(Lay) Zhang Yixing

 레이   張藝興    장이씽

In October 2016, Lay's career as a solo singer began with the release of "What U Need?" Prior to this he also released the song "Monodrama" for the 'Station Project'.

"What U Need?" hit the #4 spot on the China V Chart as well as on Billboard's World Digital Songs, and made it to the top 60 on the US iTunes chart, making Lay the first Chinese artist to appear on the chart. He performed the song for the first time on October 10th at the 2016 Asia Song Festival in Busan, South Korea.

On October 28, one day after holding a press conference at Shanghai Town & Country Community, Lay released his debut extended play "Lose Control", which contains 6 Mandarin tracks, and the music video for the title song. He was a producer, and personally in charge of the composition, arrangement and writing the lyrics of every song.

The song "Lose Control" stayed as #1 on Billboard's China V Chart for 6 weeks in a row. "Lose Control" broke the record in South Korea for the most sales by a solo artist, with pre-orders surpassing 200,000 copies before the physical album was released. Lay also became the first solo artist to sell more than 40,000 album copies within a day and 125,000 within a week from the album's release. Over 1,000,000 copies of the digital album has been sold on Xiami.

He performed "Lose Control" for the first time on The Show on November 15. "Lose Control" was also a commercial success peaking at number 1 on the Gaon Album Chart.

On October 7, 2020 Lay took to his personal social media accounts to announce the launch of his very own trainee system entitled "Chromosome Entertainment Group", this company will be launching new C-Pop groups in the future.

On April 8, 2022 Lay took to his personal Instagram and Twitter to announce his departure from SM Entertainment and in doing so also his departure from the group EXO.