How am I sitting here watching Brandy and Eve rap live?
And Naturi, and then Nadine, in this thing that didn’t exist?"
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How didQueenscome about?
Eve, Brandy, Naturi Naughton, and Nadine Velazquez in ‘Queens’ on ABC.ABC/Kim Simms
What inspired you to write it?
ZAHIR MCGHEE:It’s a love of hip hop, number one.
We don’t have ourStevieNicks’s orBobDylan’s or Paul McCartney’s, right?
Eve, Brandy, Naturi Naughton, and Nadine Velazquez in ‘Queens’ on ABC.ABC/Annette Brown
So what does that start to look like?
And that’s particularly the case with the women of hip hop.
Did you write these parts for the cast that you got?
Naturi Naughton, Pepi Sonuga, Eve, Brandy, and Nadine Velazquez in ‘Queens’ on ABC.ABC/Kim Simms
Because you got quite the cast.
A version of the script was done at some point [last] September, I would say.
And she just talked about how she really connected with Brianna based on her real-life experiences.
Eve, Naturi Naughton, Brandy, and Nadine Velazquez say ‘cheers’ in ‘Queens’ on ABC.ABC/Kim Simms
That’s how it went down.
And then I was like, “This feels too perfect.”
It feels like she’s Naomi.
She was so lovely and so connected to Naomi.
And it continued with Naturi with Jill, and Nadine as well.
They just sort of gravitated towards the characters.
Was that a purposeful choice to provide something new to that time period with this group?
It’s funny because Eve and I talked about this quite a bit.
They should have been, but they weren’t.
So that is part of the fun fantasy of it all.
That’s just a weird sentence, right?
Every day is just a little bit more bizarre in trying to explain who these people are.
So they are, in some ways, amalgams of lots of different artists.
So we pulled from a lot of different stories.
Conversely, what went into developing Lil Muffin?
There are a lot of new, relevant female artists to draw inspiration from.
It’s partly my fascination.
Right now, there’s such a wide breadth of artists.
And I wanted to look at that.
So they’re all going through the same thing.
It’s 2021, everyone’s a little gay."
What else do you have in store for us this season?
I know I’m particularly excited to seeCam’ronjoin the show.
We have a couple other guest stars coming through that are amazing and authentic.
So Cam’ron is actually going to do a song with the ladies, and it’s freaking incredible.
The music just gets better and better every single week.
I love “Nasty Girl,” but you have no idea.
A little bit further into the season, you’ll see some rappers playing characters in our show.
But there’s also going to be a pretty strong mix earlier in the season of people playing themselves.
That being said, they are playing, to some degree, heightened versions of themselves.
And also, with the real people, we’re blending them into our story, into the backstory.
So we’re saying that Cam’ron and our group had a song back in the year 2000.
I also can’t wait to hear more about Brianna andJa Rule’srelationship.
We can’t stop talking about it.
And then cut to Brianna looking at it, and then driving away.
Wow, I hope to see that in the future.
I hope so too.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
