It’s the stuff legends are built on: an epic rivalry between two siblings, each of them striving to best the other in a battle of lyrical prowess.
Welcome to Champion: the newest (and much hyped) BBC show set to hit our screens. Written and developed by Candice Carty-Williams – the author most famous for writing Queenie, which she is also adapting for screen – this is an exploration of South London’s black music scene.
Our protagonists are Vita and Bosco Champion. Bosco is a talented rapper just released from prison and attempting to make a comeback; Vita has spent her whole life in his shadow but begins to take steps towards establishing herself as a solo artist over the course of the show. Is there drama? Naturally, but the inspiration for the show is slightly more old-school.
“Our reference was Sister Act,” director John Ogunmuyiwa says. “Well, Sister Act 2, because no one really thinks of that show as a musical. Everyone thinks, ‘Oh, I remember the music. But I also liked the performances,’… it’s quite seamless how they brought in the music and embedded it into the acting.”
Many of the cast – including leads Déja J Bowens and Malcolm Kamulete, who play the warring siblings Vita and Bosco – had never really sung on screen before.
As Bowens says, “I wasn’t quite prepared for the amount of music that there was”. It’s present in almost every scene, as we travel from the recording studio, to the Champion siblings’ father’s radio station in Brixton, to the stage.
The show’s music-heavy focus carried over into the director’s room, too. “We took a perspective of [filming the show] almost like a documentary: you’re kind of there in the room,” Ogunmuyiwa says. “And sometimes it’s really smooth, and sometimes it’s hectic, but you’re just kind of there.”
At the screening I attended, it was clear how passionately the cast feel about the show – passionately enough, in Kamulete’s case, to come out of semi-retirement after appearing in the original Channel 4 iteration of Top Boy.
“I literally saw the name was Champion, and it’s the namesake of my very close friend who I lost in 2013 - Champion Ganda, God bless him,” Kamulete says. “So as soon as I saw the email, I called my mum, and I told her, ‘I’m back. This is my role.’”
Though Champion is predominantly a show about music, the show doesn’t shy away from the harsher realities of life in the UK for black British people. The first episode alone features a scene where officers break down the door of the Champion family home following a noise complaint and arrest Bosco, who is eventually released without charge.
The whole scene is harrowing to watch and – the cast say – difficult to film, too. So why did they include it?
Carty-Williams pauses. “F*** the police,” she says. “I think it’s a disgusting institution; I think it’s rotten.”
“We are so disproportionately targeted,” she adds. “And I don’t think anyone really stops and thinks about the pain that causes every single person, and humiliation. And it happens time and time and time again. In the case of Bosco, this didn’t end with death, but it does. And that’s really painful. So this isn’t that kind of show. But, you know, it could have been.”
Even if the police don’t feature in every episode, their presence is felt throughout as Bosco struggles with anger management issues and anxiety likely caused by his time inside, and amplified by his attempts to stage a successful comeback.
The scenes where he fights for breath and tries not to break down are hard to watch, too – but as Ray BLK points out, mental health isn’t an uncommon problem for people in the music industry.
“That’s something that really needs to be touched on. Because with male artists in particular, that’s something that they hide, and they don’t talk about, but I feel like most artists deal with anxiety and pressure, depression, and the highs and lows of being on top and then you know, falling off,” she says.
“And I felt like that story in particular was really important to tell because a lot of people don’t know that this is what their favourite artists are going through.”
But the show’s commitment to authenticity goes further than that. BLK – who served as one of the show’s music executives, alongside playing Vita’s best friend Honey – goes onto cite a toe-curlingly awkward scene where Bosco meets the record label executives to chat about a new album.
Apart from him and his manager, the rest of the faces in the room are white – and keen to build on his brand as a just-released convict by filming a music video of him in a prison jumpsuit.
“You would like to think that it’s not like that anymore,” she says. “But it is exactly like that. Just people in a room that don’t really understand the culture [that] they are exploiting.”
It seems especially galling when faced with the discrimination that many black artists face when making music – music that Champion is seeking to celebrate.
“Music is just an art form of self-expression, and all genres of music just express emotion and express what that artists is going through,” BLK says.
“But unfortunately black music is specifically targeted. And people don’t look at the breadth of conversations that’s actually happening within black music… a lot of artists are blocked from doing tours, their successful sold-tour tours will be cancelled last minute or police will ram the venue to make it feel uncomfortable just because they feel like the lyrics might be aggressive or incite violence.”
“It’s just an art form: of people letting out their pain, their struggle, what they’re going through and it’s relatable.”
