Ladia Yates is the founder of the Ladia Yates Entertainment Academy (L.Y.E. Academy,) which was founded in 2014. L.Y.E Academy, located at 4780 Riverdale Road, offers a number of classes such as competitive hip-hop and majorette, Memphis Jookin’, tumbling, praise dancing, and boxing.
This focus on Memphis-centric dancing, while also incorporating modern and contemporary styles, is unique, and according to Yates, it only makes sense. L.Y.E.’s distinctive approach to the arts has been noted, as their social media accounts have garnered over 600,000 followers, reaching more than six-million people in the last 28 days.
L.Y.E’s dancers have been involved with projects with Nike, Lil Baby, NLE Choppa, Duke Deuce, and more.
“We’re not in L.A., we’re not in New York, so they just find us on social media,” said Yates. “You gotta represent.You don’t want to be too commercial or watered down, you want to stick to your roots.”
Yates’ business represents one that is both Black- and woman-owned, which is important to note when examining businesses in the arts and entertainment industry. A research brief by Bonnie Nichols, senior analyst from the National Endowment for the Arts, said that “members of racial/ethnic minority groups own arts businesses at a lower rate than they own businesses in general.”
Not only did the brief assess that “Hispanics and non-whites own 9 percent of all ‘arts, entertainment, and recreation’ businesses,” but it also said that these groups also own only 11 percent of performing arts companies. The same study also said one in five performing arts companies are owned by women.
While Yates exists in both minority groups, she also realizes that she possessed a level of privilege and accessibility that she wanted to bring to Memphis’ youth.
Yates is originally from California, and moved to Memphis when she was 16 years old. Yates said that while California has its own industry and opportunities, she felt that Memphis lacked that.
“With me being from California and working in the industry, I have the resources to help the underprivileged kids out there [Memphis],” Yates said. “I just wanted to be a stepping stone and prove a point that you don’t have to move to Los Angeles, or Atlanta, or New York to be successful. Just work hard at whatever you do, wherever you are and you can make it.”
The idea of wanting to bring resources from bigger cities to Memphis is a sentiment shared by many creatives in the community. Chrysti Chandler recalls coming back to Memphis in 1991 after seeing there were many children who didn’t participate in after-school activities. She was shocked to find out that the reason for this was because students couldn’t afford it.
Chandler set out to start an organization that would allow for students to have affordable performing arts experience, which resulted in the founding of the Young Actors Guild (YAG).
Accessibility is very important when it comes to the performing arts, especially when it comes to location. YAG recently celebrated the re-grand opening of the Harriet Performing Arts Center, located at 2788 Lamar Avenue, in Orange Mound.
While they were able to purchase this space for only $1 from the city, one of the main reasons they chose to procure this location was so that they could bring the arts back into the community, and make them accessible for young children.
“If they have to walk, it’s right there in their community,” said Sabrina Norwood, executive director for YAG. “It’s a quick drop off, but it’s also an opportunity for students to have a positive space that they can call their own, where they can grow, they can develop, they can train within the arts. They can build leadership and character development.”
Lack of resources, whether they be local or industry-related, should not prevent students from accessing arts education. This is an idea that the three creatives agree upon, with them all expanding on how vital the arts are in enriching the lives of children in the Memphis community.
“Arts truly is a tool that saves lives in the community,” said Norwood. “There opportunities for young people to have arts accessibility in each community now, which is really great because it provides them the opportunity to dance away negativity, act out the things they’re seeing, and provide positive feedback of ways that we can provide solutions to some of the problems that we see currently going on in our community.”
This approach to the arts has also been exemplified by L.Y.E. academy.
In December of 2021, Juanita Washington, the head administrator of L.Y.E. Academy, was murdered at Walgreens off of South Perkins. This birthed L.Y.E.’s newest series of events that fall under the title of “Stop The Violence,” and is sponsored by Red Bull and Nike.
Yates believes that everyone is impacted by the arts, whether it be through singing, acting, or painting, which is why she chose to take a stance against violence, all while juxtaposing it with entertainment.
“You have to get people’s attention in a way you know they’ll pay attention to it. Events such as ‘Stop The Violence’ talent shows and concerts will hopefully inspire people to go another route,” said Yates.