Issa Rae’s ‘Rap Sh!t” focuses on female friendships, but also female rappers and the challenges facing women in a male-dominated industry. For music supervisors Sarah Bromberg and Philippe Pierre, that meant pulling together a soundtrack of artists that not only reflected Miami’s rap scene but also the strong ties between its main characters.
In the Max show, Shawna (Aida Osman, also a writer on the series) has been chasing fame as a solo rapper, and she reunites with her friend Mia (rapper Kamillion) to form a rap duo. Together they navigate success, friendship and the lively city of Miami.
Here, Bromberg and Pierre break down key needle drops in the series and how they spent months trying to clear a Drake song, as well as having to change an original song at the last minute due to clearance issues.
“No Friends in the Industry” – Drake
Bromberg: This was not in the script. They were nice enough to not script Drake. The whole show is about the rap game, the music industry and trying to come up in it. The moment that it plays is centered around some fucked up industry shit. We put it in there, and then I sweated it out, for three months. Which is exactly how long it took to clear it. It very much came down to the wire, and we cleared it days before the mix. We had a backup, but it came through the day before, and we were pushing the label, the publisher and even [doing] personal pushes to get it done because it was so perfect.
“Take It to Da House” – Trick Daddy
Bromberg: [Trick Daddy] is so easy to work with, and his rights are easy to clear. It’s the opening song of the show and an important moment. We did have two songs in contention, and we went back and forth on it. Both worked really well. But I love Trick, and we decided on this right before the mix. I love how it introduces the show and the graphics. We start on a long shot of the world and zoom in and zoom closer until we get to Miami.
Pierre: Having the song really set the tone that this was a Miami show.
Bromberg: This is Miami! We had pulled a lot of Miami artists, both current, upcoming and established. We had a huge playlist as well with classic throwback jams that we put together, but this song was a priority because it helped with the authenticity of the show.
“Seduce & Scheme” – Shawna & Mia / The K-Wan / Khia
Bromberg: “Seduce & Scheme” is an original song and was written into the very first script. It was one of the first music conversations we had. It was two words that came from the writers — It’s about what Mia is doing and what Shawna is doing. It ties both of them together. They’re sitting in the car listening to some old jams, which is part of our playlist, and then they freestyle it. And they decide to form a group and create this song.
We had a different song in there and had created a whole song around a different sample, but that sample didn’t get cleared. So we had to completely deconstruct our song and find a new sample. “K-Wang” was on that playlist. It was tough to clear the sample because Khia is not easy to track down. But once we did, she was amazing, and she’s great to work with. We had many writers on the song. We had rappers like Dreezy and PineappleCITI. It was a lot of our first-season writers contributing to the hook or the verses in some way or another.
Pierre: We brought in some of our favorite folks to get the song started. It’s one of the most important songs in the show. It really was about setting the girls off on their career, so we had Pineapple in the session. It was a special moment to see the idea of the song come to life.
