The CW Network announced two new variety specials: The Black Pack: We Three Kings and The Black Pack: Excellence. The former is set to debut November 29th at 8 p.m. while the premiere of the latter will be announced at a later date.
Both specials star Taye Diggs, Ne-Yo and Eric Bellinger and pay homage to the talent of the Rat Pack while celebrating excellence and camaraderie through varied musical performances while inciting audiences to sing along with the classic music.
The Black Pack: We Three Kings is a holiday celebration of music, comedy and dance and “The Black Pack: Excellence” aims to celebrate Black excellence and culture with musical and dance performances that will feature special guests to commemorate Juneteenth. This special will also pay tribute to Sammy Davis Jr. and feature a new Juneteenth anthem.
In celebration of We Three Kings, we spoke to Eric Bellinger to learn more about the meaning behind The Black Pack, the lesson’s yesterday’s generation could have learned from today’s, how The Black Pack: We Three Kings forges their own path and more.
“The Rat Pack was a legendary group and pretty much we put our own spin on it. It’s the same vibe except it’s the Black Pack, we added some melanin in it [and it’s] brothers coming together doing music, entertaining for a positive experience. We haven’t seen anything like this honestly. First and foremost it’s us singing, we got stories that we’ll be sharing with the people from our past and stories that are necessary for the culture to hear about. As far as creating the narrative around Christmas, [there’s] one narrative of Santa Claus and the gifts and all that, and then you have what it’s really about which is family coming together singing, dancing, celebrating and having a good time.”
“I was just excited about the message, the the overall experience, the opportunity, the transitioning from [the] music side to the TV side. It’s something that best represented [in] myself as well [being] a great look for me to show what I can do. A lot of people have seen me on stage or maybe in a hip-hop environment but never [in this capacity with] jazz [and] real vocals; I’m talking about dancing not just the ‘nae nae,’ I’m talking about 50s style choreography.”
To learn more about The Black Pack and Eric Bellinger’s career, check out our full interview in the video above.
