Mikaela competed on season 16 of The Voice and was featured in the Blind Auditions and Battle rounds.
- Nayah Damasen (17 years old, from Burbank, CA) – Nayah is currently in production in the live-action television movie musical, Monster High, slated to premiere in 2022 on Nickelodeon.
- Isabel Gonzalez (16 years old from Teaneck, NJ) – Isabel performed with Acapop! KIDS musical group, which was co-founded by Pentatonix’s Scott Hoying.
- Baylee Morrison (17 years old from Macedon, NY) –Baylee performed the National Anthem for major league sporting events including the NFL (Bills), NHL (Sabres), and NASCAR Dover International.
Good NEWZ Girls debut EP “Winter Getaway” will be available on Friday, Nov. 19, on all major digital streaming platforms. The first music video off the EP, Let It Snow, is set to premiere today on TeenNick and NickMusic channel, as well as the Nickelodeon YouTube channel.