Working the grind in Miami, a pair of old friends from high school get back in touch and decide to form a rap group in “Rap Sh!t,” created by “Insecure” star Issa Rae, who remains off camera this time around. Music stardom might actually be in Shawna and Mia’s grasp, if they can get enough traction, push through their insecurities and get a handle on their evolving friendship, as well their complicated personal lives.
Shawna (Aida Osman, who is also a writer on the show) works the front desk at a hotel and her instincts are on the brainy side, leaning in the direction of conscious rap: “I want people to focus on my lyricism, not what I look like.”
Mia (played by real-life singer-songwriter and rapper KaMillion) is a single mom who juggles a number of gigs, including makeup artist and OnlyFans, and she considers Shawna’s earnest words and then replies: “I mean, the game is the game.” Her tastes are more of Megan Thee Stallion than Common.
Can you make music that says something but is also commercial and fun? Or as Mia puts it: “Something for the summertime, something for the girls to get ready and party to?” That question underscores their interplay, which is part oil and water, part true blue friendship. Finding common ground is a process. A closet becomes a makeshift recording studio. And the first time they hear their single playing in the club? Thrilling.
The show is thoughtful and curious about the double standards Black women in rap inevitably face. There’s industry pressure to embrace their sexuality (in lyrics and in looks) but once they do, they’re dismissed for only being about that. “I saw these comments from a prominent producer about female rappers,” Rae told the Hollywood Reporter, “and how all they rap about is their vaginas, to say it euphemistically, and I thought that was so unfair. So I thought: let me start telling this story now.”
With Syreeta Singleton guiding the series as showrunner, all of it is portrayed with wit, exuberance and real intelligence. Sometimes deep, sometimes silly, the series is a canny depiction of the specific contours of female friendship. And in its quieter moments, it taps into that inner voice that keeps us awake at night, full of anxiety about why we’re going nowhere in life.
Osman and KaMillion have a wonderfully unpredictable chemistry and their performances defy easy categorizations — their blerd-raunchy dichotomy is only part of it because, like any human being, they each contain multitudes. That’s also true of the supporting characters, who are far more than their archetypes, whether it’s the butch music-manager-in-the-making (played with bluster and heart by Jonica Booth); or Mia’s ex, who is an exasperating co-parent but otherwise a halfway decent if goofy guy (a charming RJ Cyler); or Shawna’s straight-laced boyfriend, who is in law school in New York and has serious political ambitions (played by Devon Terrell, who, fittingly, played a young Barack Obama in the 2016 film “Barry”).
There’s so much here to recommend. But what puts the show over the top is the way it captures what I’d call Phone Life.
Visually, “Rap Sh!t” is more cunning than most TV and film in the way it seamlessly interweaves the day-to-day worlds and digital worlds of its characters. Social media is ever-present. They film nearly any interaction or moment. The recent Jennifer Lopez romantic comedy “Marry Me” tried to approximate something similar with clunky, intrusive results. By “Rap Sh!t” how found an elegant way to thread this concept into the aesthetic of the show itself, a visual language that’s established by director Sade Clacken Joseph, who helms the first two episodes of the series. Often we see Shawna and Mia from their phone’s-eye-view, as if their phones are yet another character on the show, silent but observing. And judging.
If Shawna and Mia live much of their lives in the digital public, they’re far from outliers. They’re just a couple of average 20-somethings who don’t think twice about this duality. Whether they’re checking in on FaceTime or scrolling through Instagram stalking a person they just spoke to or turning the camera on themselves to broadcast their thoughts or their bodies — or having any of these tasks interrupted by an alert or an alarm — they are forever straddling the line between real and virtual. Between actual experiences and curated content, which are sometimes one and the same. Welcome to the 2020s, where Phone Life is part and parcel of Life Life.
It’s a thematic undercurrent that reminded me of a moment from Madonna’s 1991 documentary “Truth or Dare” when her then-boyfriend Warren Beatty expresses bafflement that she would film even private moments: “There’s nothing to say off camera,” he says sarcastically. “Why would you say something if it’s off camera? What point is there existing?” Madonna had a professional crew following her around; these days, all you need is your phone to be the star of your own stream.
But Beatty was hinting at something that has become increasingly common. To borrow from that old saying about the tree falling in the forest: If you’re not posting, will anyone know — or care — that you’re alive?
HBO has another series about the music industry set to premiere soon, called “The Idol,” from “Euphoria” creator Sam Levinson and the singer-songwriter Abel Tesfaye (aka The Weeknd). That show went through a creative overhaul after much of it had already been filmed because, according to reporting, Tesfaye felt the show was leaning too much into a “female perspective.”
“Rap Sh!t” is intentionally and unabashedly from a female perspective and the diplomatic view might be that the existence of both shows means there’s room on HBO for a variety of portrayals of the music industry.
Or maybe we’re just incredibly lucky that Rae is one of the few Black women to achieve this level of Hollywood clout. And that she’s interested in offering a counter-approach to Hollywood’s usual reticence when it comes to telling stories centering on the experiences and point of view of Black women in an industry still dominated by male power players.
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'RAP SH!T'
3.5 stars (out of 4)
How to watch: HBO Max
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