You have played a pivotal role in bringing impassioned projects about Black women, love, and friendship to the small screen. The storylines are relatable, and even when they don’t have a personal connection, they’re effective. You typically explore the lives of adult Black women, but this time you’re focus is teenage love. Tell me about that experience and any inspiration you found along the way.
MBA: I approach a lot of my work with who’s going to be my muse, and at the time, you know, I’m so focused as a mother on my children and wanting them to be happy, healthy, and have a future. So, that was natural, because that’s a daily need, and that’s a daily activity, so I just borrowed from that. I’m thankful that my eldest son allowed me to take some details from his life, which also match a lot of other children’s details, so they weren’t specific to him. He’s just the window into a world that exists. It just made me start to look at [the children] and just sort of pay attention to them and their awkwardness, their confidence, their swag, their language, and how they are trying to navigate all of this. Oh, music was another big one! I mean, again, I have a teenage son who always wants the aux in the car, and I was the parent who allowed him to listen to a lot of his music. I did that because I wanted to know what he was listening to. I felt like every fourth song I was given a lecture, but the point is, those lectures got us into conversations about what they were thinking, and what’s going on in the parent dynamic, and as much as I can get out of the peer dynamic. So, that was an influence.
My own experience with my son as a muse, the music of the times, Los Angeles — you know I love this city — and I want to make sure that a lot of it is represented. When you think about Los Angeles, we’re thinking about people who ride the bus, people who live off of Slauson [Ave.], people who love their families, and like to eat Mexican food. Even the idea about Black culture too — our young people across the nation have these amazing sort of rites of passage, or their sort of debutante balls, called Black prom. Some of these traditional ideas that we don’t get to participate in, we’ve created our own culture to celebrate our children’s rites of passage and coming-of-age. I wanted to put that in the show. So [the inspiration] is always going to be the culture, it’s always going to be us and what is happening to us in real time.
BuzzFeed: And it’s the little touches in the show, like Black prom, that make the impact so much greater as a viewer, because that is a tradition that a lot of Black families hold for their children. Where I’m from in Jersey, the pre-prom, where you show off your ensemble in front of your family and friends, is called a Showcase. We really put on a show!
MBA: Oh, we call it the Champagne Party or the Champagne Toast. It’s funny, but the same thing… like you said, it’s a whole show. Yes, it’s almost better than prom!
They are linked to family. Those events are actually a chance for mom, dad, grandparents, aunties, cousins, everybody to come around. It is infused with that, and then they go off to their peers. But some of the joy and the big highlights are at that moment, which is very interesting.
Credit: buzzfeed.com
