Pardison Fontaine joined the cast of Power Book III: Raising Kanan for the current fourth season, and he says it was something 50 Cent‘s online antics couldn’t stop him from doing.
“Acting is something I’ve always wanted to do. … I was just grateful to be given the opportunity, honestly,” he tells Vibe. “As soon as the script came across my desk, I liked it so much. I liked the idea so much that I read for it twice, honestly. There were two different roles I went for. So I’m just happy to be a part of it.”
Pardi takes on the role of B-Rilla, “a raw, volatile, and incredibly talented young rapper serving a prison sentence for armed robbery” who Lou (Malcolm Mays) is interested in signing, according to Deadline.
Though he writes raps for a living, Pardi tells Vibe he credits battle rapper DNA for some of the lyrics his character spits on Raising Kanan. “He took the lead on a lot of the songs and then I was just able to come in and put little changes here or there,” he says. “But I think DNA did a lot of the heavy lifting on that.”
He adds he enjoyed rapping differently than he’s used to and liked “cursing out people [and] saying stuff that [he] wouldn’t typically say.” The “most challenging” part of the experience, Pardi tells Vibe, was not getting “immediate feedback.”
“In music, you get to record it [and] you hear it right away. You’re able to critique and change things as you see fit,” he explains. “With acting, they do the take [and] you really don’t get a chance to look at it. You get a chance to do it over and over, but you can’t see it.”
“It makes you a little nervous, but they do such a terrific job that it’s like it all works out for the best,” Pardi says.
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