With the highly anticipated second season of Power just a couple of months away, XXL's Miranda J caught up with the show's creator, lead writer and co-producer, Courtney Kemp Agboh, to discuss comparisons to other shows, the direction of the series for the new season, working with co-executive producer 50 Cent, which character undergoes the biggest change and more.
XXL: How did you feel about all the reactions to Season One?
Courtney Kemp Agboh: I was grateful and blessed, absolutely, because you could put out a TV show and no one could watch. I've had that experience because I've worked on a bunch of TV shows that you've never heard of. You work really hard and then the show premieres and nobody watches it. Not only is your effort not being appreciated by the public but you're also going to be out of a job pretty shortly. In this case, people responded even more than I had hoped. I really hoped people would enjoy it, and then they watched it [and] they were like, "Damn!" Then I got on Twitter and people were debating and getting really excited about it. They were talking about things that me and the writers had talked about in the room and hoped people would react to, so [I feel] grateful and blessed. I hope that even more people watch it this second season.
Power, in a lot of ways, filled a void for urban audiences. I know with our audience, a hip-hop based audience, we felt like the show catered to us. Do you feel like you were filling a void with the show?
That's a really good question. The thing is, I wanted a show that I wanted to watch. I like to watch a lot of different things, but I'm 37, so I'm of the generation of hip-hop. A lot of folks in hip-hip are 40 now, right? You don't hear hip-hop in a lot of broadcasts as much. Obviously, because of the profanity and things, but I really did want to make a music-driven show. The show is not only driven by [hip-hop]. In the first season, I really wanted to include Mary J. [Blige]. There's actually two Mary J. songs, kinda. When you do "Sweet Thing," she covered [that song] but it really is Chaka [Khan's]. That, and then there was "Real Love."
It's our generation. It's specific to our generation. 50 [Cent] is so great because he allows me to put whatever music I want in the show. It's not just the total G-Unit catalog. So the first season, you can tell. I love Pusha T and The Clipse. You can tell 'cause it's in there. I like specific producers and 50 was like, I don't care, because the show is lifting the medium and he's able to see wider than just, It has to all be about me. What would The Sopranos have been like if it had hip-hop music?
What's that dynamic like with you and 50? You guys are entering Season Two of Power and have been working together for a while now.
It's funny because 50 Cent and I have spent very little time together. Curtis and I have spent a lot of time together. That is actually the truth. 50 Cent goes and performs. I have two distinct relationships. I have my actor Curtis Jackson, who I work with and we talk about the performance when we have our actor meetings, like I have with every other actor. For me, it's so amazing because of the physical changes with [his character] Kenan. 50's general personality is [very social]; Kenan's like, sunken. His eyes narrow, there's like a panther feeling.
So there's that, then there's Curtis my EP. The executive producer we share is very much... I'll be one the phone with him and he'll start telling me about stories from the neighborhood or about people that he still knows. People that he was obviously in that lifestyle with. When he tells me those stories I'm like [takes notes]. He pitched me something that, for me, is the first three scenes of Season Three. We just talked on the phone and it comes. It's a funny thing because most people assumed it's like a vanity project [for him]. But, we spend a lot of time talking about these stories.
I'd say the biggest scene or the second-biggest scene for Kenan this season came out of a conversation we had and the lines Kenan is saying, 50 just spat that. We were on the phone [and] he was like, "Then he says this, this, and this." I was like, 'Yes!" That was like months before we even wrote the episode. He gave us something to drive toward. He really does have an amazing sense of story. I know I've said that [before] but it's true. He gets it. He's a storyteller. It's interesting; if he had the same kind of education that I had, I wonder if he would be doing what I'm doing, directing movies or whatever.
I have to ask you about all the comparisons to Power. A lot of people are saying it's similar to The Wire and even Empire. How do you feel about those comparisons? Do you feel they are justified?
The Wire comparison is an interesting one for me because it's so spread out and it's so gritty. It really changed as a show every year. You had the school and the docks, so I feel like that's kind of a weird comparison because it's seeing people of color dealing drugs—and yes, we do cover that—but the way we do it is so different. You haven't seen a hand-to-hand [drug deal] on this show yet. It's more about the board room. Our show is, How do you run a business? It's about trying to get all these people on one page. We do cover violence, but the show isn't about the violence. The Wire was about the violence.
As for the Empire thing, the problem is it's so unfair to compare them because doing broadcast—I did broadcast first—is so much harder, in terms of not having sex to show and not having profanity. [They don't have] real violence. They have some but not what I can do. So that's not really fair for them because it's not the same thing. But then the flipside for us is, we'll never be in that many households. We're not Fox, it's a different thing. We're doing different things. I think ifEmpire had a white cast, no one would ever make a comparison. That show is much more structured like Nashville in terms of song and it being about the music industry. Our show is not about that at all. There's hip-hop music in Powerbut the show is not about the hip-hop industry. We chose not to make Ghost a rapper.
Do you think the comparisons boil down to the lack of shows on TV for hip-hop audiences?
I love that people of color have found this show appealing and interesting, [that] it's something that they want to watch. But I also think our show, just as Empire does, has a broad appeal. The themes are universal...[These] are sort of American questions. I want the show to have a broader appeal. There are different ways to watch people of color. You can watch The Real Housewives Of Atlanta, you don't have to watch Power. I think that the reason people do is because it provides something else other than just seeing someone like you on TV. Hopefully, it's bigger than that.
What is the overall dynamic of Season Two of Power?
The overall dynamic is speed, intensity. Bigger, harder, faster and stronger; the Olympic motto. That was the challenge this year—how do we take this and do it way better and way more intense? I think that we wanted to achieve this concept of, By Any Means Necessary. The idea that Ghost will achieve what he needs to achieve by any means necessary. We obviously know that at the end of the season last year, Tommy found out Angela was a Fed. So now, what do we do? What’s going to happen to Ghost once he knows that? We asked that question the first year; when will [Ghost and Angela] find out about each other?
Then, in this second year it’s definitely about, well, now that I know, how do I feel? I’m not a romantic; the show is very romantic but I’m not a romantic. I think that love is kind of bullshit; I actually think that the reason people fall in love with each other is to project to the other person what you want. Ghost projected onto Angela this idea that [he] could live a full, legitimate lifestyle. Angela projected this idea that [she] could really find true love and actually not have to pick between her career. She wasn’t in love with Greg. I think what’s interesting is that [Ghost] represents this idea of true romantic love. She represents the idea of romantic love and his transformation. You take these two people and there are cracks. Once she represents fear, danger and incarceration; that’s different from [what she once represented]. The opposite is true for her—if she ever found out about Ghost, what would that mean? Because he’s supposed to be this perfect representation of them getting out of the hood and being all clean. [And] I achieved my goals and I got this great romantic love.
I think that we require [lovers] to lie to us about who they really are and then we get disappointed when we find out the truth. [Overall] the second season is about speed, intensity, by any means necessary, commitment and survival. I think that everyone on the show is always trying to survive. And [the second season is about] love, but love between fathers and sons. There’s this really interesting thing about loving the person you had babies with but not being in love with them or how you feel when somebody does you wrong.
To read the full interview head over to XXL
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