Issa Rae’s New HBO Max Show, ‘Rap Sh*t,’ Sounds Like A City Girls Origin Story

HBO has been announcing the lineup for its new subscription video on demand service, HBO Max, over the past couple of days, and it looks like fans of Issa Rae’s Black Twitter-favorite show Insecure will have plenty to look forward to as Deadline reports that she’ll be getting another show on the subscription service. Rap Sh*t will be a half-hour rap series that sounds a lot like a mashup between Quality Control Music’s City Girls and Donald Glover’s dark comedy Atlanta, as it’s about “a female rap group from outside Miami trying to make it in the music industry.”

According to Deadline, the series will be executive produced by Rae and Montrel McKay for Issa Rae Productions, as well as Jonathan Berry (Insecure) and Dave Becky (Master Of None, Russian Doll) for 3 Arts Entertainment. Rae is writing the pilot. If we may make a casing suggestion: Why not just hire JT and Yung Miami since they’d already be familiar with the story? We don’t know if they can act as well as they “Act Up,” but Miami’s rhymes have been steadily improving since their debut last year with Period, so at least we can be sure they’re relatively quick learners. Issa also has plenty of experience as a rapper; her Insecure character, loosely based on herself, often raps to herself to boost her confidence or work out particularly tangled personal problems.

Joining Rae on the docket for HBO Max are Mindy Kaling, who will write and run College Girls, and Elizabeth Banks, executive producing DC Super Hero High, for a spate of women-led comedy projects that will bring both levity and “girl power” to the new platform. HBO Max rolls out May 2020.

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