Just under a month after Nicki Minaj threw some major shade at Miley Cyrus during the MTV Video Music Awards, the pop star is headed back to television in a huge way, and it presumably won’t have anything to do with Miley. ABC Family has given a series commitment to a comedy show centered around Minaj’s life before she hit it big. They’ll need more people tuning in than just the ones that bought her last album if they want it to be a success. Not a burn, just a TV fact.
The project, which doesn’t have a name just yet, will be a single-camera, half-hour comedy that focuses on Minaj’s past, which involves her family immigrating to the United States from Trinidad in the 1990s. Audiences will see faux-Minaj grow up in Queens with her charismatic family, and will follow her down the path to her musical and personal evolution that led to her being one of the most recognizable rap artists in the country. It’s unclear at this point whether anything from her actual musical library will be used in the show, but I can’t imagine that’ll be the case. At least not until the show makes some money and possibly gets a Season 2 order. That said, Minaj will actually star in the show in some capacity, so maybe there’s some wiggle room. And until then, here's how her lyrical input will be included.
The pilot episode was written by Sex Tape scribe Kate Angelo, who will also be writing the rest of the series, as well as executive producing. That’s a duty she’ll share with Chasing Life’s Aaron Kaplan, Boss’ Brian Sher, The Blueprint Group’s Gee Roberson and Stella Bulochnikov. (The latter two worked on the E! miniseries Nicki Minaj: My Truth.) As far as Angelo’s other work is concerned, she wrote for Becker and Will and Grace, as well as the 2010 film The Back-Up Plan.
ABC Family’s Executive Vice President of Programming and Development Karey Burke is certainly on board with getting this series to viewers. Here’s what Burke had to say about working with Minaj.
Nicky Minaj is a force to be reckoned with at everything she touches. We’re beyond thrilled to bring her one-of-a-kind story to our channel. Nicki is an international superstar, yet not everyone knows how inspiring and hilarious her true story is, and we can’t wait to share it with the world.
While it’s not clear when ABC Family will want to put the Minaj-flavored comedy out for audiences to drop some pills ‘n’ potions to alongside Pretty Little Liars and Stitchers, it looks like the show will go into production at some point this winter in Minaj’s hometown of Queens, New York.
