If You Loved Girls Trip, Add Harlem to Your Queue Immediately
You Need to See This
With Harlem, a new series now streaming on Amazon Prime, Girls Trip creator Tracy Oliver brings us another entertaining story of four funny, relatable girlfriends.
By Tanya Christian
Sarah Shatz
New York City is the kind of place that creates memories you won't soon forget. But there's always been something particularly special about Harlem, the neighborhood in Upper Manhattan that has played home to the likes of Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, and Maya Angelou. And yet, despite its unique charm, few producers have ventured to center the historically Black community as a backdrop for series television. This year that changed with not one but two streaming series set out to amplify the beauty that is this culturally diverse neighborhood.
The latest—Harlem, from Girls Trip creator Tracy Oliver—premiered last week on Amazon Prime Video and brings laughs, relatable characters, and a story of four Black girlfriends as different as the city itself.
"There's so much thought that went into the character development, but I knew I definitely wanted to do something where everybody had a clear, distinct point of view on things," Oliver tells Glamour about the series' main characters, Camille (Meagan Good), Quinn (Grace Byers), Tye (Jerrie Johnson), and Angie (Shoniqua Shandai).
With Tye, a queer app developer, Oliver says she tapped into the lived experiences of friends and the talent in her writers room to develop a character she believes has been missing in popular ensemble shows. What came from their stories is a fully developed persona and an opportunity to tell a bigger story. Camille, who Oliver admits is most like her, grapples with embracing the new versus holding on to the old in both her romantic and professional dealings. Quinn, a Caribbean American boutique owner, embraces a similar struggle as she tries to carve out a successful space for herself independent of the financial cushion her immigrant parents provide. Angie, a former singer and the wild card of the group, once had fame but now must confront a disappointing reality that's seen her go from a lavish townhouse to sleeping on Quinn's pink velvet couch.
And while Harlem remains a "Black mecca" for Black city dwellers, its composition has gradually changed over the last several years. Gentrification has pushed a number of families and businesses out, dramatically changing the neighborhood's landscape. This tug-of-war between wanting more and staying true to one's roots lays the foundation for much of Tye in the first season, while simultaneously highlighting an increasingly frustrating reality for those who live in the neighborhood.
The show grapples with race quite a bit because, as Oliver shares, it's what is germane to this time. "When we were in the writers room, there was this poster that went viral," Oliver recalls.
"And it was two white men on what I believe was a Compass ad. But it was like two white men on a Harlem brownstone stoop, pretty much saying, 'Welcome to the new Harlem.'" Black Twitter eviscerated the ad, but it confirmed for Oliver that she was on the right track with her storytelling.
Race relations aside, the life experiences of these 30-somethings also prove it's not all figured out once you leave your 20s. And in a city like New York, that "figuring it out" period tends to be a prolonged state. Oliver feels delighted that she's able to tell this story of opportunity and reinvention. As she explains, Harlem was a story she developed before Girls Trip. She wrote it because she was inspired to—and so, for her, it's personal. Last week, as she prepared for the release, she confesses that she had a mini panic attack thinking about how this deeply intimate show would be embraced by viewers.
"This week and then the day that it came out, I was refusing to engage and be online and read things," Oliver shares. "I just was like, 'This is gonna be so awful.' I don't know why, but I was bracing for impact in a way that I never had on any other project."
Thankfully, for the South Carolina native who fell in love with Harlem from the first time she had fried chicken and collard greens from Sylvia's soul food restaurant, the show has been a hit. Harlem proves that a Black girlfriend's quartet can still be fresh, funny, and entertaining no matter how many times it's done. And allowing space for these nuanced characters only helps to enrich the TV landscape.
Tanya Christian is a writer and editor based in New York City. Follow her on Twitter @tanyaachristian.
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