Laura Stylez is younger than most of her Hot 97 colleagues. But, the smart California native is often the voice of reason and, as morning show host Cipha Sounds puts it, a “motherly” presence in the sometimes-chaotic offices that the biggest hip-hop radio station in the world calls home. As a producer and an on-air host, Laura understands the world of radio. But the quirky Hot 97 gang made its television debut this spring with “This Is Hot 97” on VH1. Now that the show just finished it’s first season, Stylez says she enjoyed the unique approach on “This Is Hot 97.”
“It was awesome and cool. It’s improv comedy, which is something that was new to us,” she says. “It’s like our version of ’30 Rock.'”
After the show began airing this April, Stylez was surprised at some of the fan reactions.
“Some people actually are like ‘Oh it’s such a scripted reality show!'” Stylez says. “Number one —it’s not real. We know that it’s happening. But it’s definitely not scripted —because none of us have any time to memorize any kind of lines! Improv — that’s all it was. It’s improv comedy. We just recreate things that already happened to us in our every day lives and we have fun with it.”
“We wanted to make a nice, fun show that you can watch with your family, that’s going to show blacks and Latinos in a positive light,” she adds. “Just a feel-good show. That’s it.”
So now that the season is done, could Stylez envision returning for “This Is Hot 97” season two? She admits that the schedule was a bit exhausting.
“It’s my first time doing a TV show and being that I’m also on radio, it’s been really long days and it’s a lot,” she admits. “But we did have a lot of fun shooting and I think it really brought us together as a team. I’d be down to do it.”
