J’cans power VH1’s Love & Hip Hop
SEASON 8 premiere of VH1’s Love & Hip Hop: New York (LHH New York ) landed the second-highest spot in the Monday cable ratings published recently.
The reality series had a rating of 1.1 (or 2.2 million viewers) among adults 18-49. It was only eclipsed by ESPN’s Monday Night Football which had a 3.5 rating with 10.420 million viewers.
The VH1 show, with spin-offs in Atlanta, Miami, and Hollywood, has four Jamaicans, including three women in prominent roles on the set. Jamaican-born rapper Safaree Samuels, the high-profile former boyfriend of hip hop superstar Nicki Minaj, joined the cast for season 8. Also working on LHH New York are: Codine Williams (supervising producer); Kamala Taylor (talent producer); and Tamieka “Tammy” Dorman (talent producer).
“Interviewing and landing the talent producer job for Mona Scott’s highly successful reality show franchise LHH New York season 8 was definitely a life changer for me,” Dorman said. “The television industry is a male-dominated field. Here, we have (on the set) three proud Jamaican women opening doors for our generation. We are sitting behind the cameras of a reality TV show and making it happen.”
Dorman said she was pleased after the season’s rating was published and said: “Mona Scott and Stefan made us Employees Of The Week.”
Her resume as a television producer in the USA is quite impressive. In 2014, she worked as an associate producer on Love In The City which aired on Oprah Winfrey Network ( OWN). Prior to joining the production team at OWN, she worked as an associate producer at BET TV (BET Networks). During her tenure, she worked on various programmes including Rap City, Black Carpet, Spring Bling, the BET Awards and was part of the production of 106 & Park, The Deal, and Rip The Runway.
Dorman orchestrated BET’s coverage of New York’s reggae festival Irie Jamboree in 2005 and the subsequent TV special that featured Barrington Levy, Elephant Man, Sizzla and “Junior Gong” Marley. She also lobbied for many reggae/dancehall videos which aired on the network, including Mavado’s Give It All To Me on 106 & Park TV show in 2013. For Mavado’s appearance on Rip The Runway, she produced a feature called The Diary of Dancehall NYC’s Tammy. In 2009 she also engineered BET’s coverage of Richie B’s EME Awards in Jamaica.
“I have worked so hard as a production assistant, associate producer, and now talent producer. It’s been a rocky road, but God has taught me how to block out the naysayers,” she said.
VH1’s highest-rated docu-series, Love & Hip Hop documents the lives and relationships of hip hop and R&B musicians, performers, managers, and record producers residing in varying regions throughout the United States. The original franchise version, Love & Hip Hop: New York, premiered on March 6, 2011, and stars Remy Ma, Yandy, Papoose, DJ Self, Dreamdoll, Safaree, Anais, Lil Mo Karl, and Bianca.
