Deb Antney is bringing her unfiltered knowledge to Deb’s Home season 2 and telling BOSSIP why this greater, bolder season is certain to deliver again actual R&B.
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Following its 2023 debut, which earned Antney a Telly Award, Deb’s Home returned Friday, August 22, on WE television with greater stakes and a sharper focus: discovering R&B’s subsequent breakout voice. All through the season, 10 aspiring vocalists, handpicked by Antney, will transfer right into a luxurious home, the place they’ll stay, practice, and compete beneath her intense, skilled steering. The ladies will tackle weekly challenges, vocal boot camps, and stay performances testing their stamina, fashion, and star high quality, with steering from rapper Waka Flocka Flame, soulful songstress Keke Wyatt, and SWV’s Leanne “LeLee” Lyons.
Antney stated that when it got here to scouting, she needed to do issues in a different way, so she took to social media after being flooded with DMs from aspiring artists.
“ I wanted to go and meet you on the enjoying fields, interval,” she advised BOSSIP. “What higher method [to do it] than to fulfill individuals than the place they’re? That is the place everyone’s at.”
And in the case of championing an artist, her focus, she stated, is on substance, not superficial markers.
“We wasn’t in search of magnificence. We wasn’t in search of measurement. We wasn’t in search of your sexual prowess,” she stated. “We was in search of pure expertise.”
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That emphasis displays Antney’s frustration with the image-driven tradition of right this moment’s music trade.
“We as ladies carry tons and tons of luggage. I’m included,” she stated to BOSSIP. “So whenever you flip your display screen on, I would like you to have the ability to see you. That is actual ladies. This isn’t in regards to the expertise. It ain’t obtained nothing to do with it. I would like your expertise and that’s what I need to deliver again.”
A part of what units Deb’s Home aside is its mentorship element. Antney attracts on each her personal expertise and that of her co-judges. “After I let you know I really like Leelee [Lyons], she’s so actual,” stated Antney.
She additionally known as Keke Wyatt’s nurturing vitality important for the ladies in the home:
“A few of them wanted that love. Typically the love ain’t at all times good, however it’s that robust love. That actual mom love.”
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Antney sees her function as getting ready contestants for the much less glamorous realities of stardom.
“All of the individuals begin coming… demanding your time… after which in the future, guess what occurs? [The artist] simply explodes and he or she breaks down,” she defined. “Now she’s both ingesting, or she’s going to medication, or she’s going for pleasurable issues. As a result of though you accident, you actually wasn’t prepared for it.”
That grounding is what she calls “artist improvement,” a cornerstone of her profession.
“It’s additionally vital to me for me to have these ladies discover, who’re you? What’s my sound for actual?” she advised BOSSIP. “The expansion — you bought the cheat code and [you] obtained to get in right here and develop.”
For Antney, the sequence isn’t solely about music, however about self-discipline and self-respect, and he or she hopes individuals grasp the present’s broader mission, whereas having fun with the leisure. “Girls will certainly jeopardize their profession for a person. However he ain’t going to jeopardize his profession for you,” she famous.
