It was the height of quarantine, and Issa Rae wanted — in Bay Area rapper Saweetie’s proverbial words — “Something fun, something for the summertime. Something for the girls to get ready and party to.”
The final season of her seminal hit series “Insecure” was in production, and HBO Max had approached the Emmy-nominated co-creator and star’s team to ask what her next show was going to be about. The multi-hyphenate had long been wanting to tell a story about female rappers and eventually sent in the one-pager for what would become “Rap Sh!t” to Montrel McKay, her production company Hoorae’s film and television president, and her manager Jonathan Berry.