I don't know about y'all, but I'm just about ready for this Hot Girl Summer to finally evolve into the Fat Girl Fall that I've been waiting on all damn year. I said what I said.
I'm ready to retire my bad chick bike shorts and slip my ass into some leisure leggings, and I know I'm not the only one. There are only a few more days until it's officially fall, and I've got my watch list ready, sis. Although I'm literally crying at the fact that Shonda Rhimes took away Olivia Pope, and now, we'll be forced to say goodbye to Annalise Keating forever, there are so many new Black AF TV shows premiering this fall, I can't stay mad long.
Here's every new and returning show we're tuning into this fall:
Wu-Tang: An American Saga (Sept. 4)
Hulu
Before cash ruled everything around them, the members of the Wu-Tang Clan were just a group of kids from New York who were trying to survive the crack-cocaine epidemic. Starring Shameik Moore, Erika Alexander, and Joey Bada$$, this limited series is streaming on Hulu right now.
Top Boy (Sept. 13)
Netflix
When this British show was canceled after two seasons and put on Netflix, it caught the attention of one of the biggest musicians in the world. After learning of the show's cancellation, Drake did what any billion-dollar binge-watcher would and made a deal to help fund the show's third season, which is currently streaming on Netflix.
American Horror Story: 1984 (Sept. 18)
FX
Although the show is missing Angela Bassett, Evan Peters, Jessica Lange, and Kathy Bates this season, AHS: 1984 promises to be just as disturbing as its predecessors. Heavily influenced by horror films, Friday: The 13th and Halloween, the ninth season of AHS will make you eternally grateful to your parents for never sending you to summer camp as a kid.
Bigger (Sept. 19)
BET
Produced by industry giant, Will Packer, Bigger is set in Little Five Points and tells the story of an East Atlanta woman who, after the death of a close friend from college, decides to get the most out of her life.
First Wives Club (Sept. 19)
BET
Based on the 1996 cult classic starring Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn, and Bette Midler, First Wives Club is being rebooted and made into a series. Jill Scott, Ryan Michelle Bathe, and Michelle Buteau will star in the show as ex-wives who are seeking revenge after their marriages to sh*tty men have inevitably fallen apart.
9-1-1 (Sept. 23)
Developed by the creator of American Horror Story, 9-1-1 returns to TV for a third season on Sept. 23 and Angela Bassett's arms don't owe us anything. Chronicling the high-intensity situations that first responders experience every day, the show also stars Aisha Hinds, Connie Britton, and Jennifer Love Hewitt.
Mixed-ish (Sept. 24)
ABC
Giving us the prequel we didn't know we needed, Mixed-ish is an ABC sitcom spinoff that tells the story of a young Rainbow Barris and her family as they navigate life after moving from a hippie commune to the suburbs.
This Is Us (Sept. 24)
Last season was a rough one, and although we weren't sure if Beth and Randall would weather their storm, our favorite TV couple is back for another season that showrunners claim will be a "fresh start for everyone". Along with meeting Rebecca's dad, the audience will also get to see a pre-school version of the big three that is guaranteed to make your heart melt.
Black-ish (Sept. 24)
ABC
With Pop's new fiancee (played by Emmy-award winning actress Loretta Devine), a much-needed Girlfriends reunion, and just as much black love as ever before, Black-ish is returning to TV for a sixth season, and we are here for all of it.
How to Get Away with Murder (Sept. 26)
ABC
This fall, How to Get Away with Murder will return for a sixth and final season and my heart cannot bear the pain. Shonda Rhimes and the HTGAWM squad have given us almost a decade's worth of sex, lies, and betrayal, and this year, the Keating 5's story will come to an end with an explosive final season where all of our questions will finally be answered.
God Friended Me (Sept. 26)
CBS
I'm not sure what I'd do if God sent me a friend request, but I know the first thing I'd have to do is remove my booty short pics from the '99s to the 2000s. In a show about the importance of spiritual connection in a digital world, we see a group of friends prove that God acts in mysterious ways and makes you wonder if your blessing could be waiting in your inbox.
Evil (Sept. 26)
CBS
When a criminal psychologist and a 6-pack having, Bible-toting priest-in-training link up to investigate the extraordinary phenomenon that has occurred in unexplained mysteries, all hell breaks loose (and I mean that literally). Developed by the creators of The Good Wife, this psychological drama stars Mike Colter and premieres on CBS for its first season on Sept. 26.
The Good Place (Sept. 26)
NBC
Back for a fourth and final season, the show about heaven, hell, and the importance of The Golden Rule is coming to an end and we'll finally learn if our favorite inhabitants of the afterlife finally make it to "The Good Place".
The Godfather of Harlem (Sept. 29)
Epix
Am I the only person who just realized Forest Whitaker and Kenn Whitaker are two different people? Mind. Blown. The Godfather of Harlem is a true story about the life of Harlem crime-boss named (played by Forest) turned hood philanthropist named Bumpy Johnson who worked closely with Malcom X in the '60s.
Raising Dion (Oct. 4)
Netflix
When Nicole Reese (played by Alisha Wainright) loses her husband (played by Michael B. Jordan) and is left to raise her young son Dion on her own, things only get more complicated when she learns that he has superpowers. The Netflix series follows Nicole and her son as they attempt to navigate his newfound abilities and understand their origin.
Black Lightning (Oct. 7)
The CW
When the daughters of a superhero-turned-high school principal are kidnapped, he reverts to his life as a vigilante and learns that his superhuman genetics run in the family. Back for a third season, the DC-comic show promises to dig deeper into the psyche of Black Lightning's arch-nemesis, Tobias.
Rhythm + Flow (Oct. 9)
Netflix
In the first-ever major hip-hop competition on Netflix, Cardi B, Chance The Rapper, and T.I. travel to some of the country's top cities to find the industry's next break-out artist.
Watchmen (Oct. 20)
In this comic book-inspired HBO series where superheroes are treated as outlaws, Regina King holds nothing back in opening up a good old fashioned can of whoop-ass on criminals and wrongdoers alike.
Featured image by NBC.
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Amber Riley has the type of laugh that sticks with you long after the raspy, rhythmic sounds have ceased. It punctuates her sentences sometimes, whether she’s giving a chuckle to denote the serious nature of something she just said or throwing her head back in rip-roarious laughter after a joke. She laughs as if she understands the fragility of each minute. She chooses laughter often with the understanding that future joy is not guaranteed.
Credit: Ally Green
The sound of her laughter is rivaled only by her singing voice, an emblem of the past and the future resilience of Black women stretched over a few octaves. On Fox’s Glee, her character Mercedes Jones was portrayed, perhaps unfairly, as the vocal duel to Rachel Berry (Lea Michele), offering rough, full-throated belts behind her co-star’s smooth, pristine vocals. Riley’s always been more than the singer who could deliver a finishing note, though.
Portraying Effie White, she displayed the dynamic emotions of a song such as “And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going” in Dreamgirls on London’s West End without buckling under the historic weight of her predecessors. With her instrument, John Mayer’s “Gravity” became a religious experience, a belted hymnal full of growls and churchy riffs. In her voice, Nicole Scherzinger once said she heard “the power of God.”
Credit: Ally Green
Riley’s voice has been a staple throughout pop culture for nearly 15 years now. Her tone has become so distinguishable that most viewers of Fox’s The Masked Singer recognized the multihyphenate even before it was revealed that she was Harp, the competition-winning, gold-masked figure with an actual harp strapped to her back.
Still, it wasn’t until recently that Riley began to feel like she’d found her voice. This sounds unbelievable. But she’s not referring to the one she uses on stage. She’s referencing the voice that speaks to who she is at her core. “Therapy kind of gave me the training to speak my mind,” the 37-year-old says. “It’s not something we’re taught, especially as Black women. I got so comfortable in [doing so], and I really want other people, especially Black women, to get more comfortable in that space.”
“Therapy kind of gave me the training to speak my mind. It’s not something we’re taught, especially as Black women."
If you ask Riley’s manager, Myisha Brooks, she’ll tell you the foundation of who the multihyphenate is hasn’t changed much since she was a kid growing up in Compton. “She is who she is from when I met her back when she was singing in the front of the church to back when she landed major roles in film and TV,” Brooks says. Time has allowed Riley to grow more comfortable, giving fans a more intimate glimpse into her life, including her mental health journey and the ins and outs of show business.
The actress/singer has been in therapy since 2019, although she suffered from depression and anxiety way before that. In a recent interview with Jason Lee, she recalls having suicidal ideation as a kid. By the time she started seeing a psychologist and taking antidepressants in her thirties, her body had become jittery, a physical reminder of the trauma stacked high inside her. “I was shaking in [my therapist’s] office,” she tells xoNecole. “My fight or flight was on such a high level. I was constantly in survival mode. My heart was beating fast all the time. All I did was sweat.”
There wasn’t just childhood trauma to account for. After auditioning for American Idol and being turned away by producers, Riley began working for Ikea and nearly missed her Glee audition because her car broke down on the highway while en route. Thankfully, Riley had been cast to play Mercedes Jones. American Idol had temporarily convinced her she wasn’t cut out for the entertainment industry, but this was validation that she was right where she belonged. Glee launched in 2009 with the promise of becoming Riley’s big break.
In some ways, it was. The show introduced Riley to millions of fans and catapulted her into major Hollywood circles. But in other ways, it became a reminder of the types of roles Black women, especially those who are plus-sized, are relegated to. Behind the scenes, Riley says she fought for her character "to have a voice" but eventually realized her efforts were useless. "It finally got to a point where I was like, this is not my moment. I'm not who they're choosing, and this is just going to have to be a job for me for now," she says. "And, that's okay because it pays my bills, I still get to be on television, I'm doing more than any other Black plus-sized women that I'm seeing right now on screen."
The actress can recognize now that she was navigating issues associated with trauma and low self-esteem at the time. She now knows that she's long had anxiety and depression and can recognize the ways in which she was triggered by how the cult-like following of the show conflicted with her individual, isolated experiences behind the scenes. But she was in her early '20s back then. She didn't yet have the language or the tools to process how she was feeling.
Riley says she eventually sought out medical intervention. "When you're in Hollywood, and you go to a doctor, they give you pills," she says, sharing a part of her story that she'd never revealed publicly before now. "[I was] on medication and developing a habit of medicating to numb, not understanding I was developing an addiction to something that's not fixing my problem. If anything, it's making it worse."
“[I was] on medication and developing a habit of medicating to numb, not understanding I was developing an addiction to something that’s not fixing my problem. If anything it’s making it worse.”
Credit: Ally Green
At one point, while in her dressing room on set, she rested her arm on a curling iron without realizing it. It wasn't until her makeup artist alerted her that she even realized her skin was burning. Once she noticed, she says she was "so zonked out on pills" that she barely reacted. Speaking today, she holds up her arm and motions towards a scar that remains from the incident. She sought help for her reliance on the pills, but it would still be years before she finally attended therapy.
This stress was only compounded by the trauma of growing up in poverty and the realities of being a "contract worker." "Imagine going from literally one week having to borrow a car to get to set to the next week being on a private jet to New York City," she says. After Glee ended, so did the rides on private planes. The fury of opportunities she expected to follow her appearance on the show failed to materialize. She wasn't even 30 yet, and she was already forced to consider if she'd hit her career peak.
. . .
We’re only four minutes into our Zoom call before Riley delivers her new adage to me. “My new mantra is ‘humility does not serve me.’ Humility does not serve Black women. The world works so hard to humble us anyway,” she says.
On this Thursday afternoon in April, the LA-based entertainer is seated inside her closet/dressing room wearing a cerulean blue tank top with matching shorts and eating hot wings. This current phase of healing hinges on balance. It’s about having discipline and consistency, but not at the risk of inflexibility. She was planning to head to the gym, for instance, but she’s still tired from the “exhausting” day before. Instead, she’s spent her day receiving a massage, eating some chicken wings, and planning to spend quality time with friends. “I’m not going to beat myself up for it. I’m not going to talk down to myself. I’m going to eat my chicken wings, and then tomorrow I’m [back] in the gym,” she says.
“My new mantra is ‘humility does not serve me.’ Humility does not serve Black women. The world works so hard to humble us anyway."
This is the balance with which she's been approaching much of her life these days. It's why she's worried less about whether or not people see her as someone who is humble. She'd rather be respected. "I think you should be a person that's easy to work with, but in the moments where I have to ruffle feathers and make waves, I'm not shying away from that anymore. You can do it in love, you don't have to be nasty about it, but I had to finally be comfortable with the fact that setting boundaries around my life – in whatever aspect, whether that's personal or business – people are not going to like it. Some people are not going to have nice things to say about you, and you gotta be okay with it," she says.
When Amber talks about the constant humbling of Black women in Hollywood, I think of the entertainers before her who have suffered from this. The brilliant, consistent, overqualified Black women who have spoken of having to fight for opportunities and fair pay. Aretha Franklin. Viola Davis. Tracee Ellis Ross. There's a long list of stars whose success hasn't mirrored their experiences behind the scenes.
Credit: Ally Green
If Black women outside of Hollywood are struggling to decrease the pay gap, so, too, are their wealthier, more famous peers.
Riley says there’s been progress in recent years, but only in small ways and for a limited group of people. “This business is exhausting. The goalpost is constantly moving, and sometimes it’s unfair,” she says. But, I have to say it’s the love that keeps you going.”
“There’s no way you can continue to be in this business and not love it, especially being a plus-sized Black woman,” she continues. “We’re still niche. We’re still not main characters.”
"There’s no way you can continue to be in this business and not love it, especially being a plus-sized Black woman. We’re still niche. We’re still not main characters.”
Last year, Riley starred alongside Raven Goodwin in the Lifetime thriller Single Black Female (a modern, diversified take on 1992’s Single White Female). It was more than a leading role for the actress, it also served as proof that someone who looks like her can front a successful project without it hinging on her identity. It showcased that the characters she portrays don’t “have to be about being a big girl. It can just be a regular story.”
Riley sees her work in music as an extension of her efforts to push past the rigid stereotypes in entertainment. Take her appearance on The Masked Singer, for instance. Riley said she decided to perform Mayer’s “Gravity” after being told she couldn’t sing it years earlier. “I wanted to do ‘Gravity’ on Glee. [I] was told no, because that’s not a song that Mercedes would do,” she says. “That was a full circle moment for me, doing that on that show and to hear what it is they had to say.”
As Scherzinger praised the “anointed” performance, a masked Riley began to cry, her chest heaving as she stood on stage, her eyes shielded from view. “You have to understand, I have really big names – casting directors, producers, show creators – that constantly tell me ‘I’m such a big fan. Your talent is unmatched.’ Hire me, then,” she says, reflecting on the moment.
Recently, she’s been in the studio working on original music, the follow-up to her independently-released debut EP, 2020’s Riley. The sequel to songs such as the anthemic “Big Girl Energy” and the reflective ballad “A Moment” on Riley, this new project hones in on the singer’s R&B roots with sensual grooves such as the tentatively titled “All Night.” “You said I wasn’t shit, turns out that I’m the shit. Then you called me a bitch, turns out that I’m that bitch. You said no one would want me, well you should call your homies,” she sings on the tentatively titled “Lately,” a cut about reflecting on a past relationship. From the forthcoming project, xoNecole received five potential tracks. Fans likely already know the strengths and contours of Riley’s vocals, but these new songs are her strongest, most confident offerings as an artist.
“I am so much more comfortable as a writer, and I know who I am as an artist now. I’m evolving as a human being, in general, so I’m way more vulnerable in my music. I’m way more willing to talk about whatever is on my mind. I don’t stop myself from saying what it is I want to say,” she says.
Credit: Ally Green
“Every era and alliteration of Amber, the baseline is ‘Big Girl Energy.’ That’s the name of her company,” her manager Brooks says, referencing the imprint through which Riley releases her music after getting out of a label deal several years ago. “It’s just what she stands for. She’s not just talking about size, it’s in all things. Whether it’s putting your big girl pants on and having to face a boardroom full of executives or sell yourself in front of a casting agent. It’s her trying to achieve the things she wants to do in life.”
Riley says she has big dreams beyond releasing this new music, too. She’d love to star in a rom-com with Winston Duke. She hasn't starred in a biopic yet, but she’d revel in the opportunity to portray Rosetta Tharpe on screen. She’s determined that her previous setbacks won’t stop her from dreaming big.
“I think one of my superpowers is resilience because, at the end of the day, I’m going to kick, scream, cry, cuss, be mad and disappointed, but I’m going to get up and risk having to deal with it all again. It’s worth it for the happy moments,” she says.
If Riley seems more comfortable and confident professionally, it’s because of the work she’s been doing in her personal life.
She’d previously spoken to xoNecole about becoming engaged to a man she discovered in a post on the site, but she called things off last year. For Valentine’s Day, she revealed her new boyfriend publicly. “I decided to post him on Valentine’s Day, partially because I was in the dog house. I got in trouble with him,” she says, half-joking before turning serious. “The breakup was never going to stop me from finding love. Or at least trying. I don’t owe anybody a happily ever after. People break up. It happens. When it was good, it was good. When it was bad, it was terrible, hunny. I had to get the fuck up out of there. You find happiness, and you enjoy it and work through it.”
Credit: Ally Green
"I don’t owe anybody a happily ever after. People break up. It happens. When it was good, it was good. When it was bad, it was terrible, hunny. I had to get the fuck up out of there. You find happiness and you enjoy it and work through it.”
With her ex, Riley was pretty outspoken about her relationship, even appearing in content for Netflix with him. This time around is different. She’s not hiding her boyfriend of eight months, but she’s more protective of him, especially because he’s a father and isn’t interested in becoming a public figure.
She’s traveling more, too. It’s a deliberate effort on her part to enjoy her money and reject the trauma she’s developed after experiencing poverty in her childhood. “I live in constant fear of being broke. I don’t think you ever don’t remember that trauma or move past that. Now I travel and I’m like, listen, if it goes, it goes. I’m not saying [to] be reckless, but I deserve to enjoy my hard work.”
After everything she’s been through, she certainly deserves to finally let loose a bit. “I have to have a life to live,” she says. “I’ve got to have a life worth fighting for.”
Credits
Director of Content: Jasmine Grant
Campaign Manager: Chantal Gainous
Managing Editor: Sheriden Garrett
Creative Director/Executive Producer: Tracey Woods
Cover Designer: Tierra Taylor
Photographer: Ally Green
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