Erykah Badu is set to appear in Netflix drama The Piano Lesson

Erykah Badu will star alongside Samuel L. Jackson and John David Washington – who reprising their roles from the play’s recent Broadway revival – as well as Ray Fisher, Danielle Deadwyler, Michael Potts and Corey Hawkins.

Denzel Washington will produce the drama alongside Todd Black, whilst his daughter Katia Washington, Constanza Romero and Jennifer Roth will serve as executive producers.

As an actress, Erykah Badu has starred in Blues Brothers 2000, The Cider House Rules and House of D. She also has appeared in the documentaries Before the Music Dies and The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975.

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The Piano Lesson is part of Wilson’s American Century Cycle – his series of ten plays that chart the African American experience throughout the twentieth century – which includes Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, which Netflix adapted in 2020, starring Chadwick Boseman in his final role, and Fences, adapted by Denzel Washington in 2016.

Set in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1936, the story follows the lives of the Charles family, which possesses a family heirloom – a piano adorned with carvings made by an enslaved ancestor documenting the family’s history.