Staff Writer – Latoya Wakefield
My new obsession- Empire! Normally I don’t rave about series. I prefer to keep it all to myself but this time I want to share this new series with the world. Well, it’s fairly new. The episode premiered in January and yes I’m a bit late but oh well… I’ve started Season 1 of Empire and I must say I liked it. Who am I kidding? I loved it.
It’s a little bit of everything. There’s humour, suspense, drama, dreams and aspirations and backstabbing of course. The cast is just sexy. Maybe a little bit too much sexy for one series. It included two of my favourites- Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson. You’ll see renown faces such as Tasha Smith, Raven Simone, Naomi Campbell, Grace Gealey, Gabourey Sidibe, Malik Yoba, Cuba Gooding Jr. and much more.
Now Empire is about a dysfunctional family – a father-Lucious Lyon, his three sons, and ex wife that built a hip hop and music company called Empire Entertainment and now competing to be the head since the father has ALS and needs a successor so you know that’ll bring a lot of drama. What really gets me about this series is the love they have for the music. I’ve already downloaded some of the soundtracks in my “most listened to” playlist.
Taraji who plays Cookie is especially bad-ass in this series. She has a great role and awesome lines. One line I particularly favoured is ” The streets ain’t made for everybody, that’s why they made sidewalks”. She has guts and nothing but love for her family. Her character is powerful and grows sturdily. Her sons, Jamal and Hakeem are pretty talented in different ways and are explosive whenever they collaborate. I fancy Jamal’s sound, it’s familiar yet unique. The oldest son, Andre, is scheming and said to be talentless. I keep thinking that they’ll be an episode where he’ll sing ( I just think he’s not as talentless as he seems). And the biggest Lyon of them all is hell bent on building an formidable legacy and finding the perfect successor, one of his three sons.
I’m looking forward to the next seasons. Kudos to the creators, Lee Daniels and Danny Strong. Let’s hope it doesn’t get crappy after a few seasons.
Season Finale WED 8/7c MAR 18 – Fox!
Have you watched Empire? What do you think of it?
Photo courtesy atlantablackstar.com
