Friday, March 29, 2024

P. Valley’s Nicco Annan: The Man Behind Uncle Clifford Spills a Little Tea on the Season Finale: WATCH/EURExclusive

P-Valley” on Starz is one of the network’s hottest shows.  Its flamboyant star is Uncle Clifford, played by Nicco Annan,  who runs the strip club Pynk in the fictional Mississippi town Chucalissa.

Nicco sits down with iHeart Radio personality and  EURweb.com Spotlight host  Jazmyn ‘Jaz’ Summers along with best friend and web series host J. Mallory-McCree to give us a glimpse of the man behind the inimitable Uncle Clifford and what it’s like to walk “A Mile In These Shoes (AMNTS),” the name of McCree’s series.

McCree, who hails from shows “Good Trouble,” “Homeland” and “Quantico,” says his YouTube series is about so much more than shoes.

“I don’t have a foot fetish  I got a shoe fetish,” he laughs. ” No matter where you are on the spectrum of your beliefs, one thing that we all find in common is our shoes. We all love shoes. We can all connect over a pair of Adidas superstars or the Virgils that just dropped. They express who you are, and what kind of journey you’ve been on. I always say our soles literally carry the story of our soul.  Wherever you’re going on your life’s journey, you got a pair of shoes on. And if you don’t, that’s a choice. And that also speaks to who you are.  I wanted to create a movement where we could take something that we all have a love for and find a way to start a conversation, to really gauge and learn the perspective of who we are. ”

MORE NEWS ON EURWEB: P-Valley’s Nicco Annan Talks Importance of Uncle Clifford’s Blackness | VIDEO

J Mallory-McCree & Nicco Anan
J. Mallory-McCree & Nicco Anan
Nicco Annan as Uncle Clifford - PValley parasal
Nicco Annan as Uncle Clifford in Starz’ ‘P-Valley’

His first guest was Nicco:

“We go back.  I have watched Nicco’s journey.  I’ve seen what its like to walk a mile in his shoes and change the shoes along the way,” McCree tells EURweb Spotlight.

McCree’s favorite shoes? ” It would be. New Rock Boots,” he reveals, “they’re out of Barcelona. And they are a pair of big giant space boots. They look like rock star shoes, but they also look like I stepped out of the Apollo on the moon.”

Nicco’s defining pair?

“My defining pair of shoes as Nicco? Just a pair of Jordans,” he shares. “The 4s, let me wear with my denim. Right now though it’s a pair of McQueens I’m wearing.  (The shoes) reflect where I was to where I am now.  It’s a journey for me from buying my typical sports athletic shoes and then going to like a higher echelon to some of the fashion shoes.  We all have a pair of shoes that are a little uncomfortable, but they so complete the outfit.”

Being uncomfortable to look good now that sounds like Uncle Clifford.

Annan says he still getting used to the public reaction to him.

“They see me as Uncle Clifford. They do a double take and they think you’re going to be untouchable,  or in distant space. They run up, they’re going to wanna take a picture. But I’m always like, What’s your name? Because I don’t take pictures with people I don’t know. And it’s not that I’m going to remember, but it’s about we haven’t even exchanged.”

While for many in the LGBTQ community coming out is a tough experience. Nicco, who is half Ghanaian and half African American, didn’t find it painful.

“I didn’t really have a quote-unquote coming out experience,” he reveals to Jaz. ” I had a conversation with my grandmother and she just asked me if I was gay and that was that. Then she said she always knew. I don’t think that people always have to attach trauma to identity. When I went to Ghana for the first time, I  met my other grandmother in Ghana once.  And she said, I’ve met my last grandchild so I can go home now. So it was a beautiful experience.”

P-Valley S2 Key Art, Image IDs: UNCLE CLIFFORD
P-Valley S2 Key Art, Image IDs: UNCLE CLIFFORD

Nicco says he’s been working on the show P-Valley when it was Pussy Valley, the play, since 2009. “And now we are in all these homes,” he marvels.

How much of his character Uncle Clifford is Nicco?

“Both Nicco and Uncle Clifford, love in the same way in terms of having a big heart. Uncle Clifford can’t really cook, but Nicco can burn. Folks always coming over here for Thanksgiving and all the holidays and stuff like that,” he shares.

Nicco is coy when it comes to having someone special in his life he is lovin’ on like Uncle Clifford’s Lil Murda. But he admits he can be as steamy as Uncle Clifford. All he would say is he’s single right now.  So yes you can slide in those DMS.

Embed from Getty Images
 

While Nicco is rockin’ a conservative outfit in the interview (watch the video to check out his look), he says he and UC’s styles are a little different. “I like to be comfortable,” Nicco says. ” I think that’s one of the ways that Uncle Clifford travels and escapes … through fashion, footwear, hair, all of that stuff. It’s a way to express beyond your circumstances, not only just your feelings. Uncle Clifford has a lot of that. I think the one part of Nicco that’s in there is my mom. When I was growing up, she didn’t teach me to be afraid of color. I think a lot of times dark-skinned people kind of shy away from color. But I think it’s a beautiful thing when you go home … when you go to the Caribbean … when you go back to Africa … it’s like we live in color. When they say people of color, I don’t think that was just because of the darkness of the hue of our skin, but more so because of the spirit that we have. ”

P -Valley has been getting strong ratings and in the next last episode attracted the megastar Megan Thee Stallion as Tina Snow.

Megan Thee Stallion sportin' Mugler's Butt-Cut-Out Jeans (YouTube-Mugler)
Megan Thee Stallion sportin’ Mugler’s Butt-Cut-Out Jeans (YouTube-Mugler)

“So there was just a new song that was released, that Lil Murda did with Tina Snow,” Nicco recounts. “So I think that you can anticipate that song going all the way up and getting stuck.  In this season people are seeing the characters  for who they truly are and seeing them beyond just sex workers or beyond just Southerners or beyond their economic status.”

The drama series has taken on topics surrounding homosexuality, abortion, domestic violence, and more. It’s getting strong ratings and while it hasn’t been formally announced, season 3 looks like it’s in the works.

Loretta Devine - Nicco Annan (P-Valley)
Loretta Devine (Grandmuva Ernestine) – Nicco Annan (Uncle Clifford)

“I’m hoping people show up, I’m hoping people continue to really watch the show and share it. And not have a stigma of what sex workers could be, or think of this show only in the context of strippers. This is a profession, these are people, these are humans and this is just where they work. But it is a whole ride!”

And Nicco shares a little spoiler alert.  We could see some men get on that stripper pole. “You might see a couple of things that you didn’t anticipate.  You already saw Uncle Clifford on the pole this season. Big thighs save lives,” he jokes.

The season finale debuts this Sunday, August 14 and there are a lot of cliffhangers.

P-Valley Castmates 'Uncle Clifford' & 'Mercedes
P-Valley Castmates ‘Uncle Clifford’ & ‘Mercedes – via STARZ

“You’re about to go even deeper than you thought you were.  It’s going to be like riding the pole,” Nicco says.

You can catch the full conversation in the video at the top. And please don’t forget to subscribe to Jazmyn Summers’ YouTube.

Jazmyn Summers

Interview/article by Jazmyn Summers. Follow her @jaztalk1 on InstagramTwitterFacebook

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