Singer-songwriter Lizzo in February won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year for her multiplatinum hit “About Damn Time,” the fourth statuette she’s taken home in her successful career.

Arguably just as meaningful and impressive was Lizzo’s first Emmy Award win five months earlier for Amazon Prime Video reality competition series Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls, which firmly established the hip-hop artist as a bonafide television star.

As the entertainment industry celebrates Black Music Month this June, Black female music performers continue to hit the right notes on the small screen, successfully bringing their performing talents and massive fan bases to TV. Grammy-winning performers such as Lizzo, Toni Braxton, Mary J. Blige, Stephanie Mills and Queen Latifah are quickly becoming just as well-known for their acting chops as they are for their vocal stylings. 

“It used to be that everyone was isolated in one lane — actors were actors, directors were directors and musicians were musicians,” Lifetime executive VP of movie, limited series and original movie acquisitions Tanya Lopez said. “Now, this migration of artists into other fields is continuing to provide opportunities for talent to really expand their horizons.” 

Star Power Sells

For decades, African-American artists from Diana Ross to Whitney Houston to Jennifer Hudson have successfully transitioned from the stage to the big and small screen. More recently, TV shows featuring Black women music performers have garnered strong critical acclaim. Emmy, Tony and Grammy-winning singer/actress Cynthia Erivo was nominated for a 2021 Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie for her performance in Nat Geo’s Genius: Aretha series about the life of the legendary Queen of Soul.

Singer Andra Day was nominated for a 2021 Academy Award and won a 2021 Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture for her portrayal of Billie Holiday in Hulu’s The United States vs. Billie Holiday.

Lizzo’s Emmy win for Watch Out for the Big Grrrls was a surprise to industry observers, but Bunim/Murray Productions president Julie Pizzi said the artist’s huge star power and her commitment to working with the various dancers competing for a position on her concert tour contributed heavily to the show’s success. 

“It’s always helpful to have a big name … it draws viewers in and that certainly helps for promotion and marketing, but the core of all of these shows are regular people that are extraordinary,” she said. “You can look at it as a dance competition show, but Lizzo was intimately involved with the dancers and what they were doing and really cared about them — you don’t always see that in reality shows. That magic came from her and what she really gave to the project, and it translated on the screen.” 

As TV’s competition for eyeballs gets more and more crowded, industry observers said, Black female music performers can both appeal to a broad audience and attract the key demographic of African-American women, who historically watch more TV than other groups. 

Key Demographic Appeal

“They are stars that speak to Black female audiences,” National Public Radio TV critic Eric Deggans said. “Black women are increasingly a key component for traditional TV viewership, and having a show starring a strong, Black woman increases the chances that Black women will watch the show.”

Lifetime has worked with several Black female performers over the past decade including Queen Latifah, whose 2011 Lifetime film Steel Magnolias preceded her Emmy-winning portrayal of Bessie Smith in HBO’s 2015 film Bessie and her current starring role in The Equalizer on CBS. The network has also worked with Braxton, who last month reached a multi-project production deal with Lifetime and A&E under Braxton’s Braxtoni Productions banner. Braxton has appeared in previous Lifetime movies, including 2018’s Faith Under Fire and 2022’s Fallen Angels Murder Club.

“My team and I are looking forward to continued success with the network as we bring projects to life for the audience that has so graciously welcomed us into their homes over the years,” Braxton said of the production with Lifetime. 

Lifetime’s Lopez said television projects featuring popular and established music stars benefit from the crossover audience appeal the star brings from their music brand. Lifetime’s biopic The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel, starring popular gospel singer Kierra Sheard, drew nearly 3 million viewers in its 2020 debut, at the time Lifetime’s most-watched original movie since Braxton’s 2016 biopic Toni Braxton: Unbreak My Heart, which drew more than 3 million viewers.

“Most of these musicians have a brand so they bring an audience that’s different from our typical viewer,” Lopez said. “They are also talking to their audience all the time, so that has a lot of benefits to it that someone who’s just acting and doesn’t have that legacy of fans.”

Musicians approach working on television projects from a different perspective than traditional actors and directors, she added. “One thing I will say about artists with one foot in the music business and one foot in other businesses is that they are very detail-oriented,” Lopez said. “They come at it with a different point of view.”

Indeed, R&B star Stephanie Mills — who starred last month in Lifetime’s original movie Pride: A Seven Deadly Sins Story — said that the schedule transition from touring and producing music to acting was challenging but ultimately rewarding, as it gave the star of the 1970s Broadway hit musical The Wiz an opportunity to stretch her talents. 

“My only thought was just to let me remember my lines, and I did,” Mills said. “I have no expectations [on future acting roles] but I would love to do another movie at some point.” 

Other performers are continuing the beat of Black female music stars in starring television and movie roles. Hip-hop artist MC Lyte just finished her second season starring in sitcom Partners in Rhyme on the AMC Networks-owned streaming service ALLBLK. Grammy Award-winning gospel music performer Yolanda Adams, leads sophomore drama series Kingdom Business on BET Plus. And Blige headlines Starz’s Power Book II: Ghost, the first spinoff in the network’s successful Power franchise, now heading into its third season.

“For artists like Mary J. Blige, acting seems like a natural extension of their storytelling as singers,” Starz president of original programming Kathryn Busby said. “The craft and artistry it takes to write a song or headline a concert lends itself to losing yourself in a film or television role.”

Spinning Songs Into Shows

This month, Lifetime will feature two original movies based on Blige’s songs, “Real Love” and “Strength of a Woman.” The films are part of its monthly “Voices of a Lifetime” programming block on Saturday nights, which also includes documentary specials on artists like Keyshia Cole and TLC.

“Turning those songs into movies is a very interesting genre that I’m hoping will be successful,” Lopez said. “I think there is an audience that’s eager for that type of storytelling.” 

Deggans, author of Race-Baiter: How the Media Wields Dangerous Words to Divide a Nation, said today’s evolving entertainment landscape will continue to create more opportunities — and in some cases more of a need — for artists to spread their wings beyond their original vocation.  

“Today, it’s much harder to be an artist that only does one thing,” Deggans said. “Even successful artists will have to do some different things to make the same amount of money. For artists, fame and an [audience] following is currency in media, and once you have that, there’s a natural tendency to exploit that across a number of different platforms.” 

A biography series on the life and career of the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, debuting this fall on National Geographic will build on other networks’ successes with scripted movies and limited series profiling African-American musical artists.

From Lifetime’s April biopic The Clark Sisters, chronicling the award-winning gospel group, to BET’s series American Soul, about Soul Train creator and host Don Cornelius, networks have drummed up big ratings for scripted programming content showcasing African-American performers.

“Music docupics are a real equalizer,” Lifetime executive VP of movies, limited series and original movie acquisitions Tanya Lopez said. “Music resonates on all levels to all cultures, so you really get a peek into how the music came to be.”

Lifetime has hit the right notes with a series of biopics tailored to its female-targeted audience. Its April 11 movie The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel averaged 2.7 million viewers, making it the network’s most-watched original movie of the year so far. It was Lifetime’s biggest audience for an original movie since 2016, when Toni Braxton: Unbreak My Heart, about the popular R&B singer, drew 3.6 million viewers.

“We’re super-serving an underserved audience,” Lopez said. “I don’t think the audience for these movies is strictly African-American, but that’s a huge component of its success, because these artists are known and revered in the African-American community but may not have the same exposure outside of it.”

TV One VP of original programming and production Robyn Greene Arrington said movies such as The Bobby DeBarge Story also offer content that features lead African-American actors and actresses playing artists that have created iconic and identifiable music that resonates with the African-American community. The 2019 film about the lead singer of 1970s funk and R&B band Switch was TV One’s most-watched original movie that year, averaging 1.2 million viewers.

“Black people have a certain affinity to music, and those artists are part of our life,” Arrington said. “Music is the soundtrack of the important events in our lives, so we almost see those people intimately in our world, even more so than an actor or an actress.”

The beat goes on for the genre as several new movies and series are in development. Along with Nat Geo’s Genius: Aretha — starring Harriet actress Cynthia Erivo, it was moved to the fall from May after the pandemic shut down production — Lifetime in 2021 will air a bio movie focusing on 1980s R&B rap group Salt-N-Pepa, according to Lopez.

On the series front, BET is in development on Uptown, a three-part miniseries about the 1986 R&B/rap record label founded by Andre Harrell. Uptown follows the network’s sophomore series American Soul.

“These biopics take a character that you may know and make them relatable in terms of their struggles and journeys,” BET executive VP of specials, music programming and music strategy Connie Orlando said. “The world is finally catching onto what we always knew, and that is that our stories are not only important but have mainstream appeal.”