Former Netflix executive Erik Barmack, is teaming up with New York-based Afro-French artist Nicholle Kobi for an animated African history anthology: Queens.
Set up at Barmack’s L.A.-based Wild Sheep Content, Queens is an attempt to reclaim for Black people around the world a history and source of inspiration that has been denied them by mainstream media and public education.
The series will tell six stories in six vastly different time periods from six different parts of Africa. Each story will be told with different visual and musical styles and is being positioned as four-quadrant family-friendly entertainment with a target age group of 10 and up.
Episodes will cover Queen Amanirenas of Kush, who after the death of her soulmate Emperor Tergetas in battle, led her troops into battle and stopped the Roman Emperor’s press south from Egypt (1st century BCE); Nandi, mother of King Chaka Zulu (18th century); Queen Mother Yaa Asantewaa, who fought against European colonialism (19th century); Queen Amina of Nigeria, who created crucial trade routes across Northern Africa (16th century); and Queen Makeba of Sheba, who told riddles to the biblical King Solomon (ca. 900 BCE).
