“Power Book III: Raising Kanan” is a prequel set in the 1990s that will chronicle the early years of Kanan Stark, the character first played by executive producer Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson.
If you thought that Ghost and Tommy were the most ruthless drug dealers on the streets, then Starz begs to differ with the story of Kanan Stark (Mekai Curtis), their 15-year old adversary who grows into the business of drug dealing on his own terms. The only child of streetwise, cocaine dealer Raquel Thomas (Patina Miller), Kanan slowly picks up on the game by laying low and putting the pieces together in spite of all the endeavors “Raq” makes to steer him away from the streets that she controls along with her two brothers, Marvin (London Brown) and Lou-Lou (Malcolm Mays). When his mother isn’t tracking his every move, he hangs with his cousin Juke (Hailey Kilgore) and tries to motivate her to develop her singing skills and to not be ashamed of her sexual identity which she hides to avoid the backlash.
The three-disc set opens up in the early nineties in Jamaica, Queens, and focuses on Raquel desperately trying to hold it down as a single mother who wants to make sure that her only child gets a good education so he won’t end up following in her footsteps. She gives Kanan tough love daily and doesn’t compromise when it comes to him getting his homework done, doing well in school, and staying out of trouble. When he runs home from the playground one day after having been beaten up by a group of bullies, Raquel gives him a weapon to fight back with and takes him back to the playground to teach the bullies a lesson on who to mess with. Since Kanan doesn’t get to have much input in his mother’s business affairs, he and his cousin Juke spend a lot of time together trying to make the most of understanding the volatile world they live in. After Raquel finally realizes she can’t just ship Kanan off to finish school on the other side of town, she demands that everyone in her inner circle keep an eye out for him. When Kanan finally matures enough to the point that he understands what type of lifestyle his mother is involved in, he feels a duty to protect her and she lets him know in no uncertain terms that isn’t his job. At the same time, as she makes a choice to finally let him in on the distribution life, she warns him not to do anything without her knowledge and that she still has bigger plans for him to have a different lifestyle.
When Kanan starts making power moves on his own, he learns quickly that his mother has lots of business partners that may not necessarily have her best interest in mind. After several run-ins with Raquel’s competitors, he makes the mistake of shooting Buck Twenty (Donté Grey) over a misunderstanding of property that Raquel gave him control of, and then he becomes the target of Buck Twenty’s group of runners which includes Scrappy (Ade Chike Torbert) who takes advantage of the situation and demands control over more of Raquel’s corners of the business. While Kanan is rerouted to a safe house so he can remain alive, he tries to figure out what the relationship is between the local Police Chief Howard (Omar Epps) and his mom which seemingly ties into the mystery of who his dad is. When Raquel finds a new love interest in the local bartender, Symphony (Toby Sandeman), who knows a lot about agriculture, she negotiates for Kanan to take a class from him as punishment for not turning his homework in on time. Not only is the class a hard pill for Kanan to swallow, but he also isn’t sure about how he feels about having to share his mom with another man.
In the end, Kanan finds himself plotting to keep more secrets from Raquel as the latest distribution of cocaine that he cooked himself ends up killing several of the locals in the crackhouse, and Raquel’s brother forces Kanan not to let his mom know he was responsible for the distribution. As they try to protect their own lives while getting the dangerous mix off the street, Kanan has yet to find out that Juke’s girlfriend Nicole (Annabelle Zasowski) has become the latest victim after having stolen a sample of the drug out of Juke’s backpack.
Director Rob Hardy does an excellent job of using this diverse group of actors to elegantly portray a variety of drug dealers who try to maintain their dignity while cutting throats to get ahead. Patina Miller, in particular, is excellent in her role as Raquel, the aggressive and street-savvy matriarch who still knows how to maintain loyalty to her family in spite of the growing pressures of her business, and at all times remained classy and cognizant of the fact that there was still a better life out there for her and her son whenever she is ready to let the streets go in spite of the intimate role the streets played in his upbringing.
Now available on DVD
