Published on January 15th, 2021 | by Dr. Jerry Doby

Getting to Know the Inimitable Nikki Lynette!

One of the great pleasures about being in this business is meeting/covering people who are not afraid to be their authentic selves and open up about things like thoughts of suicide, mental illness and the like. Perhaps entertainers are loath to trust the media with the dark side because we fail to do them justice instead going for the clickbait…I’m not going to preach though. I want to introduce an amazing talent by the name of Nikki Lynette whose theatrical offering Get Out Alive has been remixed for the internet and is set to drop on January 30, 2021.

According to the official line, this autobiographical, afrogoth musical blends art, technology, and performance to share one woman’s personal journey with mental health. Equal parts raucous, tender, intelligent, and triumphant, Nikki’s offbeat approach to sharing her story shows that even when life leads us to a bad place, we can always make it out alive.

Originally debuting as a part of Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s LookOut Series, this sold-out stage show has been reimagined to invade the internet. The show will premiere online on January 30, 2021 at igetoutalive.com.

Pulling from her bio, Nikki Lynette is a performer, writer, and visual artist whose individual style is equal parts hip hop, alternative, and pop. A Chicago native, she fuses mental health activism into her performances and has created a lane for her music that is uniquely her own. Her self-produced tunes have been featured in popular shows on Netflix, Hulu, Showtime, Fox and MTV, and have garnered digital and print features for publications like XXL, Bust, and Vibe. A proud independent artist, Lynette’s success in music licensing has earned its own accolades, including a prominent feature in Billboard Magazine and being invited to speak on a panel at South by Southwest. After a hiatus from releasing new music, Nikki Lynette returned to the public eye with a confession: she’d secretly been battling mental health issues. She began writing articles about depression and suicide for prominent sites like BlackDoctor, Afropunk and AllHipHop, and held her own among medical professionals in live chats and panel discussions with hundreds of thousands of viewers. Nikki’s latest musical releases can currently be heard in shows such as She’s Gotta Have It on Netflix and Work in Progress on Showtime.

The Hype Magazine got Nikki to weigh in on a few things

How would you describe Nikki Lynette to someone who’s never heard of you?

I’m a social impact artist. I sing, rap, produce, do visual art, I’m a playwright and now a filmmaker. And everything I do is activism for mental health awareness. I’m living with a mental illness & managing it without my meds. There are a lot of us dealing with mental health issues, but we get misrepresented a lot. I wanna change that.

Describe the defining moment that brought you to the entertainment industry?

I’ve always been a performer. Even as a kid. And I always knew what I wanted to do with my life. I’ve never had a day job, this is all I have ever done. I’m not really sure when exactly I became part of the entertainment industry. I just know I plan to make my mark on it.

Singer/songwriter, rapper, playwright, your cup is kinda full, how do you balance it all?

I lose a lot of sleep! I’m actually working on having more balance. It’s hard. Because being a multi-hyphenate artist ain’t the same as being a jack-of-all-trades. All the stuff I do is its own art form and I’m always creating from the same place, with the same motivations. So working on one thing kinda inspires me to work on another. Before you know it 10 hours have gone by and the sun is coming up and I’m trying to count how many hours of sleep I can get before I need to do the next thing. Wow… Writing this right now is definitely making me realize how much I need more balance in my life. I’m a work in progress.

How has the pandemic treated you and has it affected your creative process?

Honestly, I been thriving in the pandemic. Right before Covid I sold out the entire debut of my play at Steppenwolf Theatre Company and was about to do an extended run in another big theater. Then the pandemic shut all theaters down. So now I’m adapting the play to film, and releasing it as 4 separate episodes. Me and my team are doing this completely independently. My team is amazing. Covid didn’t stop us at all.

You’ve put together an exciting new stage play offering Get Out Alive, tell us about this particular project! Why is this piece of work important to the culture and the Hip Hop community?

Get Out Alive is a musical about depression. And I was super intentional about keeping it authentic. I’m a suicide survivor, and in my play, I tell the story of my mental health journey. And I was honest. It’s not a public service announcement… it really is a musical about depression. And now that we turned it into a film, we get to be really creative about how we tell the story. I think it’s important because representation matters. Ending the silence and stigma around mental health issues is more than just a nice thing we can do for society. There are millions of people living silently with mental health issues. I didn’t know that till I was in the psyche hospital and met a bunch of women with mental health issues who felt unheard and unseen just like I did. So I told them when I got out I would use my platform to tell our stories. And that’s what I’m doing now.

What made this project so important to you?

Because I feel like if I can get on a stage and stand in front of a camera and discuss something as private as my mental health journey, then maybe people watching can feel safe to open up to at least one person if they are struggling, too.

This one will be released for the internet, what challenges did you overcome to make it happen?

I have never made a film before. I had no idea how many moving pieces are involved. We went from a team of about 9 people to a team of 20, across 4 different states. This is the biggest project I have ever done. And leading a team is hard. Being the final decision maker is hard. Cuz leadership is an act of service. Everybody wanna be a boss till the time comes to make the hard decisions. Fortunately my producer Brannon and my director Roger share a lot of the responsibilities with me, so I never have to be too overwhelmed. For example, when I had to work on my TEDx Talk they kept everything on schedule while I stepped away for a week. And having people who are good at what they do helps a lot. My audio engineer Matt Hennessy is legit my big brother and we been working together for over a decade. When some issues came up with the audio on one of the episodes, he figured out our plan to fix it really fast. And my new business partner Rex Mundi is a black-owned tech company, and they are building the platform we are releasing the play on, so we get to keep ticket prices low for the viewer. There’s a lot of stuff I don’t have to worry about because I have a strong team. Which is fortunate. I don’t think I could do this otherwise.

What do you feel is the greatest takeaway for the viewer from the play?

Even when life takes you to your lowest, scariest, most hopeless place, you can always get out alive.

Was the play personal to you outside of being the creator?

It’s my life story. It’s the most personal thing I’ve ever done.

Where will we be able to find it when it releases?

I’m realizing it on our own site, igetoutalive.com

What’s next for you after this project?

After all the episodes are released I’m gonna take a break and spend at least a week laid up under somebody’s son. Then I have to get back to work. I have to release RJE soundtrack from my musical. And I was asked to deliver a pilot for my docuseries Happy Songs About Unhappy Things that I’ve been working on since 2018. Ain’t a lot of downtime when you doing well. Half the game is just being ready for your opportunities when they come. But… you know… I really gotta work on having more balance.

Where can we find you online?

You can find my film’s trailer and purchase tix to see it at igetoutalive.com. And you can find me on all social media as @nikkiLynette. Whenever people reach out to me, if I see their message I answer. I’m pretty accessible. So reach out. I don’t bite.

Last but not least, what’s been your craziest WTF moment thus far in your career?

The craziest moment in my career was being in a meeting with an executive at a major label and he got up from his desk, closed his door, stood in front of me, pulled out his d!*k, and tried to get me to suck it. And when I reacted with shock he told me to be quiet so his secretary wouldn’t hear. Man… I was so sad. Thinking my talent was being recognized and to have my bubble burst like that was such a blow to my lil ego. That was the day I decided I’d stay indie. Not begging nobody for nothing. And now years later, here I am! Now my accomplishments speak for my talent so I don’t need anyone’s validation. Who would have guessed that a random d!*k would be so influential? Life is full of surprises.

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About the Author

Dr. Jerry Doby Editor-in-Chief of The Hype Magazine, Media and SEO Consultant, Journalist, Ph.D. and retired combat vet. 2023 recipient of The President's Lifetime Achievement Award. Partner at THM Media Group. Member of the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture, the United States Press Agency and ForbesBLK.