Eminem is making a return to the silver screen. Billboard reports that the rapper will make a cameo appearance in Starz’s new series, Black Mafia Family, playing Richard Wershe Jr., better known as White Boy Rick. The Grammy and Academy Award winner will join stars Russell Hornsby and Steve Harris for the Starz series.
Fellow musician 50 Cent, who is producing the series for Starz, helped break the news in a tweet welcoming Eminem to the cast, celebrating the Motor City icon joining him to tell the story of the crime family that rose to power in the late twentieth century. “Oh yeah i’m bringing the big dogs out,” the rapper wrote. “I couldn’t do a show based in Detroit without incorporating the legend @eminem. Got him to play white Boy Rick in BMF, this s**t is out of here.”
To what extent Eminem will feature in the show is unknown, but his time as White Boy Rick will certainly be memorable, playing the young FBI informant who was eventually sentenced to life in prison for possession of over eight kilograms of cocaine. “I’m honored and appreciative of my good friend Em for supporting my new show BMF,” the artist said in an additional statement. “We couldn’t do a show based in Detroit without incorporating the legend that is Eminem.”
Eminem made his big-screen debut in 2002’s 8 Mile, the hit hop-hop film for which he won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for “Lose Yourself." The project remains his most significant appearance on film — next to stars like The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’s Anthony Mackie and the late Brittany Murphy — and fans can only hope that his appearance in Black Mafia Family will bring the same level of heat.
Black Mafia Family follows the story of the drug trafficking and money laundering organization of the same name, founded in Detroit by brothers Demetrius and Terry Flenory. Produced by Demetrius, 50 Cent, Randy Huggins, and George Furla, the series also stars Michole Briana White, Ajiona Alexus, and Myles Truitt, with additional cameo appearances from Snoop Dogg, La La Anthony, and Wood Harris. Black Mafia Family premieres on September 26 on Starz.