interviews

Singer Sevyn Streeter is excited for people to continue to recognize her as a popular songwriter, as revealed in the new Netflix docuseries Hitmakers.

Streeter and the cast of the series spoke with Blavity/Shadow and Act Managing Editor Trey Mangum about showcasing their songwriting skills on the docuseries.

Why Sevyn Streeter never puts her pen down

Streeter said that songwriting is just one part of her artistic journey.

“I love my artistry. I love being a solo artist. I got a project that’s on the way [that] I’m very excited about. But at the same time, I say that my artistry for me, not for everyone, but my artistry, I don’t think it would exist in the same way if I were not a songwriter,” she told us. “It keeps me sharp. It keeps me current. It keeps me not having to be at the mercy of people saying, ‘Oh, well, you know, seven needs a record.’ No, I don’t need you to write me anything. I can write it myself. And I think that that is something that I encourage all creatives to put that tool in their toolbelt.”

Streeter called songwriting “the foundation of everything musical, truth be told.”

“For me, it’s just one of those things that I’ll never put my pen down, you know what I mean?” she said. “It’s changed my life in so many ways, and it lends to my creativity as a whole. It’s the reason why I can write my own number one record. I just keep learnin,g and it keeps me sharp. I love it. It’s human and it’s conversational. It’s a good little ki-ki when you get in these rooms and you write these songs with us.”

Inside the pressure and payoff of writing for the stars

Hitmakers dives deep into the world of songwriting by detailing what the industry’s most popular songwriters go through when creating the perfect hit. According to the official description:

Behind every hit song is the person who wrote it. In the new docu-series, HITMAKERS, we follow twelve of the industry’s best songwriters and producers as they come together at real high-stakes writing camps to create hits for today’s biggest stars like John Legend, Shaboozey, and Lisa of Blackpink. With tensions high and time short, viewers get a front-row seat to the creative chaos, emotional stakes, and personal breakthroughs. This isn’t just about writing music…it’s the journey to becoming a HITMAKER.

Check out the full interviews below with Streeter, Trey Campbell, Tommy Brown, Stephen Kirk & Jenna Andrews, Ben Johnson and Nova Wav (Brittany “Chi” Coney and Denisia “Blu June” Andrews).

Hitmakers is now streaming on Netflix.

From Abbott Elementary to Insecure, Courtney Taylor continues to evolve with each role she takes on.

Although she feels the most at home with comedy, whether it’s in online skits or playing around with her loved ones, Taylor has always had a fascination with drama, and she loves the transformation that actors undergo while taking on various roles. Now, she will step out of her comfort zone and into the world that she’s long been captivated by as she joins the popular Bosch universe by way of the Prime Video spinoff, Ballard.

“As much as comedy feels like home, I’m so happy that drama has found a way into my career and I’ve been able to really exercise that muscle and drama,” Taylor told Blavity’s Shadow and Act in a recent interview as the series launched.

On landing her first drama role

“To be a part of Michael Connelly’s universe, in any way, is always super special,” she continued. “I’ve loved all of his work. [The] Lincoln Lawyer, and the Bosch series itself, was always to me, very good. I was excited to be a part of this series because I think it was something that was so beautifully written, I mean the books are so good, and now that I’m involved in this project, this woman-led cold case unit that is very adamant about finding justice and caring for people, I cannot imagine playing a better role. I’m so excited that they believed in me enough to take on this role, and that I had this wonderful team of people rallying behind me.”

Who is Samira Parker in ‘Ballard’?

Bosch focuses on Detective Renée Ballard (Maggie Q) and her work in the LAPD’s cold case unit, and Taylor plays Samira Parker, who, according to a character description, is a “wary, impulsive and tough woman with a burning desire for justice.”

“I think what makes her the most unique is her passion,” Taylor said of her character. “I think this cold case unit that we’re talking about in Ballard, it talks about the underfunded. It talks about how [the] majority of the people are volunteers and not being paid. There’s an episode where she basically says that she’s the only paid staff member. Ballard is the only paid staff member. Everybody else is here, but just because they’re passionate about it and they want to help people and people deserve to get answers — especially people who were waiting decades for answers about their loved ones.”

She added, “I just really thought that made it completely different from anything we’ve seen because you get to see the gritty of it, and how passionate people have to be to work on a cold case unit.”

What her acting journey has taught her so far

Whether the role is big or small, Taylor understands the art of pouring herself into various characters we’ve grown to love. Her recurring role on Insecure as Issa Dee’s assistant Sequoia, showcased her as the “I got it covered” girl, and she also shines as Janine Teague’s close friend, Erika, in Abbott Elementary. 

Taylor, who also had a series regular role in Netflix’s Neon, says each character causes her to lend more trust in herself.

“I think I’ve spent a lot of time doubting me,” she said. “I think it’s so easy, especially when you’re young, to be like, ‘I don’t know if this is good. I don’t know if this is right.’ But, I think as I’ve gotten further into this career and gotten such wonderful opportunities to work with amazing people, it’s just a validation that I needed inside of me to say, ‘Courtney, you are good at this and because you enjoy doing it so much, and you want it to be good, it will be good.’”

Taylor added, “It was a lot of me trusting myself. That’s what I learned, personally. Professionally, I learned to be extremely flexible, to be ready to change whatever I needed to change to serve the team, to serve the people around me, to serve the cast I need to work with. I was so ready to be flexible, so ready to help when it came to like ad-libs or fun moments and stuff like that, because I wanted to be of service to everyone around me. I think that’s the goal really, just to be of service to the people you’re working with, so they can be of service to you.”

At the end of the day, Taylor’s goal is to create, whether that’s in front of the camera or behind it, particularly stories that center people of color and explore narratives that are different.

Ballard Season 1is now streaming on Prime Video.

Tales about Black people during the 1800s have long been rooted in the evils of slavery and struggle. Hulu’s latest book adaptation, Washington Black, gives viewers a peek inside the imagination that was still front and center amid those trying times.

According to the series description:

Based on the bestselling novel of the same name, Washington Black follows the 19th-century odyssey of George Washington “Wash” Black, an 11-year-old boy born on a Barbados sugar plantation, whose prodigious scientific mind sets him on a path of unexpected destiny. When a harrowing incident forces Wash to flee, he is thrust into a globe-spanning adventure that challenges and reshapes his understanding of family, freedom and love. As he navigates uncharted lands and impossible odds, Wash finds the courage to imagine a future beyond the confines of the society he was born into.

Ernest Kingsley Jr. stars as George Washington Black, a character that showcases courage like never before and an intelligence that is important to note during those times, alongside Sterling K. Brown, who shines as Medwin Harris and serves as an executive producer on the project.

Other cast members include Rupert Graves as Mr. Goff, Iola Evans as Tanna Goff, Edward Bluemel as Billy McGee, Sharon Duncan-Brewster as Miss Angie, and Tom Ellis as Wilde.

Showcasing imagination as a means of freedom

“I feel like it’s a superpower against the odds,” Kingsley told Blavity’s Shadow and Act, during our cast interview, of how imagination serves as George Washington Black’s ticket to freedom as he fights the fight of survival.

“It’s this kind of suit and armor against his current circumstances,” he continued. “He has that gift to imagine, and therefore he has that gift to visualize a better circumstance than his current one,” adding, “With that imagination, he invents with this creativity, all these amazing things — aquarium, of course, and the flying machine, it’s absolutely incredible. I feel like it’s definitely, as you said, many times, like an act of resistance, that imagination.”

In the eighth episode, the character finally gets the chance to fly and journey to where his mother, Big Kit, played by Shaunette Renée Wilson, is from is something that Kingsley said was a full-circle moment not only for his character, but himself as an actor.

“Oh my gosh, those episode scenes, because I hadn’t worked with, most of the scenes with Shaunette, who plays Big Kit, it was with young Wash Eddie, so getting the chance to kind of act alongside her, I was like, wow,” he recalled. “Like, I really felt the full-circle moment, and just also the optics of how it all started off and being in because that wasn’t in the book that we meet at the end, but being able to have that full-circle moment, be in this kind of spiritual realm, and relish in the fact that, you know, ‘I’ve seen you grow up. I instilled in you all these spiritual elements, and I never left you, and look what you became.’”

Kingsley added, “Look what that gift God has given you, of dreams and imagination, has taken you. I was like, ‘Wow, this is so special.’”

The dynamic between Brown’s and Kingsley’s characters

While much of Washington Black is rooted in the fight for freedom and survival and how that is powered by dreams and imagination, at the core of this story is also identity and love. 

The friendship between Wash and Medwin showcases a platonic love and how friends can oftentimes be the catalyst for the change we wish to see within ourselves, while on the other hand, Wash’s relationship with Tanna is what Brown calls “iron sharpening iron.”

“You see two dreamers who are sort of confined by a certain set of circumstances,” Brown told us, expanding upon his thoughts on Tanna and Wash. “Whether it’s you, sort of like denying your identity with the hopes of maintaining safety, or her for the same reason, denying her full identity with the hopes of having some sort of safety, right? And then slowly but surely, you each say, ‘Oh, you know what? We have to be our fullest version of who we are if we want to be the happiest version of ourselves, we can’t deny any part of ourselves to live a full life.’”

He added, “Then for Medwin, Medwin is a survivalist, right? And so the idea is just like we need to stay alive, right? And Wash sort of unlocks within him; there’s more to life than just surviving. There’s a full vision. There’s a fully realized vision of who you can be, and if you’re just stuck in survival, you will never be able to thrive, right? And so, Wash unlocks within Mediwn, like, ‘You know what? I’ve been denying myself love, and I thought, just because I have to focus on all these other things to make sure that everybody’s living, but then ultimately, seeing you love is like, this love thing is not a bad thing. I should probably allow a little bit of that in my life,’ so Wash unlocks a lot of that. Everywhere he goes, he gives people permission to be a fuller version of themselves.”

The full season of Washington Black is now streaming on Hulu.