When we said goodbye to young Ra’Nell at the end of Top Boy’s second season, the concern for his future was twofold: first, would this good-natured kid overcome the disadvantages of a dicey upbringing on the Summerhouse estate? And second, would Malcolm Kamulete, the talented actor who played him, ever get another role as good, in a British TV industry that habitually overlooks and undervalues Black talent?
I am pleased to report that on the second count at least, all is well. A now grown Kamulete shines again as British rap star Bosco Champion in this confidently executed and consistently entertaining new musical drama by Candice Carty-Williams, author of the 2019 British publishing sensation Queenie.
As the series opens, it seems Bosco’s struggles are behind him. He’s fresh out of prison (trumped-up charges, M’lud), performing his hits to adoring crowds and celebrating his 25th birthday with a back yard barbecue for family and friends. But Bosco’s success casts a long shadow and it’s there that his sister Vita (relative newcomer Déja J Bowens) is languishing. She is talented in her own right – it’s rumoured that she writes Bosco’s best bars, in fact – but a combination of industry sexism and the Champion family’s own twisted dynamic has her running around after her golden child brother like an unpaid PA. This sets up a showbiz sibling rivalry plot, formally announced by Vita’s EastEnders-worthy doof-doof line at the end of episode one: “Well, it’s Champion v Champion now. So get ready …”
If you have seen the hip-hop saga Empire or even caught an episode of Nashville, you should be more than ready for a satisfyingly soapy show that celebrates homegrown music. Carty-Williams’s feel for the rhythms of British Caribbean life tells in the details: the way the older generation especially liberally season their London-accented speech with Jamaican patois; the Grenfell solidarity T-shirt that Bosco’s DJ and best mate, Memet (Kerim Hassan), wears. These kinds of specifics, in combination with the universal draw of good storytelling, bode well for Champion overseas, where Netflix already holds the streaming rights. It is also exciting to imagine that Carty-Williams may be on her way to becoming south London’s TV bard, like the great Sally Wainwright (Last Tango in Halifax, Happy Valley) has been for West Yorkshire.
Much credit must also go to Nadine Marshall as the Champion family matriarch, Aria. Marshall has never quite been a household name, but she is an actor of singular magnificence – witness her railing at the cops harassing her son – and the kind you would happily watch take the bins out. She gets to do some of that in Champion, as the owner-manager of a busy Caribbean restaurant, but the script also gives her plenty of nuance to work with. Aria may present herself as the self-effacing, ever-supportive “mummy”, but she harbours complicated feelings of resentment towards her newly independent daughter, and a continued attraction to her ex, Beres (Ray Fearon). This despite the fact that she has a good man by her side in Lennox (Karl Collins), while Beres has never been dependable. He is always attending to his vanity project reggae radio station, or simply strolling through the back streets of Lewisham like a devilishly handsome blend of Stringer Bell from The Wire and Porkpie from Desmond’s.
Beres is definitely up to something, but then so is everybody in this business. Bosco and Vita contend with much of the same music industry chicanery that Jimmy Cliff was up against 50 years ago in the seminal Jamaican music film The Harder They Come. Then there’s the stuff Jimmy never had to worry about, like the wall of cameraphones that appears to instantly record and disseminate Bosco’s every misstep, to a cacophony of internet comment.
All this makes for a plausibly treacherous music industry backdrop, but it’s the credibility of the music itself that really matters. Champion sees to that with original compositions – some of them certified bangers – from the likes of Ghetts and Ray BLK (also charismatic on screen as Vita’s best friend Honey). So when Bosco battle-raps with a rival, the humiliations truly sting, and when Vita steps up to sing it’s clear this girl’s got soul. By the end of the five episodes made available for preview, I’m as deeply involved in these people’s lives as any eavesdropping auntie filling up a plate at the family barbecue, before settling in to shout encouragement from the settee. Like: “Yes, Lennox, back yourself! You do deserve better!”
Champion was shown on BBC One and is available on BBC iPlayer.
