Fox has picked up a new family comedy produced by John Legend and inspired by his own childhood, Deadline reports. Mixed Blessings will tell the tale of a popular black hip hop artist living the dream and enjoying his freedom, who finds out he has a responsibility he’s been inadvertently shirking: a teenage son.
Legend, a Grammy-award winning musician with a long list of musical credits, has made some appearances in television and films and is executive producing through his production company, Get Lifted Film Co. along with Mike Jackson. Also executive producing are former NBC exec Teri Weinberg and Rob Pearlstein of Medium, who is also on board to write for the show. This is the first big move into television for the musician’s fledgling production company.
The show is expected to mine laughs from the culture clash between the life of a black hip-hop star and the life of his son who is being raised in the suburbs by a white family. The latter will apparently be unimpressed by daddy’s street cred, leaving him to search for a new way to connect with his son outside of his fame and fortune. It sounds like we can expect plenty of race relations jokes – let’s just hope the show can avoid becoming too predictable with them.
NBC it seems is looking to the music world for new hits; they have also picked up a karaoke based comedy produced by Maroon 5 front man and The Voice star Adam Levine.
