Photography provided by BET
BET’s newest television series produced and directed by Irv Gotti is the most underrated shows on television right now in my opinion. I first came across this series while listening to music on my Tidal app one day. It just so happened to scroll across my feed as I opened the app on my phone so I decided to take a peak at it, but I ended up watching every single episode after the first view in one sitting, that’s just how good it was to me. Lets take a look at the details of each episode of the first season below.
Season 1 : 8 Episodes
Photography provided by BET
The first episode of the series is based on the hit song from NWA, F*!k The Police. This episode was the most controversial out of all of them due to the nature of the content presented. It is based on the police brutality in the United States but with a slightly big twist. Instead of the police being Caucasian and police targets being African American, the police in this episode are all African American and the targets that are being stereotyped are Caucasian. This episode made all Caucasians the minority to where they were seen as the thugs, gangsters, drug addicts and much more, while African Americans were made to be seen as superior and the elite class during the show. Now at first when I seen it, I can honestly say I became upset about it and almost angry. This episode sheds a light on a continuous problem in this country yet again but it still makes African Americans look terrible especially African American men. They even had black female officers abusing power and killing white men like dogs on the show. I get it though. The objective was to show everyone what it would look like if the roles were reversed race wise, but I can also see why there was a tone of controversy behind it. The main lesson that should be obtained here though is the fact that it does not matter what race a cop is, it is the abuse of power that is the problem overall not the color of their skin. Very powerful episode that opened a lot of eyes and got people talking more who have seen it.
Photography provided by BET
Second episode is titled, Cold Hearted based off of rapper Meek Mills’ hit song. It is about a local yet powerful rapper being shot and killed after a club appearance. Things were so twisted in this episode towards the end. In the beginning the young man who was killed and his bestfriend were on a hunt to become the best rap duo. They both worked so hard together to make each other better but only one of them was chosen to sign an official record deal with an official record label. The mastermind behind everything and the main person writing everything was sort of left out of the spotlight but he was still around and still getting his share, but not as much as the main man that was in the spotlight and gaining all the fame. That all ended after a club appearance in which the rising rap star was shot and killed in the parking lot after his performance. The twisted part about the killing though is that everyone, even the police, thought it was a gang hit when really his bestfriend set him up because he was jealous of all the money and fame that was coming in that he wasn’t apart of.
Photography provided by BET
Third episode is titled A Story to Tell based on Biggie Smalls’ hit song. This episode made me mad on the low. This woman acted like she was robbed and so butt hurt after her ball player boyfriend cheated on her with multiple women on his many trips to away games in what he called “training” out of town. Everyone in the neighborhood knew these two were loaded as she was an interior designer but an extreme instagram sensation online, and he was a star basketball player. This last trip out of town was the last straw for his finance though as she took things into her own hands after going out the night he left with her friends. She met this guy with whom she ended up having an affair with but she didn’t count on her fiance to come home early from his sudden trip. She also didn’t count on her little boy toy to be the neighborhood thug either. That’s when things got rocky and the affair turned into an armed robbery.
Photography provided by BET
Trap Queen, the fourth episode is my favorite one of the series. It is based off of Fetty Wap’s hit song Trap Queen in which a couple becomes big time club owners with the help of the drug game after the previous owner was shot and killed. At first the lady of the club was not happy about the drug activity going on throughout the strip club she was apart of owning, but after her fiance was shot and killed right in front of her one night at the club, shortly before their big wedding day, she became the queen of the drug game herself in his honor.
Photography provided by BET
Slick Rick’s Children’s Story is the theme of the fifth episode of the series. It is based on a young girl’s desire to help her grandmother out and get bills paid at home as soon as possible before they are evicted from their home. She teams up with her bestfriend and they both have this grand plan of robbing old people to make some really quick money for themselves but of course this all back fired when they both began to become extremely greedy. After an attempt to rob a bank goes wrong, she ends up being shot and killed by the police, ultimately leaving her grandmother all alone on her own with the bills still not paid and overdue.
Photography provided by BET
99 Problems is the sixth episode based off of Jay-Z’s classic hit. It is solely based off of how the Black Lives Matter Movement was being treated as a criminal organization, more correctly they were being classified as domestic terrorist in this episode. The police end up raiding the college campus in which the organization has developed on and arrest all members on site. These were straight A college students being arrested and given criminal records for just simply standing up for their rights. The couple who founded the organization as college students end up on the run and are forced to go underground with an ex-con and Black Lives Matter safe house owner in the hood.
Photography provided by BET
The seventh episode was the most “incomplete” for me. You Got Me is based off of The Roots classic song featuring Erykah Badu. It shows a young lady who is a dancer and owns her own dance studio with hopes of perfecting a upcoming showcase in order to gain more funding to keep the studio open. But she ends up meeting a man…a highly disturbing man I must say. He is the photographer who does a cover shoot job for her and the studio to be on the front cover of a popular magazine. Things get taken too far though once she and the photographer end up sleeping together. She even trusted him so much to the point where she allowed this man to brand her with a tattoo. Everything is going great between them at that point until he becomes really controlling. She goes through his camera and finds hundreds of women on it from previous and some current relationships he has going on. She and her bestfriend end up going over to his place to return the flash drive she stole from the camera that showed the women he was involved with, right along with confronting him about the pictures they’ve seen, but things get ugly and they all end up fighting. He slips and falls and hits his head on the staircase and all they see is blood rushing from the back of his head. What makes this story line incomplete to me is the fact that they never showed what happened after that other than the two young ladies went on to do their dance show they’d been preparing for. They never said whether or not he lived or died, or even if the two were arrested for the assault. But she did receive a bouquet of flowers from him after the showcase ended along with a camera flashcard. So does this mean he died or did he really live through their ordeal?
Photography provided by BET
The hit song All I Need by Mary J. Blige and Method Man is the title of the 8th episode of the series. It is one of my favorite episodes after Trap Queen. The episode is based on a very tragic love story. A young lady is trapped in the game and being forced to sex traffic and prostitute for a pimp whom she was given to after her uncle gave up through a lost bet. Basically she has been apart of the game her entire life since her uncle, whom was supposed to be her family and protecting her, pimped her out after an extended amount of time of molestation and rapes in her childhood. She ends up meeting a man who just got back to the states after serving time in the military. She is a very decorated veteran who is going through some mental health issues and is using art and sketching as a way to cope until his military benefits kick in. Long story short, they end up being together but at a cost after shooting and killing multiple police officers in an attempt to get her away from her pimp for good.
Hopefully we will get a Season 2 featuring other great music in 2018. Check out more information on this series and how you can watch it today by clicking the link below! Thanks for reading everyone!
Read More
Credits
Blasting News – Irv Gotti’s ‘Tales”
BET – Tales
Giphy
Looking for an at home job position that will pay you to watch movies and television series? Place your application with Blasting News at the link below!
Apply Here
For continuous updates on all artwork, art events and much more follow our social media page links show below. Thanks for your support everyone!
Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | Tumblr | Twitter
One thought on “DeluxEdition – ‘Tales’ by Irv Gotti”