E-40 Will Bring His Inscrutable Bay Area Slang To ABC’s ‘The Mayor’ As The Lead Character’s Idol

The Mayor, ABC’s new, hip-hop-saturated sitcom about an underdog rapper who becomes mayor of his Northern Califonia town, will get a dose of Bay Area authenticity when Oakland’s own E-40 will bring his rubber-tongued, inscrutable slang to the show this season. The show, set in fictional Fort Grey, California follows the hilarious exploits of local struggle rapper Courtney Rose, who, in a bid to increase his Youtube views and overall publicity, runs for mayor and actually wins. Now, the inexperienced Courtney has to make good on his campaign promises to turn around the floundering Fort Grey.

Bay Area legend E-40 will portray one of Courtney’s local heroes, a rapper the unseasoned new mayor chooses to headline the Fort Grey music festival. The role will turn out to be semi-autobiographical for executive producer Daveed Diggs, himself a local of the Bay Area who grew up shaking his dreads and ghost riding the whip to 40’s fantabulous flows and was recently commissioned by the NBA to create a theme song for the Golden State Warriors’ 2017-18 season.

“I can’t even tell you how excited I am about this,” the former Hamilton star wrote in a tweet. The Mayor will feature the greatest game spitter of all time.” Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda replied to question whether his friend and collaborator had actually envisioned the entire show as an elaborate ruse to hang out with E-40. Diggs confirmed that was the case, but that he will, unfortunately, be spending less time with his hero than he’d planned due to other filming commitments. Better luck next time, Daveed.

Diggs also acts as a music supervisor on the show, writing Courtney Rose’s raps along with his Clipping. cohorts William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes, who make the beats for the rhymes. Each of the songs from The Mayor will be released weekly through Sub Pop Records.

The Mayor airs Tuesdays at 9:30 p.m. EST on ABC.