For three years, Olly Sholotan has been reintroducing the world to one of sitcom history’s most beloved characters — and doing it as a completely different person than the one who originated the role. As Carlton Banks in Peacock’s dramatic reimagining of Bel-Air, Sholotan took a character once defined by a goofy dance and preppy comic relief and rebuilt him from the ground up into something darker, more anxious, and far more human. Off camera, he’s been building an entirely separate identity: an independent musician writing, producing, and releasing his own material under a label he owns himself.
With Bel-Air now closing out its fourth and final season, Sholotan’s story is entering a new chapter — one where the actor known for reinventing someone else’s character finally gets to build something that’s entirely his own.
From Lagos to Houston: An Upbringing Across Two Continents
Sholotan (born Olamide “Olly” Sholotan on April 5, 1998, in Atlanta, Georgia) spent his early childhood in Nigeria before his family relocated to Houston, Texas when he was around ten years old. That early cross-continental upbringing — Nigerian household, Texan adolescence — became a defining thread of both his acting and music careers, and one he references frequently when discussing his artistic identity.
In Houston, he enrolled at the Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (HSPVA), a magnet school with a well-regarded theater concentration, graduating in 2015. While there, he was named a finalist by the National YoungArts Foundation, an early signal of the performing talent that would eventually take him to Los Angeles.
He went on to study at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television as a musical theater major, graduating in 2019 — training that gave him a foundation in both acting and vocal performance, two disciplines he now runs in parallel.
Building a Resume Before Bel-Air
Sholotan’s screen career started small, the way most do. He made his acting debut in the 2017 short film Main Street, followed by a role in Partying with Communists (2018). His first credited television appearance came in 2019, playing Taequan Mann in an episode of the CW’s All American.
His break into features came with Run Hide Fight (2020), a thriller that premiered at the Venice International Film Festival, where he starred alongside Thomas Jane, Radha Mitchell, and Isabel May. That same stretch of his career included the short film Lloyd and steady work that, while not headline-grabbing, built the kind of on-set experience that studios look for when casting a role people already have strong feelings about.
Reinventing Carlton Banks
The role that changed everything traces back to a fan-made trailer. Director Morgan Cooper, a self-described superfan of the original Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, created a viral YouTube concept trailer reimagining the sitcom as a serious drama. When Will Smith signed on as an executive producer to develop it into an actual series for Peacock, Sholotan pursued an audition — by his own account, he would have taken even a minor recurring role just to be part of the project.
Instead, he landed Carlton Banks, the role originated by Alfonso Ribeiro in the 1990s. Where the original Carlton was comic relief — a preppy, Tom Jones-loving foil to Will’s street smarts — Sholotan’s version carries real psychological weight: insecurity, addiction, and a fraught relationship with his father’s expectations all factor into the character’s arc across the show’s run. Sholotan has described the challenge not as imitating Ribeiro, but building on his legacy while confronting “ugly” and “scary” truths about privilege and vulnerability that the original sitcom only gestured at.
Bel-Air premiered on Peacock in February 2022 and became one of the platform’s signature original series, running for four seasons — a rarity for a Peacock original, and something Sholotan has pointed to as proof of the show’s staying power in a crowded streaming landscape. Season four, which closes out the series, is framed by its cast as “a season of goodbyes,” both for the characters and for a group of actors who spent years building the show together.
Beyond Bel-Air, Sholotan expanded into other projects, including a role as Benji Betts in Gigi & Nate (2022), a drama about a quadriplegic teenager and his service monkey, and a guest appearance as Trevor in the Freeform series Cruel Summer (2023). He has an upcoming short film, The Taking of Courtroom One Two Three, in which he plays a character named Henry.
The Music Career He Built on His Own Terms
While Bel-Air made Sholotan recognizable, music has arguably been his longest-running creative pursuit — one that predates his acting fame and, by his own account, was his first ambition growing up listening to Michael Jackson and Motown records in Nigeria.
He runs his own independent label, Lamintin Records, through which he writes, produces, and engineers nearly all of his own material — a hands-on approach that spans everything from beat-making to mixing. His sound blends Afrobeats with pop, R&B, and hip-hop influences, drawing from artists like Burna Boy, Davido, The Weeknd, and Pharrell Williams.
His catalog includes the early EP Soulful Gazing (2019) and a run of singles — “Steal My High,” “Lie 2 Me,” “Enough for Me,” “Fading,” and others — before a more prolific stretch in 2024 and 2025 that included “BODYE” (2024), “u got it” (2025), “Bless Me” (2025), and “I Go Dey Vex” (2025). In 2025, he released Ollywood BLVD., his debut full-length album, featuring tracks including “Fast Lights” and “Wish Wish.” He also co-produced “Virtual Reality” for fellow Lamintin artist rey, a track that gained traction on TikTok and climbed toward two million streams across platforms — an early sign that Sholotan’s ambitions extend beyond his own catalog into artist development.
As Bel-Air wrapped filming, Sholotan confirmed he was already deep into producing new music slated for a 2026 release, describing every track as “a labor of love” given his hands-on production process.
His theater background hasn’t disappeared either — he performed in an off-Broadway run of Buena Vista Social Club, learning Spanish specifically to sing the show’s Cuban repertoire authentically, an experience he’s said directly influenced the Afro-Caribbean textures in his more recent music.
Life After Bel-Air
With the show’s final season closing out his most visible role to date, Sholotan has been candid about the mixed emotions of moving on from a project that defined his career’s first major chapter. He’s noted having to turn down other work because of Bel-Air‘s shooting schedule, calling the end of the series “exciting but also humbling and bittersweet.”
What comes next looks less like a pivot and more like a continuation of the dual-track career he’s already been building: further acting roles, a new short film already completed, and an album’s worth of new music on the way in 2026. For an artist who has spent his twenties balancing two demanding creative disciplines at once, the end of Bel-Air isn’t a conclusion — it’s just the point where the music catches up to the acting.
Quick Facts About Olly Sholotan
| Detail | Information |
| Full Name | Olamide “Olly” Sholotan |
| Date of Birth | April 5, 1998 |
| Age | 28 years old (as of 2026) |
| Birthplace | Atlanta, Georgia, United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Heritage | Nigerian-American |
| Profession | Actor, Singer, Music Producer |
| Education | UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television |
| Famous For | Playing Carlton Banks in Bel-Air |
| Record Label | Lamintin Records |
