Issa Rae may be winding down her wildly popular HBO series, Insecure, with its fifth and final season later this year, but that doesn’t mean Rae doesn’t already have a project lined up to follow. On Thursday, February 12, Rae announced Rap Sh*t, an eight-episode half-hour comedy about two high school friends from Miami who reunite to form a rap group. “Wrote a new show for @HBOMax!” Rae tweeted. “One of my favorite writers, the hilarious @reetafajita is showrunning and my favorite group, City Girls are co-executive producing! Miami here we come!”
This makes me feel SLIGHTLY better than @insecurehbo is ending @IssaRae 😂😂😂. Soooooo proud of you and soooooo excited for you!!!!! https://t.co/62m1IJutEf
— kerry washington (@kerrywashington) February 12, 2021
Kerry Washington, who directed an episode of Insecure last season, celebrated her former collaborator, saying: “This makes me feel SLIGHTLY better that @InsecureHBO is ending @IssaRae. So proud of you and excited for you!!!!” Insecure writer, Syreeta Singelton, serving as an executive producer and showrunner. Rae’s audio content company, Raedio, will manage music supervision for the show.
JT (Jatavia Johnson) and Yung Miami (Caresha Brownlee) of the City Girls are a natural fit for this project as they are longtime best friends who met in middle school. Oh, yeah, they’re from Miami and they rap, too. “The things they come up with end up going viral because it’s hilarious and so many girls relate to it,” Ethiopia Habtemariam, president of Motown Records, which the Girls are signed to as part of the label’s joint venture with Quality Control, told Billboard in 2020. “But it’s just them being their most authentic selves.”
If Rap Sh*t is anything like Insecure, we can already expect each episode’s subject matter to trend on Twitter, inspiring all sorts of comedic discourse. Insecure has also received a host of award wins and nominations throughout its run, including an Emmy nomination and two Golden Globe nominations for Rae in the lead actress in a comedy category.
