December 27, 2020 — Rising Detroit rap star Kash Doll has experience with drug lords. It will serve her well as she embarks on her acting career in her first major role, 50 Cent’s Starz-bound Black Mafia Family television drama, set to begin shooting in Michigan and Georgia in the coming months. Black Mafia Family chronicles the true story and colossal street legacy of Detroit’s Flenory brothers, who went from Motown dope boys of the 1980s and 90s to American hip-hop culture icons of the New Millennium, making their “BMF” drug empire a staple on nearly every street corner in the country in the early 2000s. Kash Doll (real name Arkeisha Knight), is the undisputed First Lady of the Detroit rap scene and was recently cast as “Monique” in the BMF show, a paralegal at a Detroit law firm having a romance with kingpin Demetrius (Big Meech) Flenory. The character is believed to be a semi-fictional composite of several woman in white-collar jobs Flenory had love affairs with. While Kash Doll, an exotic dancer turned rhyme spitter, never knew Big Meech in real life, she did have a business relationship with Brian (Peanut) Brown, one of Detroit’s modern day reputed drug barons. Brown, a self-proclaimed music-label impresario and the long-running target of a federal narcotics and money laundering inquiry, signed Kash Doll to her first recording contract. The union went south fast. Kash Doll, 28, filed a lawsuit (claiming Peanut Brown never paid her a promised $5,000 singing bonus and strong-armed her with fear tactics ) to get herself out of the terms of the agreement. She is currently under contract with Republic Records, an imprint at Universal Music Group. The 50-year old Peanut Brown owns BMB Records, an independent label based out of Detroit. His top acts today include, rapper Bre-Z, known for acting on the hit television show Empire and one-time Jay-Z protege, Bridget Kelly, an Alicia Keys-type recording artist. Hip-hop crooner Ray-J, female rap great Charli Baltimore and Detroit rap legend Trick Trick, each once called BMB Records home. Back in the late 1990s, Brown was busted for drug trafficking and did a decade behind bars. He came out of prison in 2010 and founded BMB Records in 2013. That same year the DEA in Detroit opened up a top-priority investigation into Brown and his business activity. That probe continues into 2021. Over the past seven years, the government has seized more than $500,000 in cash and eight kilos of uncut heroin. Authorities consider Brown one of the biggest heroin czars in the United States. He and his wife were slated to be the stars of a reality TV show on the Lifetime network called Detroit Dynasty before news of the DEA investigation landed on the frontpages. The Black Mafia Family sold cocaine and marijuana. The Flenory brothers, Big Meech and his younger brother, Terry (Southwest T) Flenory, and their BMF crew were brought down in the crushing 2005 Operation Motor City Mafia bust. Both Flenorys pleaded guilty in the case and received 30-year prison sentences. Terry Flenory, 50, walked free back in the spring on a compassionate release in a COVID-19-related plea for home confinement. Big Meech, 52, remains incarcerated in a federal correctional facility in Oregon and isn’t scheduled for release until 2032. With the Starz smash Power under his belt, rapper-turned-actor-turned producer 50 Cent (real name Curtis Jackson) turned his attention to the real-life saga of BMF, optioning the Flenory brothers’ movie and television life rights five years ago. 50 Cent appeared in Power, the tale of fictional New York City drug lord “Ghost” St. Patrick, but it is still yet to be determined if he will take an acting role in Black Mafia Family. Russell Hornsby and Steve Harris were cast as the Flenorys’ father Charles and their main adversary on the other side of the law, Detective Bryant, respectively. Hornsby had a co-starring role in the film Creed 2 in 2018. Harris got an Emmy nomination for his portrayal of attorney Eugene Young in the ABC legal drama The Practice (1997-2004).
