The legend Issa Rae was a guest on Hell of a Week with Charlamagne Tha God, and during her segment called “Cap Sh!t,” she reflected on news of the HBO merger.
CThaGod asked if it was cap or fact that she was worried about the merger. Rae called cap.
“I’m not worried,” Rae said. “We will see, but I’m not worried.”
Issa Rae also stated it’s facts that she would give Regina Hall the hands in a fight, and she also did not tell Jay Ellis to hide the fact that he has a white wife.
Issa Rae’s follow-up to Insecure is already off to a strong start, as fans have taken to the first two episodes of Rap Sh!t on HBO Max the same way they took to her breakout show. And, in an immaculate example of Issa’s marketing prowess, the signature song from burgeoning on-screen Miami rap duo Mia and Shawna, “Seduce & Scheme,” has received an official release from Issa’s Atlantic-backed label, Raedio.
In the show, “Seduce & Scheme” is the result of a drunken late-night reunion between the two lead characters after their post-high school falling out. It goes viral, becoming the launching point for their rap group ambitions, with Mia encouraging the passionate but preachy Shawna to loosen up while Mia learns to take herself and her own talent more seriously. The show, which is also executive produced by City Girls, is a loose re-telling of the Quality Control hitmakers’ own origin story, with some Issa Rae flair thrown in.
So far, fans have been loving the show’s subtle social commentary on subjects like the double standards for women in rap and the seemingly incessant cultural appropriation surrounding the genre. Highlighting the latter, viewers were delighted by the show’s use of a real-life viral moment to promote an in-show character’s “hit” song. Atlanta rapper Omeretta The Great had posted what looked to be a white woman covering her viral hit “Sorry Not Sorry,” imitating the streetwise declarations that the surrounding suburbs were “not Atlanta.”
In reality, it turns out that the rapper, Reina Reign, was actually an actor, Kat Cunning, gamely playing the role of a clueless appropriator who switches from doing acoustic covers of rap songs to full-on Black girl cosplay in an effort to bank off the increasing popularity of female rappers. And just like that video went viral, Rap Sh!t‘s signature single — which was penned in part by real rapper Dreezy and some of the show’s staff, looks like it’s going to be a hit as well.
You can listen to “Seduce & Scheme” above.
Raedio is a subsidiary of Warner Music. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Even before they landed the lead roles on Issa Rae’s new HBO Max series, Aida Osman and KaMillion have been living and breathing this rap sh*t. The new show, appropriately titled Rap Sh!t, tells the story of two estranged high school friends – the poetic, lyric-focused Shawna Clark (Osman) and the confident, sexually liberated Mia Knight (KaMillion) – reuniting to form a rap duo. While this is both actors’ first times starring in a lead role, their TV counterparts are entities the two have been manifesting for years.
Before Rap Sh!t, KaMillion had been putting out independent mixtapes and singles for eight years. Osman had worked as a writer and producer on shows like Big Mouth and Betty, and was initially hired to be a writer for Rap Sh!t. With Rap Sh!t, the two are at the forefront of their own sharp pen game after years of putting in work behind the scenes.
“It’s so complicated and scary and weird to actualize,” Osman says of being a lead on television. “Every time I see the photo of me and Milly in the car that they’re using for the Rap Sh!t art, I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s somebody else. That’s not me and her’ But like, that is me and her. That’s me and my friend. When I drive by the billboard now, it’s so weird to see that that’s us. It’s surreal.”
Alicia Vera/HBO Max
Aida Osman plays the lyric-focused Shawna Clark. She is also a writer on the show.
Osman’s affinity for hip-hop began as a secret love affair. Having grown up in a Muslim household in Lincoln, Nebraska, she was not allowed to watch TV or listen to hip-hop, which the TV writer and actress on a hip-hop-centered show admits is “crazy… because look at me now.” As a teenager, she would often take her computer and sit in her room, watching Nicki Minaj videos in secret. She played drums and performed in her school’s choir throughout high school, and by college, she was quietly writing her own rhymes and exploring beatmaking.
Today, Osman’s mother is more than supportive of her work, even if she doesn’t quite get it.
“[My mom] hates Big Mouth so much,” Osman says. “She’s always like, ‘What is this? They’re ugly.’ She thinks it’s all ugly, and she thinks the concept is so stupid. But she always pauses at the credits like, ‘That’s my baby.’ And I’m like, ‘Which is it? Which is it?’ I don’t even know if my mom understands the concept of Rap Sh!t, but we’ll see.”
KaMillion, on the other hand, has always been immersed in the world of hip-hop, having grown up in Jacksonville, Florida, and hearing music constantly playing outside. “I started writing poetry at first,” says KaMillion, “just looking at the community that I was raised in, and everything I was going through. Everything started out as poetry, and then I just put a beat to it. When I felt like I could do it, I started rapping and getting with different producers. Hip-hop has just always been in me just because of how I was raised in the neighborhoods where I came from.”
When we first meet Osman’s Shawna on the show, she is working the front desk at a Miami hotel. She is recognized for one of her viral freestyles, however, it is revealed that she now wears a mask when she records her rap videos, that way people can focus on her lyrics instead of her appearance. She is critical of the hypersexual nature of women rappers and is fed up with being slept on and wants very badly for industry professionals to take her seriously.
KaMillion’s Mia, on the other hand, strives to be a woman’s fantasy in regards to sexual liberation – a la Lil Kim in the ’90s. As an aspiring rapper single mother, a make-up artist, and an OnlyFans model, Mia wears many hats throughout the series.
Sex work is a big component of the Rap Sh!t universe. In the first episode, we see Mia live streaming on OnlyFans, taking requests and tips from men. In real life, KaMillion briefly dipped her toes in the OnlyFans waters during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, though not for what she considers sex work, but rather to share intimate pictures that wouldn’t make it past the Instagram censors. “We’ve all done odd jobs to come up,” KaMillion says. “I danced briefly to make ends meet, so I understood that aspect when it came to my character, because I’ve experienced it.”
While she became well-versed on the platform of her own accord, bringing the OnlyFans action to the screen was an entirely new challenge for KaMillion.
Alicia Vera/HBO Max
KaMillion plays the ambitious, sexually-liberated Mia Knight.
“When you’re recording kinky little videos on your phone, no one’s in there watching you,” KaMillion says, “but now, you’ve got to perform in front of the camera guy and the director. Like they’re up in your coochie, and I’m like ‘Did I shave good enough?’ ‘How’s every angle looking?’”
Although Shawna hasn’t done any sex work in the series, Osman, similarly to KaMillion, said one of her most challenging scenes to shoot was a virtual sex scene in the first episode, in which she is having FaceTime sex with her long-distance boyfriend, Cliff (Devon Terrell).
“There will be a closed set for things like this, so it’s just you, the cameraman, the producer, the main writer, and the showrunner,” Osman says. “But every time that we film a scene, we do a practice round before, where the necessary crew comes in and maps out what the scene is going to look like. So to lay in a bed while Issa Rae is just watching me masturbate is the goofiest thing. I felt funny and stupid, and I couldn’t take that scene seriously. I kept cackling mid-orgasm.”
Throughout the series, the promising rappers navigate the treacherous music industry as their single, “Seduce And Scheme,” continues to go viral. They face challenges like handling personal relationships as artists, remaining couth at industry functions, and the pressures of viral fame. All the while, the two channel the spirit of women in rap to help them get through the titular rap sh*t, both on-and-off screen.
Viewers with a keen ear will catch the characters referencing iconic quotes by female rappers in casual conversation. In the second episode, when Mia and Shawna are brainstorming ideas for songs, Mia says she wants to make “something fun, something for the summertime, something for the girls to get ready and party to,” referring to Saweetie’s 2019 interview for Amazon Music’s Rap Rotation. In a later episode, where the ladies head to New York City, Mia recreates Nicki Minaj’s 2017 viral “you b*tches can’t even spell Prague” video, recording a clip in front of a black Cadillac Escalade, saying, “Attention, this is how a bad b*tch leaves Miami and arrives in Queens. You b*tches can’t even spell Queens.”
Like the hidden Drake-lyrics in the dialogue of the first season of Rae’s breakout series, Insecure, and the Frank Ocean-lyrics in the second, this was something the writers did on purpose.
“It’s definitely about paying homage, and we love that,” Osman says. “It always feels amazing to catch a little easter egg like that. So with our show, it only made sense for the writers to be like, ‘Let’s put in our favorite moments from Black women in rap.’”
As Mia and Shawna become stars on Rap Sh!t, both Osman and KaMillion are becoming stars in real life, alongside their breakout characters. According to Osman, Rae first commissioned her to write “a month’s worth of television” when she was hired onto the show’s staff. She was comfortable working as a writer “for the rest of [her] life,” and even assumed that someone else had landed the role of Shawna before she was asked to do a chemistry read with KaMillion.
KaMillion had been working toward her breakthrough moment in music for nearly a decade, and now, with Rap Sh!t, she feels like the stars are all aligning.
“I think it’s a blessing for me to be able to make a living in hip-hop,” KaMillion says. “And, ultimately, to be on a show like this – that I feel is about to be culture.”
High school homies Shawna (“Big Mouth” writer Aida Osman) and Mia (Love & Hip Hop’s Kamillion) reconnect years after the two drifted apart after graduation. As both continue to work regular 9 to 5 jobs to make ends meet, they realize they’ve been yearning for something more when they catch up one night. Who’s Who? […]
Later this week, Issa Rae will begin the next chapter of her career as her new show Rap Sh!t will premiere on HBO Max. The show follows two Miami-based rappers who are seeking success in the music industry. The first season of Rap Sh!t, which stars Aida Osman and KaMillion, will put forth eight episodes in total, with the first two arriving on July 21. In addition to work from Rae behind the scenes, Rap Sh!t also features contributions from a number of people in the music industry. During a recent interview on Late Night With Seth Meyers, Rae spoke about some of them.
During their conversation, Meyers asked Rae how she was able to have authentic rap lyrics and songs on the show. She revealed that there were artists in the music world present in the show’s writers’ room to help craft the songs. Rae said that she was able to “employ some of my favorite rap artists” like PineappleCITI, Ncognita, and Dreezy to construct songs for the show. Rae also noted that she is “really proud of the music on the show.”
In addition to the aforementioned artists, City Girls’ JT and Yung Miami will serve as executive producers on the show while Devonte Hynes, also known as Blood Orange, is the show’s music composer.
Find Rae’s full sit-down on Late Night With Seth Meyers in the video above.
Many Black actresses and creators have been nominated for the 2022 Emmy Awards. It’s only fitting that we give them their flowers, win or lose. Let’s highlight the top 5 nominees. Lizzo Though she’s not an actor, pop star Lizzo took TV to a new level with her hit show “Watch Out for the Big […]
Miss Rae did not come to play! Earlier today, producer Issa Rae debuted the trailer for her new HBO Max series, “Rap Sh!t.” Today, Issa Rae took to Instagram to announce her new show “Rap Sh!t” with a trailer to give fans a sneak peek. The show will star Aida Osman, Jonica Booth, Emergency’s RJ […]
After previewing her upcoming HBO Max seriesRap Sh!t with a twerk-tastic teaser, Issa Rae finally shared the official trailer today, revealing more detail about the show’s plot. While previous descriptions had the show sounding like an unofficial City Girls biography (they’re listed as executive producers), the series will actually address the fractious dichotomy facing women who pursue careers in rap.
The narrative follows two estranged high school friends from Miami, Mia and Shawna, as they reunite and form a rap duo. However, there’s friction within their ranks as Shawna (comedian Aida Osman) dreams of making it as a more socially-conscious rapper, lamenting the industry’s expectations of booty-baring and rump-shaking for women in hip-hop (as one observer puts it in the trailer, “Just say you want to be Queen Latifah!”). Meanwhile, the more freewheeling Mia (Love and Hip Hop: Miami star KaMillion) is a single mother willing to do whatever it takes to provide for her four-year-old daughter. Over the course of the show, they will learn to lean on their sisterhood, even when they’re at odds over how to present themselves as Black women in entertainment — or in general.
They’ll also encounter Miami nightlife characters who try to help them reach their goals, such as Chastity a “sex work manager” with connections throughout the industry as a result of her profession, and Jaboukie Young-White’s music producer Francois Boom, whose arrogant social media posts both inspire and discourage Shawna, his former classmate. News flash, kids: That money your favorite rappers flash on camera isn’t always the real deal.
The show seems to tie together threads from the last few years of discourse as new female rappers have emerged on the scene and detailed their struggles with the rap biz’s double standards for them, such as Rapsody and Cardi B being pitted against each other, Latto’s insistence that women have to do twice as much as their male peers for less recognition, and City Girls’ own insistence that they could have made more “relevant” content but that consciousness isn’t commercially viable. I guess you could say the show kind of is their biography — and the biography of any woman trying to make it in hip-hop.
Insecure may be over but Issa Rae is back with a new show for HBO. On Monday, HBO Max revealed the trailer for the new series Rap Sh!t.
The new show is set to release on July 21 and will highlight the work women have to do to break into the Hip-Hop industry. The story will focus on Shawn and Mia who form a rap group.
“I think this is just such a unique time in hip-hop, especially when it comes to female rappers, because there’s such an abundance, and it doesn’t feel like they’re all in competition with each other. I’m a child of the ’90s, and there used to always be a tendency to put two women against one another,” Rae said to BAZAAR.com. “It feels like we’re in an era where there’s such a supportive environment now because of that abundance. All of that, combined with just my own story of coming up, became the next story that I wanted to tell.”
(@omeretta4l) 
