Disney Jr’s Hey AJ! Pairs Imagination + Music | THS Interview w/ Martellus Bennett and Michael Hodges

Disney Jr’s Hey AJ! had its big premiere this week and it’s now streaming on Disney+. That Hashtag Show had the privilege of talking to creator, Super Bowl Champion, and general renaissance man Martellus Bennett. Grammy winning producer Michael Hodges also gave us insights about the new animated series. For those who don’t know, Hey AJ! is a music-filled whimsical family comedy about an imaginative young girl. AJ, voiced by the talented Amari McCoy, 

She has all kinds of adventures with her best friend Jesse, her parents Siggy played by Jhene Aiko, aunt Marty played by our friend Martellus Bennett. The series is warm, bright and exciting so you should definitely check it out for yourself if you have smaller viewers or you could use a little light.

We had to ask both Hodges and Bennett about the pronounced role of music in Hey AJ!. Music is literally everywhere in this show. For this team, making music that was not only authentic, but fun for parents too, was at the top of their minds. Marty said that focusing on all different types of musical styles was something they really pushed for.

Hey AJ!’s musical influences and fun

Hodges told us, “We have a history of being pretty big music creators for film and television, and we wanted to bring that same element of music as we would to a $200 million movie. We brought the same kind of team to that. We wanted them to feel like the music to feel that the whole family could enjoy it, right? This could be one of these songs could actually be a pop song playing on the radio at some point.”

“So BFF Love is one of my favorites for that kind of thing. I wanted friends, adult friends to be like toing that song with them just because it’s such a loving sort of a beautiful song between AJ and Jessie,” he continued. “So, I think weaving it in here was just a natural sort of thing. The stories were beautiful. We wanted to make music that you could listen to with the whole family and really enjoy it. And, you weren’t like, ‘Oh, he’s listening to that song again.”

Hey AJ! And the importance of imagination

Imaginative play is at the heart of how so many young children find their way through the world. For both Bennett and Hodges this idea of the imagination space as a way to explore your own identity along with your surroundings was absolutely key in making Hey AJ!

“I would just say that for me there is with the power of imagination, there’s a lot of whimsy and just the mundane, if you really look at it with your imaginative lens, everything is wondrous,” Bennett began. “The world is wondrous. Everything’s magnificent, and there’s possibilities. The possibilities for you are endless if you use the power of your imagination.”

“As a family, what I really look at when I think about it all the time is this idea of togetherness. This idea of we are a family, we play together, we laugh together, we cry together,” the creator shared. “And the togetherness of the household and how, if play is at the center of that, a family who plays together is a family who will always stay together.” 

“Whether that’s cars, dominoes, my parents, I go by their house. It’s dominoes, it’s Uno, it’s spades. My mom has a karaoke machine, which is to my detriment, but she loves it every single time,” he recalled. “And I cannot go by her house. I cannot go by her house if I don’t perform a song that I’ve written or if I don’t do a song for her, she always has requests for me to do. So I come from a household of a playful family.”

Hey AJ! and appealing to a wide audience

You can see from the advertisements for Hey AJ! that our main character and her family are African American. Being Black people, some viewers wondered if this show would be for everybody. Well both Hodges and Bennett say that they kept all this in mind when crafting Hey AJ! For Bennett especially rending a Black family on-screen who is just allowed to be is a dream.

”It was very important for me to create a show that black families could see themselves outside of the idealistic, which is usually created through Hollywood, images that are portrayed,” Bennett mused. “I really wanted to portray happiness and not really be tied into the idea of being you, being black, being the antagonist. Right? You are not overcoming. They’re never overcoming their blackness, right?”

He continued, “They just exist and they just happen to be black. And I think one of the most beautiful things that we want, that our ancestors want, is the ability just to exist and just to imagine. And I think if this can encourage black families just to be who they are, no matter where they are, then we have done an excellent job with the Hey AJ! show.”

Hey AJ! is streaming now on Disney Now, Disney+ and airs on Disney Channel & Disney Jr.

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