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PEOPLE & ARTSWednesday 23 March 2016
Carey, 50 Cent, Minaj part of
TV’s new music partnerships Side’ explores
LYNN ELBER
AP Television Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The
love affair between televi-
sion and music stars is get-
ting personal.
A top artist like Gwen Ste-
fani hired as a singing con-
test judge for “The Voice”?
Old hat. Live TV musicals
boasting casts that in-
clude Carrie Underwood
(“The Sound of Music”) and
Queen Latifah (“The Wiz”)?
With more Broadway-to-TV
broadcasts ahead, they’re
becoming routine.
But a flurry of announce-
ments is signaling a new di-
rection for some of music’s
big names, who are driving
projects they want to see
made and, in some cases,
made about them.
— Mariah Carey is a pro-
ducer of “Mariah’s World,”
an E! channel docu-series
that will follow her on tour
and as she plans her wed-
ding to Australian business-
man James Packer.
— Nicki Minaj is producing
and will appear in “Nicki,”
a scripted comedy inspired
by her childhood and now
taping for the Freeform
channel (formerly ABC
Family).
— Curtis Jackson is devel-
oping a variety show with
A&E Network that will be
hosted and produced by
the rapper known as 50
Cent.
— “Trackers,” a music-
based game show in de-
velopment for Spike TV,
is produced by Christina
Aguilera.
The allure for TV program-
mers is clear, said Elaine
Frontain Bryant, A&E’s ex-
ecutive vice president and
head of programming.
“Music connects people,
and some of the biggest
shows people still gather
around, like ‘The Voice,’
are music-based. It’s a
multigenerational kind of
programming that can still
have an edge,” she said.
Teaming with a recording
star like 50 Cent is the sen-
sible way to go.
“We need him. We’re not
plugged into the music
scene the way he is,” Bry-
ant said. Similarly, she said,
In this Oct. 26, 2015 file photo, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson arrives at
Media’s Tribute to African-American Achievements in Television
in Beverly Hills, Calif.
the channel’s 2015 “Shining
a Light: A Concert for Prog-
ress on Race in America,”
succeeded as a “big, epic
concert” because it was
spearheaded by Pharrell.
Such artists bring “a cred-
ibility and legitimacy to our
projects,” she said.
For E!, the Carey series
is “absolutely bang-on
E! strategy,” said Adam
Stotsky, its president.
The channel aims to be
“the category killer for all
things in the pop culture
world. Music is in the sweet
spot of what E! already
In this Feb. 28, 2016 file photo, Mariah Carey arrives at the
2016 Elton John AIDS Foundation Oscar Viewing Party in West
Hollywood, Calif.
stands for,” he said, citing
its coverage of shows in-
cluding the Grammys.
Add a “big, colorful iconic
character like Mariah” to
the mix, Stotsky said, and it’s promises an “intimate look”
what celebrity-loving view-
ers want from the channel
that’s home to such fare as
“Keeping Up with the Kar-
dashians.”
Review: ‘The South
American segregation
CARLA K. JOHNSON
Associated Press
Journalist Natalie Y. Moore
grew up in Chatham on
Associated Press Chicago’s South Side, “a
solid black middle-class
In this Oct. 23, 2015 file neighborhood” where her
photo, Nicki Minaj performs college-educated parents
in concert during the Power worked as a teacher and
99 POWERHOUSE 2015 in a Shell Oil middle man-
Associated Press ager. In 1986, the family
agreed to be interviewed
Philadelphia. and photographed for a
Chicago Sun-Times feature
This book cover image
released by St. Martin’s Press
shows, “The South Side: A
Portrait of Chicago and
American Segregation,” by
Natalie Y. Moore. housing policies created
Associated Press gation, which today impos-
story about viewers of “The
Cosby Show.”
“In the tradition of being a
good, upstanding Negro,
my dad wanted to pres-
Associated Press ent a positive image in
the news media by show-
The eight-episode “Mari- ing how we lived accord-
ah’s World” will cover the ingly in black middle-class-
start of her “Sweet Sweet dom,” Moore writes in “The
Fantasy” tour of the U.K., South Side,” her ambitious
Europe and Africa and study of one city’s legacy
of segregation.
at her life and inner circle Mirroring Cosby’s Huxtable
of family and friends. An family for the media,
air date has not been an- Moore’s father happily
nounced for the series to took on the responsibility of
be shown on E!’s 17 inter- representing his race be-
national channels. q cause it fit with “his version
of middle-class militancy,”
writes Moore. He donned
a tie to present a positive
image while staying true
to his black identity. She
shoulders her own huge
task: Examining segrega-
tion through the lens of
her hometown’s shame-
ful record and her vibrant
personal story, starting with
grandparents who moved
North to the city during the
Great Migration.
The investigation alternates
between history and analy-
sis, journalism and memoir.
The chapters “Jim Crow
in Chicago” (on the his-
tory of segregation) and
“A Dream Deferred” (on
subsidized housing) are
recommended reading for
anyone who wants to more
fully understand the roots
of current Chicago issues
from teachers’ strike rum-
blings to police shootings
of black teenagers.
Chicago’s race restric-
tive covenants and public
the city’s enduring segre-
es a downward drag on
home equity — in effect,
a “black tax.” Moore, the
South Side bureau reporter
for Chicago’s WBEZ, draws
on her past journalism to
introduce Chicagoans af-
fected by segregation or
fighting its harms. Many in-
triguing figures come and
go too fleetingly to make
an impression — a resident
of the now-demolished
Robert Taylor Homes gets
less than a page.
Moore’s personal reflec-
tions, however, are honest
and fascinating, making
“The South Side” shine. She
relates her hopeful pur-
chase of a condo in Chi-
cago’s Bronzeville neigh-
borhood and the loss she
took when she sold it. She
acknowledges her contra-
dictions, embracing black
cultural institutions while
hating the economic in-
justices of imposed racial
separation.
This complexity helps “The
South Side” make a com-
pelling case for keeping the
cultural diversity of Ameri-
can cities’ ethnic enclaves,
in contrast to the 1980s san-
itized ideal of Huxtable as-
similation, while striving to
eliminate the high-poverty
legacy of government-
sanctioned segregation.
Moore gives no clear path
forward, but convinces
readers that there’s value
in the search.q