Reels & Riddims
Welcome to Reels & Riddims!
Mikelah and Kerry-Ann, two friends and culture enthusiasts, give their eclectic mix of commentary and reviews in world of TV, Film, and Concerts. From dissecting storylines in TV and film that feature Caribbean characters, to the irresistible 'riddims' of the concerts, Reels and Riddims got you covered.
Reels & Riddims
Authentic Threads of Caribbean Heritage in the Amazon Series Harlem
We're peeling back the vibrant tapestry of New York City's Harlem, as seen through the eyes of four dynamic women in the Amazon series of the same name. Our conversation examines how Caribbean heritage flavors the narrative and the pivotal moments where Grace Byers and Jasmine Guy shine, bringing authenticity and complexity to their roles. This episode isn't just about the on-screen drama; it's about the reverberations in our own lives, exploring how themes of ambition, friendship, and the quest for authenticity resonate across the soundtrack of our daily hustle.
Join Kerry-Ann & Mikelah in their dissection of scenes that spark debate on cultural appropriation and identity within the Caribbean diaspora. Hear the nuanced take on Angie's faked Jamaican accent, a scene that opens the floor to talk about the intricate tapestry of heritage and how it's represented in the media. Quinn's calling out of cultural appropriation leads to a broader dialogue on the roots we claim and the ways they are woven into our public personas. And it's not all about the external; delve into the internal landscapes as we explore the show's portrayal of complex family dynamics, mental health, and the generational secrets that shape us.
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A Breadfruit Media Production
This episode discussing the Amazon series Harlem was originally released on the Style and Vibes podcast. We are live, live and direct.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to another edition of the Style and Vibes podcast with yours truly, makayla. If you're new here, welcome to the family and if you are returning, welcome back family. I am welcoming some family. Carrie-anne Reed-Brown, our executive producer, is joining me here today and, as you can see by the title, we are talking about Harlem the show, but not even to my knowledge, we are recording my 100th episode.
Speaker 2:So I didn't even really realize it when I asked you to do this this episode, when I initially asked you. And then I'm looking in Buzzsprout and I'm like, oh, this is gonna be episode 100. You're like, yeah, I figured you didn't really want to celebrate Because you know all we do. We're just in other work. I would just go through and I'm getting the little ray ray and then get back to work. So, in true Carrie-Anne Reed-Brown understanding of me, makayla, I just said, yeah, this is celebration. Please send thanks. Thanks for joining us, thanks for continuing to share. Carrie, thank you so much for your support all of these years and for pushing me to start the podcast and continuing this journey with me.
Speaker 1:I know Well. It's been a pleasure collaborating for all these years. And we're just at home. It's 100 episodes, but we're just at home.
Speaker 2:I know I feel like we just started really and truly. It's just been so fun doing all the episodes and especially coming back after such a long break. It almost feels like you're doing a reset or restart, so the celebration feels a little odd. But you know, work, we all work and we'll continue to do the work. So thank you, thank you guys. So everyone that has listened subscribed. But I don't care where you listen, but just having your ears for a little bit is important to me. So I thank you guys.
Speaker 2:So Carrie and I often talk about things that we are like watching, reading, catching up on, and Harlem is one of those shows. So I love Harlem as a place. We, you know, live in the New York City area and we know its history. But if you don't know, harlem is a series on Amazon Prime. It's about four ambitious women who are best friends. The characters, camille, ty, quinn and Angie, really just navigate their professional lives and relationships with each other and significant others with Harlem, new York City, as their backdrop. But they do go, you know, through other places in New York City, which I think is pretty cool. So Camille is played by Megan Good, ty is played by Jerry Johnson I don't know if she says Jerry or is Jure. Angie is played by Shanika Shande I think that's how she pronounces her last name. And our girl Quinn is played by Grace Byers. So you might remember Grace Byers from Empire. She played Boo Boo Kitty and Sweet Over, or Anika. She played Wim Niam wife current wife, not ex-wife.
Speaker 1:Terrence Howard's character Terrence.
Speaker 2:Howard's wife on Empire, so we were really introduced to her through that series and she's done a few other things. But she's the main character in this series as well and she gets to tap into her Caribbean roots, playing her role. Because on the show she displays her Caribbean heritage, it's a little questionable which island she's supposed to be from.
Speaker 1:Actually? No, I don't think so. So she was born and raised in Cayman. But if you know the history of the Cayman Islands, it was once a protectorate of Jamaica. When Jamaica was part of the British was a colony. So you'll find that a lot of people who are from Cayman may have been from Jamaica or other Caribbean countries. So while she was born there, she has alluded to one of her parents having Jamaican heritage.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, I was going to get to that. So Jasmine Guy plays her mom on the show. So we have to get to the accents, because you know that's always going to be a topic of conversation. So we really get introduced to Jasmine Guy, I think towards the end of season one, but she becomes like a big supporting character in season two. And, no worry, we're not going to give too many spoilers if you haven't watched it. But we're really just diving into. Some of you know Quinn's character and the nod to Caribbean culture in this episode. So if you haven't watched it, you really should. It's a great show. Why do you like the show? Let's start with that. Why do you like the show?
Speaker 1:It's different because I think the characters I think with any show there is a bit of telling real life stories and adding some exaggeration to it for the entertainment factor, right, but I think at the end of it they've did a really good job of making them not too too much of characters that you can't relate to them in a way. I don't know if that makes sense. It's like they have their faults. There's some hijinks moments, but I like it because it's just some regular everyday things. You're like what is this? But you know what? Yeah, I can see that happening in New York, type of thing. So I think that's what I like about it. It's relatable to a certain degree, based on your life experience is not of one character, but you can see or have experiences in each, almost all of the characters, whether it's career frustration, relationships, relationships with each other, parent, child relationships. I think it does a really good job to pepper that throughout the show.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think my favorite part is that it's very nuanced and they really explore all the nuances as they navigate so they don't overwrite or over express. So I think that's what makes it really relatable and funny and interesting. Like they're rich characters and they all have their own like presence, I think, as women who are friends collectively, but then they all just have these big personalities that really I think the actors do a really good job playing who they are and even like the supporting characters, right the you know, and all of Camille's partners, even Angie's partners, and like I feel like you could drop yourself into the set and kind of feel right at home, especially just being so relatable in the sense that the issues that they kind of challenge and go through are really everyday challenges that I think friends naturally go through and it's kind of nice to see it play out. Additionally, it just feels so vibrant, like it really like pops on the screen, like something about it really pops for me it's funny, right?
Speaker 1:So that was the other thing.
Speaker 1:It's just funny like things that they do are funny and you made a good point. It's not overwritten. There's just some things you just gotta let sit and you read between the lines and darn it. There was something else that I wanted to say that you just said something about. I like that. It's not trite. You know, like you have a bunch of women, you have different personalities, you have conflict, you have all of these different things and they're all like addressed on the screen. So it's cool. I don't like this comparison because I think this is not what they were going for, but Nothing before it's time. If we were looking for and I don't want it to seem like everything is about sex, but is this is or sex in the city, in a way, and true to form, with Black folks, the extended family and the additional characters, they come alive, they integrate the way that we know the external people in our lives integrate into our lives. So that's what I like about it too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what I like about the nuances too is they are sensory and sensual, like in a way that yes, there is sex in it, but it doesn't look the same for every situation. You know what I mean. Like it's colorful, it's fun, and these are probably these are situations that I've experienced or you know, have heard about, or you know what I mean. Like these are and they're just funny, so that makes it even more. It's weird. Like I think your point about it being our sex in the city is a good comparison. If you had to compare it, I didn't even think about sex in the city.
Speaker 1:I thought more about living single than I did about sex in the city but Well, the reason why I didn't use living single, because living single did feature Khadija, regine. You know all of them, but I cannot think of living single without Overton and Kyle. You know, so, even though the women were at the center of the story, overton and Kyle were pretty integral to the show, whereas the guys in Harlem you're just like come here X-mod. They're secondary.
Speaker 2:They're secondary, right, that is true. I saw the trailer before I actually watched the first season and I was pleasantly surprised that they had Grace Byers character really tap into her Caribbean heritage in the show, because I think that that is such an important cultural backdrop to New York. We know how many friends we have that are not of Caribbean descent or like how that palinates, and I think that that was. It was an unexpected, like surprise.
Speaker 1:Listen. In season one I was not expecting Jasmine's guys accent, I mean, for a minute it took me for a loop. It was just like wait, is she really talking like that? But why? You know, because it took me a minute to connect that. Quinn, even though I know the character Grace is of West Indian heritage, caribbean heritage, it didn't connect that they were actually putting that into the show.
Speaker 2:So I was like why?
Speaker 1:Jasmine talking like this, what is this? And then my husband was watching us, like she's supposed to have an accent. I was like yes, and then I said okay, because it wasn't a hard accent, but you heard something and you just kind of brush it off to the side.
Speaker 2:And you were like where is she supposed?
Speaker 1:to be from Like that was the first question.
Speaker 1:You know, you brush it off because that's the first one when they went to go big, where there's going to be some spoilers, because we have to give context, the first one, she'll go beg the money. So we're just like, okay, but it wasn't until episode four, and that's the scene when Quinn was in her boutique and she had the client who was looking for the Jamaican nanny. And that's when we're like, oh, we go in here. Okay, all right, and this is we have to tell this scene, because that whole dialogue just sets the entire scene. So Quinn has a boutique, quinn is the rich friend, right? So I guess in everything there's a rich person or somebody who will come from money. And so Quinn has this boutique and she has this client and the client says her Jamaican nanny quit and she's desperate for help. But she only wants a nanny, a Jamaican nanny, specifically because she had a Jamaican nanny growing up.
Speaker 2:So the two of our ears just perked up. Just perked up, and we are waiting for the looker race's comments, who are coming right after that large is us.
Speaker 1:Wait. So Angie, who is the colorful friend, was in the store previously or earlier. She's in the store because she's like I need some money, quinn. So Angie perks up after this and bursts out in this bad fake accent and says look at that beautiful girl. I'm Ruby from Trelawney, jamaica. What the fuck she said.
Speaker 2:Trelawney.
Speaker 1:Jamaica. And that's the part where I was like, oh, they really going in the back for this, because they never said Kinston, they said Trelawney. So I'm like, oh, they went like deep for this. And then there was one part in her whole thing where I was like, so Nico is not actively watching, but he's around me while I'm watching and Nico makes a comment, because Angie said something to this lady who's there with her daughter and said something about oh, just look at this, the cook girl, I want to take care of your woman, so you don't look like you're raised at Baka Bush. And Nico was like Baka Bush. So I'm like they are really, somebody is really. They did their homework, doing their work on these lines.
Speaker 1:And so Angie continues to go in to pull this client in, to convince this client that she's Jamaican and to give her this job as a babysitter. So the woman walks out of the store Cuz she said to Angie come check me tomorrow, whatever. And then Quinn goes off into one of the best dialogues, right, and we should say that Quinn, up until this point, is Speaking the way we're speaking, right, and that's what I love about her character. She's not, up until this point, other than Jasmine's question mark of accent, her mother's accent she's she's talking regular, the way we would talk, right so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, she, she's not going into no heavy Jamaican Caribbean accent, nothing like that, right. And Quinn then tells Angie, I Think there's something wrong with her pretending to be an immigrant to get a job, and she calls it cultural Appropriation. I'm no lying, this is exactly what she said, and she said that being Jamaican herself. And then Angie jumping and say half, and she quickly responds and says well, the other half is K-manian. So tell me something, both I'm full Caribbean, you know. So she was like okay, and what if my half, the other half is from K-man? So what the complete they get to immigrant?
Speaker 1:I like yeah, yeah, yeah, like come, combine, I'm still West Indian. And she said and she said you come here when you're four. And then she said tell that to the Caribbean ancestors. Or basically how we feel on, carry on, friends, like, yeah, you may be born here, but to your, to a grandparent who would be back home, demigods say you are this child there. Yeah, you're born America, but you come from we, so you are we.
Speaker 2:Can you live a foreign, you're foreign mind. Exactly right. It is so funny because I was reading this variety article, right, and she talks about it from. This is going back to the first season and she talks about her came manian roots. She said you know, my mom is came. Any of my dad is American. So growing up in the Cayman Islands and living in island life, I'm very in touch with my came manian roots. She said I really want to lean into that history and show the colors of Harlem Because it's such a concentrated cultural amount of people from the Caribbean. And then she mentions Jasmine guy. And then they were. The question was around being able to Like, pull and portray. And then she, she, she has the line where it says, as we say back home, some brought up, see, like some men, with the fact that she says that in a variety article like and and this is we're gonna tell the audience how we got to this, but I have to tell you this, right?
Speaker 1:so after this, to goes to tells Angie. The point is this you can't put on a Caribbean accent like it's acute accessory and then profit off of it. It's wrong, but since we are here, west Indians are beautifully complex and diverse people whose cultural influence should be celebrated, not mocked, especially by fellow diasporians. And Certainly, when you can't even get the accent right, that's literally out of the episode. And In this tirade should going off, then the accent come out as what happens naturally with us West Indians, caribbean folks, when we're excited or upset, the accent is going to punch you in your face.
Speaker 1:You know, like figuratively. And what I love about this character and pulling in from the work that Sherri Lee Ralph the honorable Sherri Lee Ralph is doing on Abbott Elementary, it's really showing that there are many ways a dimension of a Caribbean character is, and not just someone who always has a heavy accent. There is a place for that. What most of us, a good amount of us at least, our friends we show up like a quinn, not in the way we speak, it just exists and when it comes out, it comes out. The same thing with Sherri Lee Ralph's character on Abbott Elementary. It's there, it's just right there until something does something and she gets excited and then she catches herself and buttons up and continues down the road. That's what I love about the character. To your point, there are also other layers that, watching it through the Caribbean lens, like you said, they don't override it, but it's there for us to kind of say, yeah, that is so a Caribbean uptown Caribbean person or a Caribbean mother type thing.
Speaker 2:And that's when Jasmine's accent really came to me. Oh, okay, she's not a twangy thing, no, I get somewhere with Quinn. Quinn must have got money, money. She's here with her family. I think we see that evolve in her relationship with her mom be challenged in season two.
Speaker 2:So Quinn really goes through this identity crisis.
Speaker 2:If you will, starting very early, one of my things that I kind of wanted to talk about like in the show in season was at the end of season one, where she kind of had some curiosity about her sexuality and being interested in women and that plays out in season two and as she's kind of exploring this new relationship, it kind of feels like I don't know if she is exploring her sexuality or is she going through an identity crisis at this moment, because it's not just her sexual preferences that are changing, but it's also the pressures of her mom and the perceptions of her mom and her family and who she is and how she's seen in the public. And I think as Caribbean people, we really feel that and I think that even by the end there is no complete answer, which I think that that's what I love is she's still going through that. But what are your thoughts? Do you think she's going through a sexual identity crisis or just an identity crisis as a whole, or what are your thoughts around that, because it might not be that.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't make it like a sexual thing. I think it's holistically. She's just going through a lot. The first season and this season it really focuses on her relationships, but to the audience it's the most obvious relationship. She don't have a man, she don't know if she want a man or a woman, but I think the relationship that is the most important one is the one with her parents.
Speaker 1:So when Rick Fox, who actually kind of does a good Bahamian American accent I shouldn't say a good one, but it's decent it's the relationship, or lack thereof, with the mother. And that is what I see, because that's what we're familiar with right, where the mother is just always tough love. So even in the second one, when she's going through this thing about the breakup, she was like mommy, I'm hurt. The mom couldn't identify or be vulnerable or be emotional and as Caribbean folks we see these as memes and jokes on the internet. But this lack of emotional connection from the mother is just there. And so because she doesn't have that connection with her mom or the relationship with her mom, it kind of is what the undercurrent is for her other relationships in her life, because she's living up to her mother's expectation. So even the scene where she's at the parade and the mother. They hand out water to everybody else in the pride parade and then she had tried to go off the whole guy.
Speaker 1:She's like no, no, the mother is giving everybody else.
Speaker 2:You don't need it. Make me a priority.
Speaker 1:That's what the mother said and I think it's like some typical Caribbean mother, come off of me, man, go on later, that type of thing, but not in that way.
Speaker 1:So that's kind of what I see.
Speaker 1:Or in the end, when they were in PR and she came there because Angie Carla but she never really come to Angie Carla, she did have another agenda to go on at the same time. So it was this, this push and pull with the mother, and the mother kind of alludes that in a way, the father forced her to be in that position. She's like oh, because you're the friend, so because the father is the friend in that role in that family, she has to play this tough person and you know. So I think it's not so much of a identity crisis, it's just the relationship that we first encounter with our parents. They're so complicated that it has no choice but to bleed into the other relationships that we have, whether that's friendship. So even though she criticizes her mom for being uppity and stuck up on whatever, angie could have similar arguments that Quinn was the same way towards her, you know, in season two. So I think it's the relationship with her parents that is contributing to the other relationships that she has throughout the show.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I almost feel like she hasn't. And why I say identity crisis is because she's trying to. She's lived her life essentially trying to accommodate, even in making her career move from I think she was a lawyer, accounting, accounting and and she became she wanted to go into fashion, like her mom gave her grief for that and then, even when she was successful, it's almost like you want to do it and prove that you're, you're, you're doing okay, and then you're continuously looking for that acknowledgement that is essentially you may get but you may not get either. It's that, that hollowness, that kind of plays out and I think it shows the colorfulness of, you know, the typical Caribbean mom in that aspect.
Speaker 1:But what I think the show does is that that scenario could be anyone right. But because we are, that's the lens that we're looking through.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what we see, but you know, telling your mom, the mom, the mom, that is so you know important for her for her to be married to another high society person so they could be in the papers. And you know there's there's like a pressure there so having to tell the parent and you know that's, that's outside of any culture. But the way we see it through culture there and again, that's part of the genius of them not overriding it, because it leaves room for the viewer and their own cultural lens to interpret what the between the lines are, those the white spaces are the margins are of a relationship like that or similar to that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't think about that, but I think your spot on in terms of it being relatable, because that could be any mom and daughter relationship really and truly. I do kind of weave in some of those characteristics that we know like just related to be in West Indian and living here, or even just immigrant and living here. So I think that that plenty of times that's the thread that you hear from a lot of, like first gen or second generation Immigrant families is like that pressure to not perform, achieve, perform, achieve, be successful. Like you know, we, we sacrificed so that you could do better and or more than where we came from. I think that that underlying pressure really is true to multiple cultures, that that that really transcends. So I think that that's a really great, great highlight. I also think that the way that how progressive they made Jasmine guys character, especially as she talked about Quinn being depressed and needing medication and even being open to her and she's just like, well, you don't tell me anything. That was her.
Speaker 1:Well, but remember, she talked about it because she knew and I think that's the other thing, like why black people keep secrets right, and that is across the diaspora, black diaspora, whether America, africa, caribbean, wherever the dad had the mental health issues, and she dealt with that. But Quinn didn't know that. So so her having to find that out and like why did nobody tell me? And you know she, you know Jasmine guys character did a typical like Well, you know, whatever, you know your brush it off, we just deal with it and we keep moving, type thing. So it seems progressive, but the reality is and we know this, you know these things have been happening.
Speaker 1:We date the elders, the parents, grand. They just didn't talk about it because they won I give them grace one, they didn't have the language we have today to call it whatever it was. They didn't know how to define it and they were. I'm still trying to figure it out and as parents now we could see how hard it is to have certain conversation with our kids. We don't know what it is. So why would? We don't know how to talk to you about it? Because we still are trying to figure out. What is this thing?
Speaker 1:you know so it's progressive, but it really is her just saying listen, your father had to deal with this right. So, in a way, kind of say I'm surprised this didn't come up sooner. Yes, yes, yes, you know so, but it's good that it's being had in that context with this Caribbean accent.
Speaker 2:Yes, I love it. So of course we're not gonna give way too much. But what do you think is gonna happen in season three?
Speaker 1:Based on season one into season two. We can guess all we want. We will not know what is going on in season three. We can spend a lot of time I guess, yeah, but I think they've done such a good job. That one. You wanna have an idea of what's going to happen? Yes, and remember we're not even talking about yeah, we didn't even get into the other three characters, we just focused on one One.
Speaker 1:I don't even want to guess. I'll be pleasantly surprised, because that's what they've done, and I wanna continue to be surprised as we're having this recording Text just popped up on my phone because I told the coworker to go watch season one and season two, and this coworker just says well, I got my Amazon Prime account, I'm about to watch our love.
Speaker 2:So we highly recommend if you guys haven't seen it. I'm excited for season three too. It was a huge cliffhanger at the end, so we're like biting our nails to kind of figure. I don't even know when it's gonna be released, but I think they've done a really good job. The writers have done a really good job. I am curious to see what's next for these ladies. But I agree with you, carrie, it's gonna be a surprise, because I wasn't expecting season two to go where it went at all, and it was so exciting, it was so good, it was really really good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so Our next episode. We should talk about the other Amazon Prime show, the one based in the UK.
Speaker 2:I thought that was-. Oh, yes, yes, that one. They did nice to it. Yeah, I just love it All right until next time. Yes, if you guys haven't seen Harlem, please go check it out. We'd love to hear your thoughts on the characters. They're not to the Caribbean culture and Harlem. What are your thoughts on Queen's character and what do you think is gonna happen? So thank you so much, carrie, for joining me on this episode. 100th episode, big milestone. Big things are going on. Big things are going on Until next time. Leotemites 케뽀.
