January 27, 2021 – The upcoming Starz scripted drama Black Mafia Family added Michole Briana White, Eric Kofi-Abrefa, Ajiona Alexus and Myles Truitt to the show that began shooting this week. The production is scheduled to run through the summer and will be shooting in Detroit and Atlanta.
Black Mafia Family is hip-hop mogul 50 Cent’s follow up to his Starz hit Power and tells the true story of twins Demetrius (Big Meech) Flenory and Terry (Southwest T) Flenory and their rise from the streets of Detroit in the 1980s to bi-coastal drug bosses running the fabled “BMF” crew with satellite operations in nearly half of the 50 states by the mid-2000s. The Flenorys went down in 2005’s Operation Motor City Mafia Bust and were both sentenced to 30-year prisons sentences after guilty pleas in 2007.
White (Songbird) plays the Flenory brothers’ mother, Lucille, described as “strong-willed and dignified.” Lucile Flenory was the God-fearing matriarch of the Flenory clan trying to navigate her commitment to the church and the commitment to her sons.
Kofi-Abrefa (Blue Story) plays a character named, Lamar, set to be the show’s first season’s antagonist, a rival drug boss from the Flenorys neighborhood who returns to town eager to reclaim his turf. Truitt (Kin) plays “B-Mickie,” the Flenorys’ childhood friend and BMF lieutenant starting to to chafe under the Flenorys leadership style. Alexus (Empire) will play “Kato,” a female BMF crew member who endears herself to the Flenory family.
The Lamar character is described by show producers as a “cross between a serial killer and a court jester, a hood legend with a backstory filled of gangland conquests embedded in local street lore.” Lamar is based on real-life Southwest Detroit street legend Layton (The Beast) Simon, famous for feuding with the Flenorys in the late 1980s.
B-Mickie, a character the producers tab a “philosophizing stoner type” is said to be based on Dexter (Sosa) Hussey, the BMF strategist and chief logistics officer currently on the outs with the Flenorys. Hussey penned a book about his time in BMF called “Blueprint To Conspiracy.”
Earlier this month, it was announced that Big Meech’s son, aspiring rapper Demetrius (Lil’ Meech) will play his dad in the show. Da’Vinchi (All-American, The Boys) is slated to play Terry Flenory aka “Southwest T.” The real Southwest T walked out of prison early last spring due to the COVID-19 outbreak and is finishing out his time under home confinement back in Detroit.
Starz was fast to announce that acclaimed character actor Wood Harris (The Wire) joined the production to play “Black Pat,” the Flenory brothers’ first boss in the drug world. Harris’ character is said to be a composite of real-life BMF mentors Edrick (E.D.) Boyd and Harold (H-Town) Mills. Boyd led The 50 Boyz crew. Mills was the Flenorys’ first wholesale supplier.
Actors Russell Hornsby and Steve Harris and rapper Kash Doll were also cast; Hornsby will play Charles “Pops” Flenory, the musician patriarch of a Midwest family struggling to make it in a smoggy section of Motown in the decaying malaise of the early 1980s. Harris will play Detective Bryant a childhood friend of Big Meech’s who is assigned to breakup his burgeoning crack empire and Kash Doll will play Monique, a paralegal to a high-priced criminal defensive attorney in Detroit being romanced by Big Meech.
Steve Harris and Wood Harris are brothers. Steve got an Emmy nomination for his work on ABC’s legal drama, The Practice. Wood Harris has a place in the Hall of Fame of fictional bad guys for his work as Baltimore drug lord Avon Barksdale on The Wire, part of HBO’s first wave of prestige programming.
50 Cent helped create Power for Starz in 2014, which ran for six years and became the cable network’s signature scripted drama. Power told the fictional story of a New York drug lord named “Ghost” (played brilliantly by Omari Hardwick) and has been hailed by critics and television historians as the “Black Sopranos.” Producer Randall Emmett and writer Randy Huggins, who worked with 50 Cent on Power, are on-board with the Black Mafia Family series. Huggins, a native Detroiter, is showrunning the project.
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