Actor Tray Chaney Says He Manifested New 'BMF' Role With His New EP
Actor Tray Chaney has landed a role on season 2 of BMF, but he actually foresaw it happening and said he predicted the casting weeks before it happened.
The Saints & Sinners alumn told HipHopDX that just a month before he auditioned for the role of Bleek on the popular STARZ series, he jokingly asked creator 50 Cent for a shot.
“I just dropped my 10-song visual album Chaney Vision Dreams Vol.1 (Do Y’all Hear Me) October 10th,” Tray Chaney said. “One of the videos shot is titled “New Heights.” We shot this back in April of this year. “In the song I say: ‘50 when you gone put me on that BMF screen/ It’s been long over due/ I’ll murder any scene ask George P.’”
The name drop was a reference to casting director George Pierre, who not only handles casting duties for BMF, but also booked Tray Chaney for his role as Kendrick Murphy on Saints & Sinners.
“I had been auditioning for BMF since first season and never got cast,” Chaney continued. “May of this year, they were auditioning for season 2 and boom: George Pierre reached out. I auditioned for the role of Bleek. ‘New Heights’ video dropped on April 11 & next thing you know I’m on set by June 6 of this year.”
Chaney is no stranger to crime dramas. The actor first rose to prominence when he was cast as Malik “Poot” Carr on the iconic show The Wire, just after graduating from high school.
Last year, he celebrated the show’s 20th anniversary with a song chronicling his personal relationship with the HBO cult-classic. His character, the song reveals, was supposed to only appear in one episode but ultimately Tray Chaney remained part of the cast for The Wire’s entire five season run.
Earlier this year, he found himself back on the streets of Baltimore, figuratively, as Gordon Hawk on HBO’s critically acclaimed mini-series We Own This City, co-created by The Wire‘s executive producer David Simon and producer George Pelecanos.
Based on a book of the same name written by Baltimore Sun reporter Justin Fenton, the series explores Baltimore Police Department’s Gun Trace Task Force, which came under scrutiny of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in 2015. According to Time, the GTTF had been created to remove guns and violent criminals from the streets of Baltimore; but instead many members of the special unit used their position to get into the drug game themselves.
The Black Mafia Family series was an immediate hit at STARZ, with the series being renewed for a second season after just one episode. 50 Cent went on to partner with the network to create The BMF Documentary: Blowing Money Fast.
The film, which was originally slated to be a docu-series, is set to premiere Sunday (October 23). Just ahead of the project’s release, Fif announced that he had parted ways with STARZ.
“Shout out to BET, I won Hustler of the year,” he wrote on an Instagram post, referencing his win at the 2022 BET Hip-Hop Awards. “No one from music culture has had success in Television production. I have 25 shows now and I’ve made some big deals away from TV. I’m out of my deal at STARZ tomorrow.”
The BMF series is scheduled to return for season 2 in January.