Kemp Agboh discusses ‘Power’

James “Ghost” St. Patrick, owner of Truth nightclub and one of the biggest drug distributors in NYC (played by Omari Hardwick), and Tommy Egan his partner in the drug trade (played by Joseph Sikora) in a scene from Power. (Photo: Photo courtesy of Starz)

From the hallowed halls of the courtroom in CBS’ The Good Wife to the glamorous New York club scene and the lucrative drug trade in New York City comes the television drama Power from creator, executive producer and show runner, Courtney Kemp Agboh.

Now entering its second season, Power is based on the life of Curtis “50 Cent”Jackson, who serves as executive producer and has a recurring role on the series. The television drama tells the story of James ‘Ghost’ St. Patrick (Omari Hardwick), a wealthy New York City nightclub owner, husband and father, who also happens to be head of one of the biggest drug networks in New York. With dreams of building an empire with his nightclub, named Truth, as his foundation, Ghost’s family and businesses all start coming unraveled as he attempts to leave his criminal past behind and go legit.

Kemp Agboh grew up in Westport, Conn., and graduated from Brown in 1998 with a B.A. in English literature and a master’s degree, also in English lit, from Columbia University. Before her television writing career took off, she was living in New York and writing for GQ, Vibe and Marie Claire magazines. Prior to creating Power, Kemp Agboh was a writer, producer and supervising producer on the CBS drama, The Good Wife. Her first big break came as a staff writer for The Bernie Mac Show in 2005.

In a recent phone interview with the Banner, Kemp Agboh chatted about the origin of Power, on casting Omari Hardwick and the true meaning of the word diversity.

How did the idea for the show come about?

Courtney Kemp Agboh: It’s actually a combo platter between me and 50 because it really comes from some of 50’s life story. I’m not sure you can tell some specifics, South Jamaica Queens, a day in the life, all that stuff, and it’s also my father, who was a very quirky Buffalo, New Yorker and grew to be a huge advertising executive. Even though the hustle is not the same, trust me, advertising is a hustle. It’s very much about coming from the American Dream for a black man and all the different ways that it can be realized.

The show itself almost feels almost like it’s a movie. It’s gritty. I love the backdrop, the colors. Everything seems so real, almost bigger than life. How were you able to create that world and make it so much bigger?

CKA: Part of is that my producers are amazing. David Knoller, who was with us for the first two seasons, and of course the money that Starz puts into it to allow us to do that. The authenticity definitely comes from 50 in terms of being able to ask him, ‘How would this play?’ ‘How would these people talk?’ This season he’s in more of the episodes that as a result he’s on set. [She laughs]. There’s a definite authenticity check there. But the grittiness of the world, the kind of realism of the world, all comes from that, all comes from the collaboration.

Did you have Omari Hardwick in mind for the role of Ghost as you were writing the script?

CKA: No, I had no idea who it was going to be. At some point it was actually going to be 50 who was going to play the part. Omari, he popped. It’s funny; I didn’t write it for him, then we started the casting. I had this binder and it still exists somewhere. This binder I put together has all these casting ideas for the show. He was at the top because he projects the intelligence, the sex appeal, the violence, the grit and all those things we need for the character.

He’s been able to show vulnerability and sometimes uncertainty in his role. How are you able to balance all the sides of a character like this? He’s neither good nor bad. It’s all these shades of grey. Is that a conscious effort on your part?

CKA: It’s absolutely a conscience effort. I think when you take a character and you really base it on some level on yourself because Ghost is the character most like me in the show. Obviously, I’m not a murdering drug dealer. [She laughs.] I’m very busy running the show so I had to put down my murdering and drug dealing. The thing about him is that because I write him very much like me, I allow the audience into his emotional inner life as much as I can. That’s where that vulnerability comes from. He’s male but there’s a lot of female in him and I think that’s part of what takes place.

How has the adjustment been for you going from writer to show runner?

CKA: Oh, honey. How long do you have? Being a boss is a big adjustment and I liken it to the same sort of issues and stuff around going from being just a married woman to a mom. It complicates your life, it enriches your life, it makes your life way more difficult, and yet the rewards are sort of crazy.

Getting back to Ghost’s character. As I was watching the series, one of the main themes that stood out for me is the struggle between being true to yourself and finding who you really are, and also then how do you relate that to the people around you who want you to stay the same?

CKA: Absolutely. It’s interesting because you’ve obviously really done your homework in watching the show. That’s one of the thematic elements that Ghost is struggling with; people who want him to stay the same. We’ll definitely see. Not that people expect him to stay the same now because they’ve been hearing this stuff about the club and going legit for a whole season, but that people want him to go back.

One of the things I like about the Power is that both the men and the women are very strong on the show. What can we expect from Tasha and Angela in season two?

CKA: It’s more growth. Tasha has had to grow up over the first season. She wasn’t a full adult. So now we see the more adult Tasha. We see her struggling with that adolescence. As for Angela, her struggle is incredibly intense. She is so caught up with a very obvious conflict as the season goes forward in season 2. I’m not going to say to much more about that. I’m sure you can guess. That requires her to be a strong woman and she’ll handle herself in a certain way.

The other wonderful thing about the show is the diversity in the cast which seems to be the big buzzword these days on television. Is that also reflected in the writers’ room?

CKA: Oh, absolutely. I want to be very clear about something. The word diverse does not mean ‘of color.’ People are using that word to mean ‘of color’ and that’s actually not what the word means. I’m not correcting you as much as I’m saying it to answer your question. Diversity means a lot of different people. My show is written by a lot of different people. My writers’ room is black, is white, it’s male, it’s female. There’s a guy in there who is Serbian who grew up partially in the war in Sarajevo. I use him as an example because on paper he’s a white male but he’s someone who grew up in a war. That is really applicable to Ghost, and Kanan and Tommy in terms of what their life was on the street. It’s not a one-to-one. And, I guess that’s something that really frustrates me sometimes with those questions. The writers’ room is very diverse in terms of black, white and Latin, everything. We have all different kinds of people. That’s the answer to your question in the basic sense. The way that I hire writers is I hire people who are different from me. That doesn’t mean different from me racially or in terms of gender but it means people who have other skills.