‘Power Book III: Raising Kanan’: Will Kanan’s Mother Raq Die on the Show?

Power Book III: Raising Kanan, the third installment in the Power Universe is unlike anything we’ve seen from the franchise before. Set in 1991, the series follows 15-year-old Kanan Stark (Mekai Curtis) as he begins his journey in the drug game following in his mother Raquel “Raq” Thomas’ (Patina Miller) footsteps.

As much as Raising Kanan is about the titular character, it’s also about Raq. But will she survive on the show? Fans aren’t convinced she’ll be around for the long haul.

Who is Patina Miller’s character Raq Thomas on ‘Power Book III: Raising Kanan’?

Though Power Book III: Raising Kanan is about Kanan Stark’s coming of age story, it’s also very much about his mother, Raquel “Raq” Thomas, a drug queenpin who doesn’t take mess from anyone. Miller says she was completely enamored with the character when she first read the script.

“You know, what I love about this character is that she’s a bit of my mom,” Miller told the New York Daily News. “She’s a bit of a lot of people’s moms… It’s a story about a single Black female making the s–t work. And she just happens to be in the crime business. It’s a mother-son tale. It’s about that unbreakable bond that love between these two people. And I think that’s the story that we’re telling. Yes, it’s a crime drama, but it is a family drama as well.”

Will Raq die in ‘Power Book III: Raising Kanan’?

So much of Raising Kanan is about the bond between Raq and Kanan. “It’s a mother-son tale,” the Tony Award winner told The New York Daily News. “It’s about that unbreakable bond that love between these two people. And I think that’s the story that we’re telling. Yes, it’s a crime drama, but it is a family drama as well.”

In the Power Book III: Raising Kanan pilot, much of Kanan’s motivations are to help his mother and to make sure things will be fine if something happens to her. However, Raq seems indifferent about dying as long as her son is taken care of. She tells him, “Your life is my life, if you fly, I fly.”

Power Book III: Raising Kanan is also loosely based on 50 Cent’s real life. As many of his fans know, his mother, Sabrina, a drug queenpin died when he was eight in a fire. We wonder how much of Raq’s journey will mirror that.

Patina Miller’s character Raq Thomas on ‘Power Book III: Raising Kanan’ is based on 50 Cent’s mom

Raising Kanan is loosely based on 50 Cent’s experiences growing up as a child in Queens New York. In fact, a great deal of what we saw in the pilot from Raq is based on the rapper’s late mother.

“I look at my journey, some of the decisions that my mom made have guided mine, and it’s because people from her life had what was a representation of financial freedom, they had those nice things in front of me,” 50 Cent told Sky News. “They got everything that you would want, so it kind of led me down the same path of the hustling and going to do different things, and, you know, I just hit the roof of that and wanted to do more, so I got involved in music and entertainment where we do things that exceed that level of success, completely.”