Asjha Cooper Cast in Raising Kanan Final Season as Tiana/Jarita
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- Asjha Cooper joined Power Book III: Raising Kanan's fifth and final season as Tiana, a call girl working for madam Flossie Siegel (Leslie Grossman), and will then become a series regular on Power: Origins.
- Tiana's real name was revealed as Jarita in the latest episode — a callback to a character originated by Tasha Smith in the original Power's second season, introduced as the mother of Kanan's (Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson) only son Shawn (Sinqua Walls).
- Tasha Smith's Jarita appeared in only three episodes of the original Power and vanished after Kanan confessed over the phone to killing their son, leaving the character's backstory largely unexplored until now.
- Cooper said she hadn't watched Power before auditioning; series creator Sascha Penn called after she booked the role to explain Jarita's significance, and she deliberately avoided watching Smith's footage fully so she could find her own interpretation.
- Cooper described Jarita as "a survivor; she's smart; she's perceptive, observant, and she's a baddie" — and said the season will show the early "puppy love" romance between Tiana and Kanan, who books a night with her unaware she's connected to his mother Raq (Patina Miller).
- Raq (Patina Miller) has just entered a Manhattan drug partnership with Flossie and Pino Bernardi (Joe Pantoliano), with Flossie's sex workers now also delivering narcotics to buyers.
Why it matters: Starz is building an entire origin arc for Jarita, a character who had only three episodes of screen time across the original Power's second season and vanished unceremoniously. The dual commitment — guest arc through Raising Kanan's finale plus a series-regular promotion on Power: Origins — gives the franchise a new lead anchored across both the conclusion and the next spinoff.
