Still Fresh: Tatyana Ali Takes On the Digital World

Christina Olajide

Making it onto the silver screen and small screen seems like a fight to the death for most Hollywood actresses, but when you’re a woman of colour the number of roles available to you are even smaller. So what’s a girl to do when she has the talent, but doesn’t plan on spending the next few years hoping for the universe to drop a plum role in her lap with a contract served on a silver platter? She creates her own opportunities and forges her own path.

Tatyana M. Ali is best known for her role as Ashley Banks in the 90s sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air alongside now superstar Will Smith, but lately she’s been making her mark on the web. Tatyana and her sister Anastasia formed HazraH Entertainment in 2007, an independent media company specialising in avant-garde urban entertainment.

Buppies: a pioneering black web series

Their first venture is BUPPIES, a ten-part series on bet.com with three to five minutes long webisodes where Tatyana and Anastasia serve as executive producer and producer respectively.

The web series was initially pitched to television networks as a TV show, but the liberal characters and atypical storylines created by director/writer Julian Breece and producer Aaliyah Williams made the networks hesitant. Instead of waiting, the two sisters turned their efforts to the internet: “The web space is something that my sister and I are just crazy about,” says Tatyana. “We really loved the experience with BUPPIES. You’ll definitely see more web shows coming from us.” With award nominations for the web series and positive feedback from viewers, HazraH Entertainment is making good use of the autonomy and freedom that come along with the unchartered territory.

But even with success comes a few bumps in the road as Tatyana explains “The biggest problem is: how do you make more? The internet is a great place for artists to put their stuff out, but it’s not necessarily a great place to make it financially sustainable.” She continues: “It’s really hard to get your money back,” “or enough to make more episodes if it was something people liked. How do we afford doing that? That was the big surprise along the way.” Luckily, their business strategy paid off as BET backed BUPPIES and Cover Girl, a national beauty brand, sponsored the show.

Tatyana Ali and her sister Anastasia

Although some of us might cringe at the thought of working with a family member, Tatyana and Anastasia use their relationship to their advantage. The two have non-verbal cues that only they can decipher in a room full of people. “It’s a great working relationship because we trust each other, we have similar tastes —you know like what we think is cool, which is really important —and we have a very similar work ethic, because she works really hard and so do I.” But surely even the closest of business partners disagree, right? “When we do disagree it kind of forces me to [reconsider] —because I have so much respect for her opinion— it expands my mind because I know she’s coming from a pure place.” Differences of opinion can lead to innovation and complementary skills can create strong leadership. “To be really general, I’m probably more the big idea side and [Anastasia] is really detail-oriented and has a great marketing sense.”

Forging her own path

So will Tatyana focus more on developing projects for her media company or is she focusing on her acting career? Well according to her “I’m trying to do both. I think it’s a different time right now. When I was doing Fresh Prince of Bel-Air if you were on TV you couldn’t do film and if you did film you wouldn’t do TV. It’s not really like that anymore.” Tatyana also believes actors should be able to work on projects they feel passionate about. “Film-wise I really want to be a part of projects that move me. Whether it’s a small part or a large part, just being around people who are trying to put their best foot forward and trying to tell a story the bet way they can it’s just so inspiring to be around.”

After starting HazraH Entertainment three years ago Tatyana and her sister have fought through a lot of barriers, “It’s important to see that you can band together with your sisters and make something out of nothing. You can have a dream and you can go with it”

Besides the entertainment value of BUPPIES, what else does the show bring to the audience “There’s a lack of our faces on television so I hope it makes people realise it makes financial sense. I also hope it gives people that are watching it a sense of pride, because I think something happens when you see people that look like you on television, on series or in plays or in films. It gives you a sense of pride that your stories are being told.”