Roc Nation’s Rapman Talks Netflix’s “Supacell,” Jay-Z And What He Wants For Afrofuturism

“Supacell” shall return for Season 2. Streaming giant Netflix announced that the first season captivated audiences plenthy with striking performances and an ingenious plot. The unlikely series quickly climbed to the number one spot on Netflix’s global TV series list and stayed there for weeks. All of this was the magic of one Rapman, the famed writer, creator and one-time rap artist.

“Supacell” almost feels autobiographical as the UK Hip-Hop head is seemingly an ordinary person from London who finds he has creative superpowers. With Season 1 setting the stage, Season 2 promises to take the story to new heights like Rapman’s career.

Chuck “Jigsaw” Creekmur caught up to Raps for a chat about his show, the future of Afrofuturism, his Hip-Hop loves and also his comic favorites.

AllHipHop: Tell people about “Supacell” and the premise of the show.

Rapman So “Supacell” is about five regular people from South London who unexpectedly come into superpowers. And that might sound like your typical storyline for a superhero show, but none of these guys don’t wear spandex. They don’t wear masks, no capes. These are people in poverty, some in gang wars, some going through relationship problems, some broke. So you can only imagine what they do when they get their powers. And it’s a journey, man. It’s on Netflix now. It’s causing a big buzz. And I just think it’s one of the ill shows to come out for a long term.

AllHipHop: But what prompted you to do this series?

Rapman: I love the genre. I’m a superhero nerd. I used to collect the comics. I used to have X-Men cards, but I never understood the reasoning behind the cape and I never saw us. So I wanted to put black people in that space. Black people in Sci-Fi. If you look, take away Marvel and DC, what all Black cross sci-fi do you have?

AllHipHop: Absolutely nothing

Rapman: Until now. Now, you got “Supacell,” you know what I’m saying?

AllHipHop: Now I will say there are a few others. Back in the day there was a comic called Brother Man and some others.

Rapman: Live-action film.

AllHipHop: None.

Rapman No, that’s not common. Our people got super strengths.

AllHipHop: Super speed in real life too, by the way.

Rapman: Telekinesis. Our people are flying. It’s a whole different thing.

AllHipHop: Yeah. Now if you go far back enough, some people will say that Superman is derivative of Egyptian culture and they have “borrowed.”

Rapman: I think I’ve had things like that before.

AllHipHop: So let’s get back to the Hulk (follow up from previous chat). So I’m just going to tell you that they did the Hulk dirty. I’m upset about it to this day.

Rapman: Yeah. I can’t rock with the Hulk no more.

AllHipHop: I can!

Rapman: I know. I don’t mind losing the fight, but at least go through the fight, man.

AllHipHop: They did ’em dirty, because he should have hadhe should have redeemed himself in “End Game.” 

Rapman: Yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent..

AllHipHop: So how is it being signed to Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, and how did that even happen?

Rapman: It’s great being with them. I’ve been with them since 2018, so they’re like family now. I was putting out short YouTube videos that were musically narrated shorts on YouTube. I’ve done one “Shiro’s Story” (2018) and he went viral throughout the whole world, the UK. A guy called Jeymes Samuel, who’s a filmmaker as well. Good friends of Jay-Z.

AllHipHop: The Bullitts is my dude, man. He’s so cool.

Rapman: Yeah, The Bullitts. There you go. Then he saw it, loved it, sent it to Jay-Z and TyTy. Literally three, four weeks later, I’m in Jay-Z’s House signed to Roc Nation.

AllHipHop: Yeah, yeah, no doubt. So you call yourself rap man. Yeah, I know why, but tell people why you have that name.

Rapman: Oh yeah. I used to rap a lot and I used to rap stories. I was a proper storytelling rapper. So all my songs, that was my forte. And I realized I was doing that because I got [the name] from. I couldn’t make films or TV. So, I was doing what I could do – turning these little short films and putting them on YouTube. So because of that, I just ended up getting a nickname, Rapman, because in the UK rap wasn’t a popular culture at the time. It was at that point when I started doing it. So they call me Raps now for short, but the storytelling is still the same. We are still it on a bigger platform now.

AllHipHop: So do you have any plans to maybe do a comic book version of the Supacell or action figures?

Rapman: As I was saying, I want the costumes to become costumes for comical and costumes for Halloween. You see how “Squid Games,” that’s the Halloween outfit now. I’m hoping that if the show does what it’s meant to do, we can have Supacell costumes coming. That’s the plan, man.

AllHipHop: Definitely. I can’t wait to see it. No. So let me get your top five superheroes of all time now. You can’t have your own in there.

Rapman: Take out Supacell. I’ll say Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Hulk, Black Panther.

AllHipHop: Yeah. What are your wishes for the future of the genre of Sci-Fi, black people, Afrofuturism.

Rapman: I think we need more shows like this. I’m over here promoting the show of an all-Black sci-fi and you take away DC and Marvel, there’s no others. There needs to be a plethora of them. I’m hoping that this starts to be a little side effect of more and more to come. And we’ve got Black people in space, we’ve got Black people with powers, we’ve got Black people ripping and running on the moon, whatever it is. I want there to be more black people in space. Yeah.

The release date for “Supacell” season 2 has not been announced at press time.