Spoilers follow for the second season of Rap Sh!t, including the finale episode “Under Construction,†which debuted on Max December 21.
In the first season of Rap Sh!t, rappers and friends Shawna (Aida Osman) and Mia (KaMillion) released “Seduce and Scheme,†an exuberantly unapologetic track about their single-minded pursuit of fame, respect, and cash. Equating sex with power, and framing a woman’s desire as a means of production, are age-old concepts that “Seduce and Scheme†invigorates with cheeky verve, asserting “Time is money, baby, skip the foreplay†and “I’m a real bitch, but I’m nasty / Ride the dick good, then I ask where the cash be.†The boisterous song embodies the suggestion in the series’ first season that Shawna and Mia can achieve their dreams if they’re forward enough, flirtatious enough, and fervent enough. But in Rap Sh!t’s more critical-of-the-industry second season, “Seduce and Scheme†stops being a celebration and starts becoming a limitation, and a vehicle for the series’ overarching questions about what the ceiling of female empowerment is in an industry run by men.
“Seduce and Scheme†is meant to be an anthem, with the “seduce†part referring to Mia’s work as a cam girl and “scheme†to hotel concierge Shawna’s swiping of credit cards from rich guests. (Issa Rae’s series is inspired by hip-hop duo City Girls’ real story, and you can hear in “Seduce and Scheme†the rowdy self-assuredness of their breakthrough “Act Up†and the frisky fever of smash hit “Twerk.â€) But by the events of season-two premiere “Yield,†the song’s exultant vibe has already become a bit of an albatross. To capitalize off their viral success, Shawna and Mia have decided to record a new song and go on tour with Iggy Azalea–like rapper Reina Reign (Kat Cunning), who is managed by Shawna’s former close friend Francois (Jaboukie Young-White). Reina is a poser, an overly tanned white woman with a blaccent and possible physical modifications. Francois knows she’ll do whatever he says, though, and he prizes her for that. In contrast, Shawna and Mia have already announced their problem with patriarchal authority — and their willingness to break from the traditional rules of the industry — by recording and releasing a song about scamming guys. And so the men Shawna and Mia meet, over and over, do one of two things: either diminish the accomplishment of the song or assume that Shawna and Mia made it for their benefit rather than the women’s own.
Francois starts things off by mocking Shawna’s frustration with mainstream, politics-free hip-hop like Reina’s hit “Tongue†with an admittedly hilarious line delivery of “I have a scheme!†in the manner of Martin Luther King Jr. If only all the men needling the duo were so clever! But as embodied by Reina, the term “female rapper†conjures a certain image within the industry — oversexualized, braggadocios, more pop than hip-hop — and Shawna and Mia are damned if they lean into it and damned if they don’t. They’re either too sexual or too prudish, too outspoken or too uptight, too eager if they ask for opportunities or too frigid if they have any hesitation about an offer. In “Yield,†a music-video director tells Shawna to act more like a “bad bitch†during their shoot with Reina, in which the three women are depicted cooking crack, with Reina as the boss and Mia and Shawna as her assistants. At a post-concert party in second episode “Heavy Traffic,†Shawna is humiliated by rapper Gat (Patrick Cage) for questioning why he assumes women won’t know any rap trivia; once she correctly lists all the members of the Wu-Tang Clan, he soaks her in Champagne and negs her with “Shorty, it’s a game.†Later in the season, after rapper Lord AK (Jacob Romero), with whom Shawna was tentatively starting a relationship, sets himself on fire during a mental-health episode, Gat blames Shawna, using air quotes to describe her as a “rapper†and instead labeling her a groupie. And although Shawna and Francois restart their friendship once he drops Reina as a client, he still treats “Seduce and Scheme†a bit like a joke, suggesting that she and Mia fake a burglary and then leak the security footage for attention. Shawna’s declaration of self-actualization doesn’t get her very far if the people who can steer her career — and who may resent her for not stepping into the role of fawning female — aren’t listening.
While Shawna sits on the damned-if-you-don’t side of Rap Sh!t’s “female rapper†conundrum, Mia is her damned-if-you-do counterbalance, showing how the “seduce†side of things comes with its own condescensions. Rap Sh!t doesn’t judge Mia, who proudly says, “I’ll play the game for a check,†for her various dalliances and romances over the course of the season: her on-again, off-again relationship with her daughter’s father and the duo’s producer, Lamont (RJ Cyler); her attempt to lock down established rapper Cash (Derrius Logan); her genuine connection with up-and-comer Courtney Luke (Kyle Bary). Each of the men represents something different for Mia, an alternate path that her life could take depending on how much celebrity (and capital) she actually ends up with. But her attempt to juggle her options backfires as each man learns about the other, reacting with derision and disgust to the presentation of herself that she was always honest about.
Cash, who during sex asked her to “say you’re mine,†told Mia he was glad she had her “own shit†— a seeming approval of her career aspirations. That doesn’t preclude him from trying to control her by leaking lingerie photos she sent him, demanding she wear a designer dress he buys her to a specific event, and then shaming her at that event for publicly enjoying other rappers’ music. Admittedly, Mia’s motivations in getting with Cash aren’t purely romantic, which he knows thanks to a “got him!†text she mistakenly sends to him when she’s trying to talk about their weekend together with her friends. Yet his use of her intimate pictures without her consent (“Cuz I wanted to†is how Cash explains it) are a way to cut down her status as an artist, as Gat did with Shawna, and reduce Mia only to a body.
Something similar happens with Lamont, who is mostly a supportive partner, but still leverages Mia’s attempt to make it as a rapper for his own gain. He’s thankful when Mia connects him with Courtney — and then furious when, in penultimate episode “No Parking,†Courtney invites her into the studio for “female energy on the hook†of the song he’s working on with Lamont. The fact that Courtney and Mia previously hooked up invalidates Mia’s talent in Lamont’s eyes, and an unspoken issue, too, is that Mia has stepped into another level of the industry that Lamont couldn’t have gotten to without her help. Lamont’s insulting “You pop pussy for progress. You get that shit from your mama. I know that shit run in your bloodline†is an attack both on Mia’s identity and the sensuality she raps about in “Seduce and Scheme.†All these men are attracted to who Mia unrepentantly is, but they can’t let her benefit off it; the labor that’s tied to that aspect of herself is something to undermine, sabotage, and erode.
An intriguing wrinkle to this male-female binary is how Rap Sh!t positions Chastity (Jonica Booth), Mia’s longtime friend who was the duo’s first manager until they part ways with her at the end of season two to work with Francois. A lesbian party promoter and madam who manages a group of sex workers at her uncle’s behest (“the family business,†Chastity dryly describes it to Shawna), Chastity is a scrappy, big-talking amateur who fronts the duo her own money during their tour with Reina. She doesn’t have the same business connections as Francois, and her answer when Shawna asks what “female empowerment†means to her isn’t particularly graceful: a fist in the air, coupled with an awkward, “I just think that females should take over the game.†It feels purposeful, though, that finale “Under Construction†ends with Shawna and Mia turning away from Chastity, the woman who supported them but struggled to make inroads in the industry, for Francois, the man who abandoned Shawna and Mia but successfully made a woman artist popular by transforming her into someone she’s not.
That betrayal is the greatest evidence for Rap Sh!t’s argument this season that there’s danger in this industry for women who try to have it all, and coupled with the episode’s closing moments — when Shawna misrepresents her relationship with Lord AK in order to get revenge on Gat, and Mia dials back her vivacious personality — the series sets up an appropriately foreboding air for season three, a sense of doom to come. “Play a role and keep it pushing, like everybody else,†Chastity told Shawna and Mia before they followed her advice by giving into the industry that didn’t want her. Next time on Rap Sh!t, the scheme the duo is running might be on themselves.