Fox's new musical series Empire arrives here in early March - on Fox on Wednesday, 4 March at 21h00. It premiered in America in early January and it's been ranking up the ratings - the premiere reached
9.8 million viewers and viewership's
increased each week since then.
It stars Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson - who I have a girlcrush on. She's hott in Person of Interest and she's even hotter in Empire:
The story centres round former-drug-dealer-turned-music-mogul Lucious Lyon (played by Terrence) who discovers he has a terminal illness and decides to make plans for the future of the Empire he's built.
He has three sons and must decide which of them will take over from him i.e. he turns into King Lear - a fact the show acknowledges in the first episode. All three of his sons want the job of course - which is a problem for two of them because he favours one.
Enter Lucious' ex-wife Cookie (Taraji) who arrives on the scene after being in jail for years. Half the money Lucious used to build Empire was hers so she returns to get What's Hers.
While the action unfolds, there's seriously cool music throughout - all created and supervised by Timbaland. The show's like the hip hop version of Nashville - it manages to weave through the music in a very similar way so that it never feels like an old fashioned musical.
Here are two must-hear tracks - my favourite two from the pilot episode - performed by Lucious' sons Jamal and Hakeem. Jamal's track is about his relationship with his father as a result of him being gay: