Buzz Builds for Queen Latifah's Portrayal of Bessie Smith

HBO movie premiering this weekend also features Mo'Nique as Ma Rainey.

After attending the New York premiere of HBO’s Bessie, Roger Friedman wrote that Queen Latifah as 1920s blues singer Bessie Smith “blows your mind.” Today, AP TV writer Frazier Moore seconds that notion, suggesting that Latifah “schools you with a bruising display of fierce drive, unstoppable talent and a gallery of personal demons.”

In other words, the pay cable movie premiering Saturday May 16 is set to change many people’s perceptions of the Queen, whose two-year syndicated talk show recently came to a quiet end.

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