RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
Tonight, the Fox network debuts "Empire," a drama about a wealthy family in the music business that feels a little like Jay-Z meets "Dynasty." NPR TV critic Eric Deggans says the show is at its best when it sidesteps the music business and focuses on the black family at its core.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "EMPIRE")
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Singing) Empire state of mind. Let's go.
ERIC DEGGANS, BYLINE: It's easy to shrug off Fox's new hip-hop centered family drama "Empire" as "Glee" with a beat, especially after watching scenes like this one, featuring an improvised jam by two siblings at a house party that sounds more like it was recorded over a couple of weeks in an LA studio.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "EMPIRE")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (As characters) (Singing) We're doin' all right now, can't nobody tie me down. If you want it, I got it. Tomorrow's not promised. Live inside the moment.
DEGGANS: You can thank "Empire's" music director - hip-hop producer Timbaland - for spicing the show with cuts that feel like they could actually be radio hits. Unfortunately, the show's plot is a little less original. Terrence Howard plays Lucious Lyon, a rapper-turned-music mogul with three sons; secretly stricken with a serious disease, he wants to groom an heir as the company goes public.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "EMPIRE")
TERRENCE HOWARD: (As Lucious Lyon) And it can only be one of you.
JUSSIE SMOLLETT: (As Jamal Lyon) What is this - we "King Lear" now?
HOWARD: (As Lucious Lyon) Call it what you want, smart ass, but over the next several months I will make a decision...
TRAI BYERS: (As Andre Lyon) Wait, wait, wait, what are you saying - we're all in competition to be the future head of the company?
HOWARD: (As Lucious Lyon) In order for it to survive, I need one of you Negroes to man up and lead it.
DEGGANS: Less "King Lear" than "The Godfather," this succession fight feature three sons who seem little more than stereotypes - the good son, the gay son and the volatile hip-hop star. Fortunately, this show has an ace in the hole.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "EMPIRE")
TARAJI P. HENSON: (As Cookie Lyon) For a queen, you sure do keep a messy place. What you need is a good maid up in here.
DEGGANS: That's Oscar nominee Taraji P. Henson as Lucious's ex-wife, Cookie, speaking to her gay son, Jamal. Cookie went to jail for 17 years. She took the fall so Lucious could use drug money to start their company.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "EMPIRE")
HENSON: (As Cookie Lyon) I been livin' like a dog for 17 years and now I want what's mine.
DEGGANS: It's safe to say network TV has never built a show around a black family quite like this. And that challenge inspired co-creator Lee Daniels, speaking in a behind-the-scenes program about the series.
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LEE DANIELS: There just hadn't been any African-American television that I respected - or hadn't been for a long time, and I thought, what a way to come and give you a provocative sort of look at a family in the hip-hop world.
DEGGANS: "Empire" really clicks when showcasing this wealthy black family that started out poor. Lucious rides his sons hard. When Jamal was 10, his father spotted him wearing women's shoes and tried to dump him in a trash can, but Cookie stops the attack, which resembles a story Daniels told about his own childhood during an interview a few years ago with Out magazine. Just like the films Daniels directed, "The Butler" and "Precious," "Empire" sores highest when probing the conflicts and contradictions of the black family, making high drama out of dysfunction lying just beneath the surface. I'm Eric Deggans.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "EMPIRE STATE OF MIND")