EXCLUSIVE: Davionte “GaTa” Ganter is working on an animated series for Onxy Collective.
The Dave star revealed that he was developing Ghetto Brilliance with the Disney-owned brand during a Deadline Contenders panel about the FX Networks comedy.
GaTa, who plays Dave’s friend and hype man in the FXX series, said that Dave co-creator Dave Burd allowed him to “live his wildest dreams”.
“I’m working on this cartoon right now, it’s in development with Onyx Collective and it’s gonna be amazing, it’s called Ghetto Brilliance. I just want to say this bro, I’m really living my dreams bro. I’m performing at Lollapalooza, I just had a sold out show, and [Lil] Dicky was my hype man,” he said.
The project, which shares a title with the album that he released in 2017, is based on GaTa’s life growing up in South Central.
Maxwell Theodore Vivian, executive story editor on series including It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia and Space Force, is writing and exec producing.
20th Television is the studio and is producing in association with 3 Arts.
3 Arts’ Ari Lubet and Jermaine Johnson are exec producing alongside Vivian, GaTa, Mike Hertz and Daniel Katz.
Onyx Collective, which won the project in a highly competitive process, is a curated content brand run by Disney for creators of color and underrepresented voices. It is run by Freeform President Tara Duncan and its content, which includes Questlove’s Oscar-winning documentary Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not be Televised), lives on streaming service Hulu.
GaTa is the “hero” of the final episode of season two of Dave, according to its main star. The second season sees Dave struggle with success and he reshapes his relationships with his friends.
“We call it Dave, but the show, with the final episode,” Burd said. “You think it’s gonna be about my story, but it really is GaTa’s episode. It’s true to life, I obviously am a guy chasing his dreams and going after certain things, but I’ve never done a single show without this guy. He’s one of my best friends ever and I wouldn’t be where I am without him.”
Ryan Fleming contributed to this story.