“Put this on novice level for me,” Aida Osman jokes when she joins a call with me to discuss her new series,, in which she stars alongside Florida rapper KaMillion. It’s the 25-year-old actor and rapper’s first time doing press in a serious way for the new HBO Max series, produced by, which comes out July 21, Osman plays Shawna, a rapper who works the front desk of a Miami hotel by day and pens rhymes by night at home—behind the privacy of a mask and a stage name.
Years ago, Osman wrote her own pilot that was, funnily enough, also about a couple of young Black girls who form a rap duo. She had never acted professionally beforeshe was first hired to be a writer for the show. On top of that, Osman was a musician before she even considered becoming a writer. “Sometimes you can’t fight how cosmic shit is,” Osman says. “feels like I had a conversation with god and crafted the exact show that would’ve been perfect for me to do as my first television [project].
Growing up in Nebraska, she and her brother communicated mostly through Tigrinya music from Eritrea. “All my family lives in Africa, still. A lot of them are refugees living in Sweden and Italy, some are in Canada,” Osman says. “I’m the only American-born child, along with my brother, and my brother was epileptic and autistic. He was totally nonverbal. So the only bonding time I had with him was, like, jumping around.
She started playing the drums, joined show choir, and performed in high school musicals. After college, her irreverent social media presence and a co-hosting gig on pop culture podcast,
shutupaida This hit home for moi!