Tuesday, ABC premiered its new hip hop comedy, “Queens”, which stars Eve, Naturia Naughton, Brandy and Nadia Velazquez. The show focuses on 4 women, who were part of the group, Nasty Bitches, in the early 2000’s but all live separate lives different from their musical lifestyles. Eve plays Brianna – aka Professor Sex – the presumed former leader of the group but currently wife and mother to 5 kids. Naturi plays Jill – aka Da Thrill – who is currently a woman married to the preacher of a church and but involved in an affair. Brandy plays Naomi – aka Xplicit Lyrics – who comes off as the lyricist of the group but is currently hopping across different places to regain the stardom she once had. Nadia plays Valeria – aka Butter Pecan – the one member of the group that was dubbed “least talented” but happened to cash in on her limelight the most, eventually becoming a television personality.
The show opens up with the group’s song and video, “Nasty Girl”, which was released 20 years prior to their current lives. As each member’s verse is shown, it flashes to their current situation in present times. Brianna is currently dealing with the day-to-day duties of taking care of a home and a husband who has a potentially life threatening disease, who also just cheated on her. Jill is faced with the dilemma of finally revealing her own affair to her husband. Naomi is struggling playing acoustic music in local bars but also trying build a broken relationship with a daughter she barely sees. Valeria is struggling to scheme her way to the forefront of the daytime talk show she is on. The group finally gets somewhat of a break when their former manager, Eric Jones (played by Taylor Sele), reaches out to ask the group to perform alongside younger artist, Lil Muffin (played by Pepi Sonuga) at the BET Awards. From there, the episode focuses on their journey to the performance.
This is going to be an interesting show making the main viewpoint go through the perspective of a female rapper but also potentially bringing in age-ism and rappers living leading normal lives into America’s living rooms. Artists these days share so much about their lives that it’s hard to be surprised but seeing these characters walk between the parallels of their hip hop personas and their current “regular” lives, provides a great basis for entertainment. It adds just the right amount of spice for a network television comedy at 9pm central, but only for ABC. Still, the thing that will carry this show is the development of these storylines so it’s important the mic isn’t dropped on that aspect.
BORN 2 FLYHI 