Thoughts on FOX's new drama 'Empire,' starring Terrence Howard & Taraji P. Henson

Authenticity. That is the life blood of Hip Hop since it’s inception in late '70s in boogie down Bronx. You need to be authentic or believed to be so. If people can believe what you’re pushing, you can rocket to the stars. If they can’t, you’ll fall into the darkness that is wackness. That’s the biggest problem with FOX’s new primetime drama Empire. 

It never feels like it’s of the culture of hip hop or even true the current nature of rap. When watching this show it felt the whole time like I was watching an outsider’s idea of what rap is and then jammed it in a version of black Dynasty-like soap opera. To me, that falls on the shoulders of Lee Daniels and Danny Strong. I had reservations about these two doing a hip-hop-based show once I heard about it. Nothing about either of them spoke like they were of the culture, and to be honest, I only like one of Daniels’ films, Precious. I had very little faith in the quality of the show visually.

When watching this show, all I felt I saw was just stereotypes of what people think rap is and in a way current black culture; there was no depth at all. Terrence Howard’s Lucious Lyon is the rapper-turned-music mogul, but how did he become that way? They show flashbacks with Howard in the black doorag and black hoodie on to show his gangsta past with Taraji P. Henson’s Cookie. Supposedly in Philly in the late '80s or early '90s, the struggle is just shown with him kind of writing rhymes and really Cookie doing all the gangsta stuff. No thought was done to even really make it look like that time at all. You couldn’t find some old cross color overalls, maybe some bright colored sweatshirts? How come you didn’t cast younger actors for the flashbacks with some better hair than Taraji’s ponytail?

Another thing that bothered me is how the music is handled. The show starts out with the characters Hakeem and Jamal Lyon along with their father and brother Andre at a party on a yacht and they break out in an impromptu song; now, this song didn’t sound like it was being played live there on the ship with the piano, but it was a fully produced, studio-recorded track. That instantly took me out of this. I was like, 'Am I watching rap Glee or nah?' Then it continued - every single music point was a produced studio-recorded song even when it was being made. Now for many it’s not a big deal, but it didn’t feel true. It would’ve been better if they had Jamal play piano and somebody beat on some wood for a drum beat for Hakeem to rap to in front of everyone.

Now another thing that is a big deal in the show is that Lucious is trying to pick an heir to the company from one of his sons. He’s not automatically choosing his son Andre who went to business school and helps him run the company, he wants to pick Hakeem because he’s a good rapper with no work ethic, but he definitely doesn’t want to give it to Jamal because he’s gay. See, Lucious is like cartoonishly homophobic in this show. He basically doesn’t want to be in the same room as his son Jamal even though he’s a musical genius that can play instruments, produce hit records, and sing like Miguel. He’s so homophobic that Lucious, when Jamal was little, throws his son in the garbage for walking around in his mother’s high heeled shoes.

Really, that bad guys. He’s that bad. Now I know there are a lot of issues with homophobia in hip hop but this clearly wasn’t the way to handle it. To be honest, Lucious would’ve had to work with plenty of LGBT people in the music industry to be comfortable with his son. To be honest it would’ve been more interesting to tackle that subject with the Hakeem character being gay and having to hide it in order to sell that image of masculinity and thug life to the public, but nah they ain’t about that.

For me the only thing that really worked in this whole thing was Taraji as Cookie. She was the only thing that felt authentic, that brought realness to her character and arc. You felt that Cookie did a bid and that she felt wronged and loved her kids. The pilot feels like she is the protagonist but one that didn’t get enough screen time that was wasted on characters like Lucious and Hakeem. I think the female perspective would be a better take, especially with the current state of marginalization of the female, especially the black female within the culture.

Another main part of the show that I feel is good is the music. Now I criticized how it sounds within the story, but overall the music is good. Timbaland is the one in charge of the music and score of the show and it has that usual Timbo polish. Now as much as I like the production I still can’t buy the Hakeem character as a rapper yet. It’s something with his voice and flow, it bothers me - and the clean versions of song took me out of the story, to be completely honest.  

You might be reading this and thinking, 'Man, Julian is nitpicking, it’s fun and he’s being so hard on it,' and that might be true. It’s because I want things to be better and I don’t think that’s too much to ask. Hip hop is crazy; it’s fantastical, grounded and aspirational. It’s dangerous and it’s fun. It’s dreams and nightmares all wrapped up in rhymes and beats. It bums me out that the show isn’t better, especially from a writing perspective, since hip hop music is so very focused on the craft of writing; a bit more care should’ve been spent on it or bringing in someone to give it that touch of truth. In the end, to me it seems like Daniels wanted to make a black nighttime soap and ended up wrapping it shoddily in rap music so that he could sell it easier. Hopefully it can get better because right now this ain’t getting any Flex bombs.