By Julio Martinez
Daytime Emmy Award winner Rocsi Diaz will be hosting Fox TV’s Alter Ego, the world’s first avatar-singing competition series debuting Sept. 22 and 23 and featuring judges Grimes, Nick Lachey and will.i.am.
In the new show, singers can become the stars they’ve always wanted to be but they won’t perform as themselves. Rather, they’ll help create their dream avatar alter ego, reinventing and transforming themselves like never before.
“There’s real people behind the alter egos,” Diaz, who is also a former radio DJ, recently said at a press conference alongside colleagues of the show. “For the first time ever, they get to be liberated and be themselves. They get to live out these experiences in such an amazing way that I think everybody at home is really going to feel what we felt while shooting this.” Describing the production experience as “mind-blowing,” she adds, “It was really touching and amazing to be able to live your truth through this alter ego.”
The TV and radio personality and model is best known as the co-host of BET’s program 106 & Park and former correspondent of Entertainment Tonight.
Diaz started in broadcasting as a host of urban radio station 97.9 The Beat in Dallas, Texas, and later became a DJ for Boston’s Hot 97.7 and Chicago’s Power 92 WPWX-FM. Expanding her media horizons, she joined CBS’s national news magazine show Entertainment Tonight, which earned Diaz a Daytime Emmy as part of the cast.
Through her many years in media, Diaz has become an authority in fashion, sports and lifestyle. Singing, she says, was never in the cards. “It’s only in the shower (that) I’m allowed to sing,” she said and laughed. “You do not want to hear me sing at all.” But she adds she’s a music expert thanks to her long career in radio and TV. “It gave me my foundation of how to host and be a host,” she states. “And hosting a show, like 106 & Park for seven-and-a-half years, definitely made me music artist-adjacent.” Diaz acknowledges that “unfortunately, God did not give me the vocal cords” for singing. “Otherwise,” she quips, “I would have definitely been represented and managed by will.i.am, for sure.”
Singer and Alter Ego judge will.i.am is an admirer of Diaz, whom he considers influential for his music generation. “When we artists would go to 106 & Park, it was like, ‘Oh, Rocsi is there,’” says the founding and lead member of the musical group Black Eyed Peas. “That validation of being interviewed by Rocsi on our new songs was everything at the start of our careers. Performers like Ariana Grande and Pharrell, Kanye, Common and John Legend, all made it to 106 & Park to talk and be interviewed by Rocsi.” Adds will.i.am, “And now, here we are, a whole slew of tomorrow’s artists, but with today’s technology and tomorrow’s technology, and Rocsi’s there for that journey. These new cats have aspirations and dreams. And Rocsi’s there for that crossroad as well. So, she’s authentic.”
Rocsi has high expectations for Alter Ego. “The audience is going to love all the judges,” she states. “We all touch a different part of music or a genre of music, and we’re able to bring it all together. So, it really will be truly amazing.”
Featured Photo: Rocsi Diaz (Credit: Courtesy of talent)
