[1] Queen Sugar centers on the lives of three siblings in rural Louisiana (Rutina Wesley, Dawn-Lyen Gardner, and Kofi Siriboe) who must deal with the aftermath of their father's sudden death and decide the fate of his 800-acre sugarcane farm.

[2] The show holds a 93% approval rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes and has won two NAACP Image Awards and 12 total nominations.

Recently divorced, Charley, whose husband is caught up in a scandalous affair, takes her teenage son Micah and moves to the heart of rural Louisiana to operate the farm.

On February 2, 2015, it was announced that Oprah Winfrey Network had ordered a straight-to-series TV drama based on Queen Sugar, the 2014 novel by Natalie Baszile.

Dawn-Lyen Gardner, Kofi Siriboe, and Omar Dorsey, who co-starred in Selma, were all announced in leading roles.

[121][122] On February 1, 2016, it was announced that Emmy Award-winner Glynn Turman will guest-star as Ernest Bordelon, the patriarch of the family who dies in the first episode.

[123] On February 16, 2016, it was announced that Tina Lifford, Dondre Whitfield, Timon Kyle Durrett and Nicholas L. Ashe were cast as series regulars.

The website's critical consensus reads, "With an authenticity of culture and place and strong performances throughout, Queen Sugar rises above melodrama in this alluring, unhurried and powerful portrait of a fractious black American family.

"[3] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 75 out of 100 based on 25 critics for the season, indicating what the website considers to be "generally favorable reviews".

[137] UCLA graduate Natalie Baszile started writing Queen Sugar, the novel, in the early 1990s, but the text was only completed ten years later.

A friend of hers who was also at the retreat, the novelist Sarah Manyika, suggested that she read part of Queen Sugar to fellow residents.