Exclusive: Demetrius Flenory Jr. & Randy Higgins Talk 'BMF' The Series

We got an exclusive interview with director Randy Higgins and Lil Meech, who plays his father Big Meech in Starz’s newest show, BMF.

Source: Courtesy of Starz 

50 Cent is back with another home run for Starz–this time, in the form of the real-life story of the Black Family Mafia better known as BMF.

This isn’t just another “dope boy show”, this is something most of everyone in hip-hop culture has heard about or remembers to some extent. The series details life in Detroit for Demetrius ‘BIG MEECH’ Flenory and Terry ‘Southwest T’ Flenory, aka the Flenory brothers. They believed the world was theirs and they were going to do anything they had to in order to secure it.

While you may know how the story ends, in Season 1, the show focuses on how it all started, and luckily for us, Big Meech is played by his real-life Jr., Lil Meech. We got to sit down with director Randy Higgins and Lil Meech to talk about BMF and how therapeutic it can be playing your father, who is still behind bars and getting deeper in touch for the role.

 Lil Meech, how was it portraying your father? It had to be challenging yet therapeutic. You really have to nail this to tell the story the right way for pops.

Lil Meech: Yeah it was all of those things: Therapeutic, challenging, and a lot more stuff. But like you said, a lot of people don’t know my father. A lot of people don’t know BMF, they just know what they hear. Randy and 50 put together an amazing project to show people the origin and how my dad and Terry actually grew up poor no shoes, no clothes, and had to work their way up cause mom and dad was working 2 and 3 jobs and still couldn’t afford the bills. So, Randy and 50 show all the way back before all the glitz and glamour before Atlanta, basically, just Detroit showing everybody how it started at first.

It was really amazing playing my dad because all my dad wanted was people to know him and understand him and understand the story before they just know what they hear and get an opinion from somebody and think that’s how they was. He made sure Randy really let people know the stomping ground and let people know how they become the Flenory brothers and BMF before there was a BMF. So it was amazing, like you said it was therapeutic because I really got to learn more about my dad and learn a lot of stuff I didn’t know and put myself in his shoes and faces some of the obstacles he faced and it was amazing. I got to learn him more and understand him more and really just it made me wanna show everybody in the world how good of a man he was. Randy and 50 and everybody else helped do that. I can’t wait till everybody sees it you gone love it.

Randy, what challenges did you face with the script trying to bring that vision to life?

Randy Higgins: For me, I think it was, first and foremost I am a son of Detroit, and I’m writing about probably the two most famous sons of Detroit from a street standpoint. Having the opportunity to tell their story, to tell Detroit’s story, Meech and Terry are only a few years older than me. I grew up in their era so being able to go back and capture that was like a dream come true. To really focus on them as well as the city, because what people don’t know is Detroit has such a rich history with music. People think Eminem and Motown but we go Techno back in the 80s which was created by three black guys. Just an opportunity to shed light on my city and I was just thrilled to do that especially a story as compelling as Demetrius and Terrys.

Lil Meech’s performance in BMF might be the best breakout performance we’ve seen in the past decade. His co-star, Da’Vinchi, stays right in pocket with him delivering excellence on the screen.

The supporting cast isn’t lacking, the show is all around raw, rich, and a clinic in storytelling. In just one season, this series is being compared to Breaking Bad, except this is real life and the story hasn’t progressed to its core yet. Lil Meech confirmed he will return to acting in the next season of Euphoria alongside Zendaya next year, setting up a promising acting career.

You can catch BMF on Starz every Sunday.