<\/p>\n
Felicia Pride<\/a> is committed to curating stories centered on the honeys.<\/p>\n Storytelling came to Pride, who is a supervising producer on Peacock\u2019s<\/a> Bel-Air <\/em>and is behind the upcoming A Different World <\/em>sequel pilot at Netflix<\/a>, by way of hip-hop. She is someone who grew up on the genre and wrote the lyrics to songs down in a red spiral notebook, and this invigorated a passion for documenting and displaying the narratives of everyday people who look like her.<\/p>\n \u201cI always say that before I knew Toni Morrison and James Baldwin, I knew Queen Latifah and Big Daddy Kane,\u201d Pride told Blavity. \u201cThey were my storytellers, and I started to, you know, unconsciously or subconsciously, study their storytelling. I didn\u2019t realize that\u2019s what it was at the time. But then I found myself becoming a writer and doing a lot of things that emcees do, whether it\u2019s inserting the eye into the storytelling, or having a sort of perspective, having a rhythm in the writing. It really came from hip-hop.\u201d<\/p>\n As the creator of Honey Chile, an independent media and production company focusing on content made for, by, or about Black women aged 40 and above, Pride\u2019s latest endeavor includes a novella, Come Close<\/em>, centered on a woman who is considered one of the honeys.<\/p>\n \u201cWe write what we want to see in our lives, right? So, I put it out there for myself,\u201d Pride said. \u201cBut also, just this idea that after 40 we still are love interests. We still have love interests. We still want to be desired. We still have desires. I think media is such a powerful tool [and] vehicle to really show the layers and levels of people who are not normally centered. For me, that\u2019s just been the gist of what the aim of my work across books, film and TV is \u2014 to really add to the humanity of people who are not normally centered.\u201d<\/p>\n She added, \u201cI just wanted the honeys to see themselves being loved on and wanted honeys to be doing the loving and desiring, and so that\u2019s where Come Close <\/em>originated.\u201d<\/p>\n The novella follows character Amaya Ellis, a seasoned television and film producer who gets a second chance at love with her high school sweetheart, Kyrie Tate. Although the book may seemingly encourage the notion of spinning the block, as we\u2019ve seen in the media with couples like Nelly and Ashanti, Pride said she\u2019s here for it \u2014 but to do it with intention.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t necessarily encourage all spinning of the block,\u201d Pride said with a chuckle. \u201cYou know what I mean? There\u2019s usually just one who it wasn\u2019t about any transgressions, it was time. The timing wasn\u2019t right.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think sometimes if we\u2019re thinking about spinning the block, I don\u2019t think that transgression should be involved,\u201d she continued. \u201cPersonally, I think it should have just been \u2018if we had met each other a little later, we would have been able\u2019 because the timing just wasn\u2019t right. Looking at those types of factors on why it didn\u2019t work the first time versus, like, they did some messed-up stuff to you, now you forgive them. Hey, that might work too, but in this particular Come Close <\/em>[story], it was really the timing and different intentions at the time. It wasn\u2019t that they did anything mean to each other.\u201d<\/p>\n On the other hand, Pride reminded us that this is also a tale of remaining open to love.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the opening up to love is really big,\u201d she explained. \u201cI think that there\u2019s a number of women who have been hurt, and don\u2019t want to be hurt again. Like, how do we find that balance of, yes, I think there has to be discernment, but also, we deserve big loves, and how do we prepare ourselves to receive big love? For me, that meant therapy. That meant unpacking a lot of things and looking at my own choices. That means better boundaries \u2014 so, wanting women to be open to love, but also a healthy love.\u201d<\/p>\n Baltimore serves as the backdrop for the characters in Come Close<\/em>, and it\u2019s not the first time Pride has used her work to showcase hometown pride in a way that is authentic to her.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of references to Baltimore figures, to Baltimore places. One of the places that they end up meeting up at is this iconic Black club. It was important to have that spirit of the people Amaya connects with, [like] her high school home girls, and having [Baltimore] in there and really sort of making it feel like its own character in a lot of ways,\u201d Pride said.<\/p>\n \u201cI directed my short film, Look Back at It, <\/em>which is a proof of concept for a feature film, in Baltimore, and it was really important to me to show a Baltimore that I feel like we don\u2019t see often enough, which is why it was important for me to show trees,\u201d she continued. \u201cWe shot it at my aunt\u2019s house, and just also the feeling of community, the feeling that \u2014 the spirit of the people, trying to get that in there as well, that\u2019s how I approached it.\u201d<\/p>\n From working on shows like Bel-Air<\/em> and Queen Sugar<\/em>, among others, Pride\u2019s commitment to telling Black stories remains evident, and she aims to continue pouring her heart and soul into narratives that uplift women who look like her.<\/p>\n \u201cI hope it expands the conversation,\u201d Pride said, reflecting on what she hopes those reading Come Close<\/em> walk away with. \u201cI think the desire piece is huge for us as a cornerstone of our storytelling, where Black women are not afraid of our desires and to name them, claim them and experience them. Also, Black women being able to write their own stories, produce their own stories and direct their own stories. Black women of all stripes being able to see themselves represented on screen, on the page and in audio across all mediums.\u201d<\/p>\n The post \u2018Bel-Air\u2019 Producer Felicia Pride Explores Love And Second Chances In \u2018Come Close\u2019 Novella<\/a> appeared first on Blavity<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Felicia Pride is committed to curating stories centered on the honeys. Storytelling came to Pride, who is a supervising producer on Peacock\u2019s Bel-Air and is behind the upcoming A Different World sequel pilot at Netflix, by way of hip-hop. She is someone who grew up on the genre and wrote the lyrics to songs down […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2021738,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[371702,117162,371701],"class_list":["post-2021737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-bel-air","tag-black-women","tag-felicia-pride"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/\u2018Bel-Air-Producer-Felicia-Pride-Explores-Love-And-Second-Chances-In.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2021737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2021737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2021737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2021738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2021737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2021737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2021737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Her soul-stirring love letter to Black women over 40<\/h2>\n
A nod to home<\/h2>\n