I wasn’t sure what to think when the preview screener for A&E’s new reality series Big Smo arrived on my desk. I had been unaware of the genre of music Smo performs — a crossover of country music, Southern rock and hip-hop known as “hick hop” to some people, as Smo tells us in the premiere episode. And following the premiere, I still don’t fully know what his sound is like, as the episode didn’t have too much of Big Smo’s original music in it, except for snippets at the end. We get inklings in the premiere that Smo is getting ready to head out on the road more to debut his first major-label album Kuntry Livin’ (which was released June 3; the series appears to have been filmed last fall/winter), and that he and his loved ones are torn about this opportunity — it could be his chance to hit it big (although we are told he already has a core of die-hard fans, known as “Kinfoke”), but the promotions and concerts will take him away from them more often.
Big Smo, at least from the first episode, seems to focus on Smo’s family life, introducing him, his girlfriend of four years Whitney — pictured above with Big Smo, and who serves as a stepmom or sorts to Smo’s two teen daughters, whom he calls his “posse,” in hip-hop parlance — and Smo’s mother, who serves as his “big money person.”
The scenes between Smo and his daughters, and with Whitney, are the most affecting elements of the first episode, and help, so far, differentiate this from being yet another show about a colorful Southern family that we’ve grown accustomed to seeing on A&E and elsewhere. There is a moment when Smo, with his mother’s help, decides he needs to take his relationship with Whitney to the next level and “put a ring on it,” and he has a talk with his daughters about Whitney that is surprisingly touching.
That leads us to another emotional moment, at the end of the episode, where Smo is on the road performing, and he, at the last minute, sends his bandmates back to pick up Whitney and the girls to attend the concert. It is there, onstage in front of an audience, that Smo proposes to Whitney, who accepts. Whitney’s presence in his life, and acceptance of his proposal, has also caused Smo to change the lyrics of one of his songs that imply he’d prefer life without a wife holding him back, to lyrics talking about his wife as a partner in his lifestyle.
The proposal was one of the moments in Big Smo that felt most real. Some of the other interactions between the people felt scripted even more than usual for a show like this. But the moments when the characters speak into the camera felt more real, especially Whitney, who I found to be the most endearing character of the series, so far. Smo’s bandmates seem like they are tacked on to pad time and add more humor (though I didn’t find them overly hilarious), and they are sort of annoying, at one point interrupting a romantic evening between Smo and Whitney to bicker about who is going to be the opening act for Smo’s next concert.
Although I didn’t hear enough of Smo’s music in this first episode to form an opinion on that (though, frankly, the little snippets I did hear made me think I probably wouldn’t be into it that much), Smo, his mom, Whitney and the girls are likeable enough that I was surprised to care as much about them as I did. We’ll see if that continues, and if Smo really does — in the words of his late father — “go big or go home.” It kind of seems like going home wouldn’t be the worst result for Smo, if things end up that way. There are a lot of good folks waiting for him there.
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Photo by Zach Dilgard
Copyright 2014