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EXCLUSIVE: Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges Talks Writing Bars For His New Netflix Animated Series ‘Karma’s World’ & More

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Chris “Ludacris” Bridges has accomplished it all, whether it be his first love, music, or acting. Now, he’s looking to add creating a successful animated series to that list of accomplishments with his new Netflix show, Karma’s World.

Chris Bridges, or as the world has come to know him by his stage name Ludacris has been able to stay relevant in a world where rappers seem to come and go thanks to his ability to adapt constantly. Bridges constantly says, “If you don’t evolve, you’ll evaporate,” and he stands by the phrase, and it shows with all the success he has not just inside the booth but outside of it as well.

The multi-hyphenated star hopes that success will carry over with his new Netflix animated series Karma’s World inspired by the “Southern Hospitality” crafter’s oldest daughter Karma. The show, described as a coming-of-age animated series, follows a young Black girl who is discovering her voice and using it to make an impact on the world.

Chris "Ludacris" Bridges Talks 'Karma's World' With Hip-Hop Wired

Source: Netflix / Netflix

The show tackles issues like body positivity, discrimination, self-esteem and uses the genre of Hip-Hop to help teach valuable lessons on the matter. Ahead of the animated series premiere, Hip-Hop Wired had the honor of speaking with Bridges via Zoom about Karma’s World. We touched on a myriad of topics like putting his pen skills to work crafting the series’ original music, why Hip-Hop was the tool of choice to teach the lesson’s presented in the show, his thoughts on the current state of Hip-Hop and its treatment of women in the music genre and more.

Hip-Hop Wired: Hip-Hop gets a bad rep sometimes. Why did you feel that the genre of music was a good tool to help get out the positive messages and help spread positivity as it does in this show? Why did you use hip hop for that?

Chris “Ludacris” Bridges: Hey man, this is the world that I know. This is the world that I was born off of. This is my world. It’s what I live by. It’s what I eat, sleep, breathe, and I love it, man. There’s no better answer to that than why would I not want to do anything that I don’t absolutely love? And the fact that my daughter, when she was six, she used to come in my studio and say she wanted to rap too. She wanted to do hip hop because she saw her dad doing it. And that’s what birthed this entire idea, man. Because I said, “If you want to rap, you got to talk about what goes on in your world. Because daddy talks about what goes on in his and that’s what Karma’s World is.”

Karma's World

Source: Netflix / Karma’s World

HHW: Fair point, fair point. Now your pen game, in our opinion, is top 10 easily.  What was the process like making the songs for Karma’s World? Was it difficult, or was it easy for you?

CB: That’s a good question. This process is a lot more tedious for lack of a better term, because, with Ludacris, I can say whatever the hell I want to say. I don’t have to go back and try and figure out little words that should and shouldn’t be in there necessarily. So it’s an easier process, but in this process, you get screened a whole bunch of different times.

First, you got to get your ideas out there and then you have to try and make things more specific so that kids understand them and make them more general. And then of course, you got to say certain words that include everybody and make sure that you’re staying away from anything negative. So it was still a great process, but totally different and a little more work than what I do when I make Ludacris hit songs.

HHW: Cool, cool. You can’t throw those bows on those tracks, man.

CB: Exactly.

HHW: You said your daughter wanted to be a rapper at one point, and Karma’s World emphasizes a young black girl who wants to enter the rap world. How do you feel about the current state of Hip-Hop in regards to embracing women and women rappers as a whole?

CB:  Man, I love it. Women are taking over man. And they’ve been taking over. I’ll say humbly speaking, this was before a little bit before the time, but one of the reasons I did the Battle of the Sexes album was to try and showcase more women. So, with Nicki Minaj being on there and of course, Shawnna and all of these different women that was my goal.

And now it’s happening, which is the best and perfect time for something like Karma’s World to come into play because when you think about not only women or girls, now we thinking about a young girl that’s competing with, I feel like the rest of the music industry. That’s how great the music is in the show, and the soundtrack comes out the same day as the episode. So October 15th, they are in store for a lot.

HHW: This is your first foray into the world of animation. Do you want to do more animated series or animated movies, video games, or something like that?

CB:  I would love for the possibilities of Karma’s World to become endless in terms of there’s no telling what this can birth. But I’m just concentrated on this, man, and I feel like it has long legs. And I think a lot of people are going to gravitate towards it, especially since it’s going out to the world simultaneously—191 countries in so many different languages. And I’m just happy to provide the world with some positivity that I feel will balance out a lot of negative things that are going on.

Karma’s World begins streaming on Netflix on October 15, and features the voice talents of Asiahn Bryant, Camden Coley, Danielle Brooks, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Tiffany Haddish, Dascha Polanco, Jordan Fisher, Dawnn Lewis, Isaia Kohn, Aria Capria, Kaila Mullady, and Ramone Hamilton.

Karma's World

Source: Netflix / Karma’s World

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