Report: Jay-Z to Produce TV Show About Civil Rights Movement

Jay-Z and Will Smith are reportedly teaming up for a new TV series about women of the Civil Rights Movement.

According to a report Deadline published Monday (Aug. 5), Hov is teaming up with Jaden Smith's father to help produce ABC's new anthology series focusing on pivotal stories from the Civil Rights Movement. The first season will be based on the book Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement by Devery S. Anderson. Each of the eight episodes of the season will tell the story of Emmitt Till through his mother Mamie Till's point of view.

The series, which is tentatively titled Women of the Movement, will be written by Marissa Jo Cerar of Hulu's The Handmaid’s Tale while Jay-Z, Roc Nation's Jay Brown, Tyran “Ty Ty” Smith, Will Smith and James Lassiter of Overbrook Entertainment are producers set to work on the show.

The show comes five years after Roc Nation, Overbrook and Kapital first set up plans to develop an Emmett Till miniseries based on the same source material at HBO. However, once the project left HBO, Aaron Kaplan from Kapital Entertainment pitched the series to Chairman of Disney Television Studios and ABC Entertainment, Dana Walden. Walden then brought the idea to ABC.

Hov's new venture in television is just another addition to his flourishing resume in the film industry. Last month, Variety reported that the Roc Nation CEO has signed on to produce a fresh Netflix movie called The Harder They Fall. Hov will reunite with the film's director and British musician Jeymes Samuel, who worked with the Brooklyn rapper on The Great Gatsby soundtrack.

There's no confirmation that Hov will contribute to the film's soundtrack the way he did for both The Great Gatsby and The Lion King.

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