Empire Cast

Lee Daniels and Danny Strong launched the Fox musical drama Empire in January 2015, centering the story on the Lyon family and its patriarch Lucious Lyon, a former drug dealer who became a rap artist and CEO of Empire Entertainment and is played by Terrence Howard, as well as his wife Cookie Lyon, portrayed by Taraji P. Henson. Timbaland handled production duties for the original songs featured each week, with the cast members themselves delivering the vocals and rhymes, among them Terrence Howard, Jussie Smollett as Jamal Lyon, Bryshere "Yazz" Gray as Hakeem Lyon, and Serayah McNeil as Tiana Brown. Columbia issued digital song packages immediately following each broadcast, and several selections climbed Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop Digital Songs chart, such as Hakeem’s “Drip Drop,” Jamal’s “Keep Your Money,” and the pair’s “Money for Nothing.” An incomplete collection titled Empire: Original Soundtrack from Season 1 appeared in March 2015 and ascended to number one on the Billboard 200. Digital releases resumed once the second season premiered that September, again under Timbaland’s supervision. The initial volume of Season 2 material spotlighted guest contributions from Petey Pablo, Timbaland, and Pitbull, while allocating five of its eleven tracks to Jussie Smollett’s Jamal and only three to Yazz’s Hakeem, one of which paired him with the fictional Latina group Mirage a Trois. The set also contained plot-driven cuts including Lucious Lyon’s “Snitch Bitch” and Freda Gatz’s “Boom Boom Boom Boom,” the latter performed by real-life rapper Bre-Z. Season 2, Vol. 2 surfaced in 2016, introduced Yo Gotti among the show’s guest musicians, and reached number 26 on the Billboard 200. The fourth soundtrack, documenting Season 3, arrived in 2017 and incorporated appearances by Mariah Carey on “Infamous,” Sierra McClain on both “Black Girl Magic” and “Get Me Right,” Rumer Willis on “Crazy Crazy 4 U,” and Fetty Wap on “The Father the Sun.”