“50 Cent’s Power Book II: Ghost” is returning for its second season.
A talented cast anchors the star-studded series with the unheralded ability to have us look past their celebrity power and see a strong storyline.
Rapper Method Man is believable as the crooked attorney Davis MacLean. The Black Hollywood icon Larenz Tate is especially manic and transformative as bad guy Councilman Tate. But it is Mary J. Blige that grips us with her rendering of the character Monet.
One might argue that Mary plays Monet so well because she has an intimate bond with the female drug-dealing Queen Pin. That would be a great assumption. More aptly, that would be an accurate assumption.
When AllHipHop.com writer Nikki Duncan-Smith sat down with Mary, the Queen of Hip-Hop/ Soul broke down all the ways that she connects with the character and the show.
At 50 years old, the Oscar-nominated actor has seen her fair share of real-life Power drama. She’s from Yonkers. While not a part of the five boroughs of New York City, her hometown usually lumped into stereotypically affluent communities of Westchester.
The Daily Voice states that almost a third of the state’s wealthiest towns are in Westchester county. Greenhaven (Rye, Westchester) alone has a mean household income of $540,403 and is the 10th richest neighborhood in the U.S.
But Y-O is not that.
While it is across town and only 36 minutes away, it is also the home (born or raised) of all of The Lox (Jadakiss, Styles P, & Sheek Louch) and DMX. In fact, Mary J is responsible for the Warlox getting down with Puff Daddy (The guy who signed Biggie before he became P. Diddy or Brother Love). Ain’t nothing soft about Yonkers and particularly soft about Mary.
No. Correction, nothing particularly soft about Yonkers Mary that found her voice with Andre Harrell’s mentorship and P.D.’s brotherhood at Uptown Records.
Now, the refined GRAMMY-winner who has sung for Kings and Queens, multiple Presidents and their administrations, chart-topped, charted planes, vacationed in the most exotic places and rubbed elbows with the founding designers of every designer brand that one might think of, that woman has a softness.
She has hard-earned it and acquired it through her constant demonstration of excellence and fortitude.
That’s why 50 and Courtney hand-selected her.
In her interview with AllHipHop, Mary says that she is glad they say something in her that would resonate with one of their anchor characters, Monet. And happy that they kept their word. The Yonkers in her knows well that sometimes people, even when they mean well, don’t.
For Monet … the new Mary had to lean on the old Mary and the experiences that made and continue to make the one that woman she is today. She says in our interview that she “knows her” and women like her.
These women make the hood rotate around its cast of Power players. She said these women, likening them to her own mom, have used their intuition, craftiness, and even sexuality to handle business. Even street business.
That’s the fuel of her Monet.
The woman who is one of 12 female singers (where only four are Black [Diana Ross, Andra Day, Jennifer Hudson, and herself) who have been nominated for the Academy Award for acting …
Who did not go to Yale like Angela Bassett or Lupita Nyong’o or Julliard like Viola Davis but still slays the screen …
Who created a whole new word called “dancerie” and had people singing it like it was Webster approved …
The first one to tell us that our Doc Martens paired beautifully with a sports bra and suit jacket …
The blonde hair brown-eyed bombshell rockin’ you well …
The one who dipped on her Ninja Honda with Lil Kim, Tanisha, and Rhonda …
That lady … y’all auntie … our girl … turns Ghost out this season, and she is bringing all the sisters that she’s loved, watched, and clocked all these years with her.