Zhang Yixing, known professionally as Lay Zhang or simply Lay, is a Chinese rapper, singer, songwriter, dancer, actor, producer and businessman.
77 Facts About Lay Zhang
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Lay Zhang later debuted as a member of the South Korean-Chinese boy band Exo and its Chinese sub-unit Exo-M under SM Entertainment in 2012.
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In 2015, Lay Zhang founded a personal agency for his solo activities and music releases and released an autobiography titled Standing Firm at 24.
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In 2016, Zhang released his first extended play, Lose Control, to commercial success.
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In 2020, Lay Zhang founded the Chromosome Entertainment Group and serves as CEO.
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Lay Zhang has been included on the Forbes China Celebrity 100 and on the CelebrityZ Top 100 Most Valuable Celebrities list published by market research company Kantar and Chinese business magazine CBN Weekly.
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Outside of music, Lay Zhang became the first celebrity to serve as publicity ambassador for the Communist Youth League of China of Changsha in 2016 and served for 6 consecutive years.
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Lay Zhang has ventured into acting and starred in films and television shows such as Ex-Files 2, The Mystic Nine, Kung Fu Yoga, The Island, The Golden Eyes, Empress of the Ming and Crime Crackdown.
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Lay Zhang Yixing was born Lay Zhang Jiashuai in Changsha, Hunan, China on 7 October 1991.
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Lay Zhang's first known acting role was at age six, starring as Huan Huan in the 1998 Chinese television drama We The People.
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In 2000, at age nine, Lay Zhang participated in a Chinese television show as a fan club member of the Taiwanese singer and actor Jimmy Lin, Lay Zhang's first contact with the entertainment industry.
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Lay Zhang began became a local child star after winning third place in a competition organized by the Hunan-based television show Star Academy in 2005.
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Lay Zhang appeared in an episode of Yue Ce Yue Xin Kai and Liu Na's variety show Na Ke Bu Yi Yang between 2005 and 2006.
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In 2008, Lay Zhang auditioned for SM Entertainment at the South Korean company's global casting audition in Wuhan.
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Lay Zhang was first unveiled as one of the four Chinese members of Exo in a teaser video titled "Phoenix" in January 2012.
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In December 2012, Lay Zhang was featured in SM Entertainment's project dance group SM the Performance alongside fellow Exo member Kai and labelmates Yunho, Eunhyuk, Donghae, Minho and Taemin.
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Early in 2014, Zhang composed and performed the song "I'm Lay" for his solo performance during Exo's first headlining concert tour, The Lost Planet.
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Lay Zhang composed the song "Promise" on the repackaged edition of Exo's second studio album, Love Me Right, and wrote the lyrics for the Chinese version of the song.
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Lay Zhang subsequently starred in the second, third, and fourth seasons of the show, which helped increased his popularity in China.
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Lay Zhang placed fourth on the 10th Chinese Celebrity Writers List, the youngest celebrity author to enter the chart.
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Lay Zhang was first place in the 2015 installment of the Annual Celebrity Book Sales and ranked first Asia's Best Books twice on its monthly chart and six times on its weekly charts.
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Lay Zhang's autobriography made Rakuten's lists, with 400,000 copies sold in six months.
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In November 2015, Lay Zhang made his film debut with a supporting role in the Chinese romantic comedy movie Ex-Files 2: The Backup Strikes Back, which was a box office hit.
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Lay Zhang later won the Best Supporting Actor Award at the 2016 China Britain Film Festival for his performance.
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Lay Zhang wrote and recorded an original soundtrack for the movie titled "Alone ", which reached number one on the Baidu Music Chart and later won Best Movie Original Soundtrack awards at the 16th Top Chinese Music Awards and 4th V-Chart Awards.
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Lay Zhang starred in the Chinese comedy film Oh My God and collaborated with his co-stars Coco Jiang Wen and Li Xiaolu on an original soundtrack for the movie titled "Happy Youth", which debuted at number eight on the Billboard V Chart.
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In May 2016, Lay Zhang made his small screen debut in the Chinese television series To Be A Better Man.
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In July 2016, Lay Zhang starred in the Chinese action mystery drama The Mystic Nine, a prequel to The Lost Tomb.
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Lay Zhang performed it for the first time on 10 October at the 2016 Asia Song Festival in Busan, South Korea.
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Lay Zhang was involved in much of the production of the EP, participating in songwriting and arrangement as well as translating the original lyrics himself into English, Korean and Japanese.
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On 27 January 2017, Lay Zhang made his maiden appearance on CCTV Spring Gala Festival and sang a duet alongside Chinese actor Jing Boran.
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Lay Zhang composed and performed the song "Pray" for the drama.
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The album premiere 2017 Lay Zhang Yixing Showcase was held at the Beijing National Aquatics Center on 12 October, where he performed "I Need U", "Sheep" and other singles.
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Lay Zhang attended the 2018 CCTV New Year's Gala, where he performed a dance in collaboration with Huang Bo and William Chan.
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Lay Zhang participated in the national anthem and its music video for Youth Day in China in May In July, Zhang made a guest appearance for the web series The Tomb of Sea, where he portrayed a descendant of his character from the hit 2016 TV series The Mystic Nine.
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Lay Zhang made his first appearance in the US at the music festival Lollapalooza, where he collaborated with DJ Alan Walker.
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That month, Lay Zhang returned as the production director and presenter of the Chinese survival show Idol Producer 2.
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On 3 February, Lay Zhang performed a Chinese New Year song with Dilraba Dilmurat, Phoenix Legend, Wallace Chung, and Zhou Dongyu at the 2019 CCTV New Year's Gala.
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That same month, a third wax figure of Lay Zhang was revealed in Madame Tussauds Hong Kong, following wax figures in Madame Tussauds Shanghai and Beijing.
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Lay Zhang starred as the protagonist in the Chinese fantasy-adventure series The Golden Eyes, which aired on iQiyi from 26 February to 12 April 2019.
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Lay Zhang appeared as Emperor Yingzong of Ming in the historical drama Empress of the Ming in 2019.
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Lay Zhang embarked on his first international concert tour, Grand Line, in July 2019.
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In December 2019, Lay Zhang released the single "Grandmother ", which served as a tribute to his grandmother who had passed away earlier in the year.
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On 19 March 2020, Lay Zhang released the song "Love You More" with artists Steve Aoki and Will.
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On 1 June 2020, Lay Zhang released the first part of his fourth album, Lit; the second part was released on 21 July 2020.
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In June 2020, Lay Zhang won the competition of iQiyi's I'm a Singer-Songwriter 2.
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Lay Zhang appeared as a producer mentor on Youku's We are Young.
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On 7 October 2020, Lay Zhang officially announced the establishment of his entertainment company, Chromosome Entertainment Group.
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Lay Zhang released his fourth studio album, Producer, on 5 February 2021, with lead single "Joker" released four days prior.
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On 7 June 2021, after a three-year absence from Exo, Lay Zhang appeared in their mini-album Don't Fight the Feeling.
51.
On 7 October 2021, Lay Zhang released the single "Samadhi Real Fire", the pre-release single for his new EP East, which was released on 15 October.
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On 22 February, 2022, Lay Zhang released the collaborative album Dawn to Dusk with 24kGoldn.
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Lay Zhang starred as a young man with a double-faced character in the drama.
54.
Lay Zhang donated his portion of the profits from the online concert to charity in the name of his fans later.
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On 21 September 2022, Lay Zhang released the music video for the song Veil, the title track of his EP West that he released five days later on 26 September 2022.
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Lay Zhang sang and danced for over 30 minutes nonstop.
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Lay Zhang visited the Hublot headquarters factory and experienced the work of a professional watchmaker the following day.
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Lay Zhang wrote and composed his 2015 SM Station single "Monodrama".
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Lay Zhang composed "Alone", the original soundtrack for his 2015 romantic-comedy film Ex-Files 2, as well as "Prayer", for his 2017 Chinese web-drama Operation Love.
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Lay Zhang helped compose the songs "Not to be Continued" by Chinese singer Karen Mok, which was released in May 2018 for her 25th anniversary album, and MC Jin's single "Debut" in the same year.
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Many of Lay Zhang's released songs contain elements of traditional Chinese music, such as the instruments hulusi, guzheng and gong.
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Lay Zhang mentioned in an interviews that he considers his main genre to be M-pop, which stands for "Mix Mandarin popular music" and blends different languages.
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Lay Zhang has been nicknamed "little sheep" in China by fans and media.
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Lay Zhang revealed that while he had received some formal instruction in learning the guitar and piano, he was mostly self-taught.
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Lay Zhang was Calvin Klein's first Chinese global spokesperson for their underwear and jean lines.
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Additionally, as an ambassador of high-end fashion house Valentino, Lay Zhang attended multiple fashion shows and events in Asia and Europe, as well at the annual Met Gala.
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Lay Zhang has served as a promotional ambassador for Huawei Nova from 2015 to 2018.
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In July 2016, Lay Zhang was appointed by the Communist Youth League of China of Changsha as its publicity ambassador, the first celebrity to hold such title.
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In October 2017, Lay Zhang signed a contract with the vice president of Tencent Music Entertainment Group and became a member of "Music+ Plan".
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In February 2015, Lay Zhang participated in the "Return Home with Love for A Thousand Miles", a large-scale public welfare activities and volunteer project.
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Lay Zhang's intentions were encourage talented youth to pursue their dreams.
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Lay Zhang uploaded a video on his Weibo account in an attempt to publicise the project.
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On 1 February 2016, Lay Zhang donated an undisclosed amount to a joint Weibo public welfare funding project which aids impoverished families for the upcoming Lunar New Year.
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Lay Zhang donated another 1 million yuan and a piano to his alma mater.
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On 9 September, Lay Zhang attended the 2016 BAZAAR Stars' Charity Night which resulted in him donating 10 ambulances with worth amounting to 700 thousand yuan.
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Lay Zhang ranked number 18 by the China Philanthropist Magazine in the 2017 China's Top Philanthropist Celebrity List.
77.
In January 2018, Lay Zhang participated as a cameo in the campaign movie For Love With You; the theme song of the movie, I'm By Your Side, was sung by Lay Zhang.