‘Empire’ season 2 spoilers: Relative newcomer to play pop star

We have given “Empire” quite a bit of flack as of late for really not trying to cast many unknowns in their roles. We get that any show with this level of success wants to milk all of the good graces it has coming its way in the form of big-name guest stars, but the show didn’t need that to become a success in the first place. Our main concern is that if its starts to rely on A / B-listers, it becomes somewhat like “The Simpsons”: A show that has become more about who you get for the roles than what the story is a good chunk of the time.

So as a whole, we’re rejoicing the fact that the show is giving someone who is relatively unknown in Yani Marin a chance. As first reported by TheWrap, Marin isgoing to be in multiple episodes of the Fox smash hit as Carmen, a successful pop singer. That is all the report has for us for now, which means for the most part that “Empire” is continuing a tradition of being relatively coy on their castings. After all, why would they suddenly feel the need to share a little bit more on some of these roles? They don’t have to, since they know plenty of people will be watching.

For those of you who do love the big stars, you probably know already that you’r getting those in the form of Ludacris, Lenny Kravitz, Kelly Rowland, and a variety of other big names. The show returns on Wednesday, September 23, and assessing Lucious Lyon’s status in jail will be almost immediately one of the top priorities.

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