Nas’ ‘Street Dreams’ Bio-Series Receives BET Greenlight
Nas‘ long-gestating Street Dreams, an autobiographical TV drama series that the rapper has been plotting for more than three years, is finally one step closer to fruition: BET announced Tuesday that they have green-lit the series, with The Wackness director Jonathan Levine still on board to write and helm the pilot.
Nas won’t star in Street Dreams, which is based in the early 1990s, but will serve as producer, Deadline reports. Nas previously worked on Netflix’s The Get Down, contributing verses for the hip-hop drama.
In February 2014, Nas vowed to Rolling Stone that Street Dreams would eventually be made, with the rapper adding that he would contribute new music to the project.
“I’m hands-on with everything, so this show is 100 percent authentic,” Nas said. “Even if I don’t look cool in it, I just want it to be real and raw. I didn’t see this as a full autobiography at first. But I have so much that’s happened in my life already, there was no room for fantasy. I wanted it to be entertaining, but everything from my life seemed to be so strong. It’s all reality. There’s nothing from my life I didn’t want in there.”
Named after Nas’ 1996 It Was Written single, Street Dreams is a biographical look at Nas’ life in Queens, New York and rise from a kid navigating the rough streets of Queensbridge to acclaimed rapper.
As Nas told Rolling Stone, he recruited Levine to the project after watching The Wackness, a hip-hop-inspired film that walked much of the same thematic landscape as Street Dreams. “I really felt what he was doing back then,” Nas said of Levine. “The way that he filmed New York City and told his story was so dead on, i just felt that he was the guy to do it. I think he’s a brilliant director.”
No target premiere date for Street Dreams has been announced.