23-Year-Old Aida Osman Is Leaping Into The Light, As Co-Lead In New Issa Rae Show And One Of HBO’s Youngest Executives

If you had told Aida Osman while she was growing up in Lincoln, Nebraska, that she would be co-starring in and working as executive story editor for Issa Rae’s new HBO Max half-hour comedy series, Rap Sh*t, serving as a story editor for HBO’s Betty and writer for Netflix’s Big Mouth, and cohosting Crooked Media’s popular podcast, Keep It — all by the age of 23 — she would have replied, “Yeah right, in my dreams.”

This didn’t feel like a feasible reality for a young, black, non-binary aspiring writer who grew up in very white, rural Nebraska.

“You have to be able to modulate and understand yourself through this kind of isolating experience,” Osman shares. “But it’s what matured me and it’s what made me want to be a writer. And it’s also what made me understand perspective. So yes, I think my background gave me a lot of comedic understanding, because it’s such a laughable life — ‘a black queer Muslim Nebraskan’ sounds like a punchline.”

While Osman’s career trajectory and current resume seem like the plot for fictional comedy, nothing about how she got there was a joke.

Professionally, Osman has always felt most comfortable working in the shadows and not basking in the limelight, in front of the camera. But now that’s about to change as she’s leaping from the writing rooms to the main stage, with her most recent starring role in Issa Rae’s upcoming, Rap Sh*t.

(Amazingly and serendipitously, the first story I published for this column in ForbesWomen featured an interview with Issa Rae, the creator, writer and star of HBO’s Award-Winning Insecure. A full circle moment, as Osman shared that Rae is her inspiration, as a black comedic screenwriter.)

Osman’s come up from rural Nebraska to one of the youngest executives working on any HBO series, as executive story editor, is inspiring in itself.

“You don’t really understand that you are ‘othered’ until you understand the systems in which you are being ‘othered’. I was definitely the only black kid at the whole elementary school, except for my older brother, who was a year above me — but we were the only black kids at school. And we grew up on the cusp of where it was damn near farmland, not further downtown. My first job was working in cornfields. ‘Farm adjacent’, that’s what I called myself.”

Although she always leaned into her natural creative side, with musical and writing talent, Osman originally applied for law school and was accepted. “I was on my way to go to law school, but I had taken off a semester, in my final semester. I wanted to take a break and figure out what I wanted to do. I was going to defer law school for a year and then go back after finishing my semester. But during that time off, I fell so in love with comedy and standup, that there was no way I was going to go study corporate law. So I made my mom a promise. I was like, ‘Mom, give me one year.’”

And sure enough, Osman proved she could make her dreams happen within that year.

“I wanted to be a writer for most of my life — I didn’t know in what capacity though. I studied English and philosophy in college. And the comedian thing didn’t become apparent to me until I took a semester off from writing and started doing standup. And that changed my whole life. I worked at a bar that had a standup night. Before that I had no concept of what standup was, I didn’t watch standup comedy.”

She started by working the standup circuit in Nebraska, and then headed to New York City. At the same time, Osman was also building a strong fan base on Twitter thanks to a viral video.

“I got a message from someone on Twitter that was like, I want to manage you. And I was like, great, what’s a manager? And I got to meet all these different production companies. And she’s still my manager today.”

(Osman is officially under the strategic guidance of Mo Kheir. Osman also continues to be represented by Tovah Silbermann of Mosaic, as well as WME.)

“Once I started learning more about what standup comedians do, it made sense to become a screenwriter. I did my research and realized that most of the people in writers’ rooms were standups and it felt like a natural pipeline. So the sooner I got into standup and became proficient in it, the sooner I would get hired for a TV show, and it happened like that — exactly that way.”

A role in Atlanta for Wild ‘n Out was followed by a writing gig for Complex in the summer of 2019, while living in New York City. Osman starred in a Complex web series, called Group Therapy. (The producers recognized her on-screen presence: “I actually got to star in the web series, which was really encouraging to me — to hear, you know, not only are you a writer, you are on screen talent. You need to know that, you need to appreciate that and accept that”.)

Osman then got the cohosting gig on the podcast, Keep It on Crooked Media, and moved to Los Angeles. She is incredibly humble when talking about the success of Keep It: “We’re in a Webby category with Oprah! And I’m like, What is happening? What is happening? Yeah, it’s one of the top pop culture podcasts out right now!”

While in L.A., Osman began working the standup circuit, where there are often TV writers in the audience, scouting for television shows. That’s how a local comedian who worked on Netflix’s Big Mouth, found her. (The “not for kids” animated show is co-created by Nick Kroll and features top-tier comedic talent and writers like John Mulaney, Maya Rudolph, and Jordan Peele, to name just a few).

“I got hired very quickly. So it felt frictionless. And sometimes I feel guilt about how easy it was to get into the TV writing world. But then I’m a black non-binary queer, like, it’s difficult for me — it’s okay if I got a job easily!”

But it wasn’t all frictionless when Osman was first starting in New York City:

“You know, there were times in New York, when I went to go visit where I didn’t have a place to stay. And I was sleeping on the train! I’m like, let me just zoom past that. Because that wasn’t the best time, but you know, when you’re so hungry for something, you’re like, I just want to do standup shows, so yes, I’ll sleep on the D train a couple of nights. Not a big deal. And then you realize in retrospect, that’s a crazy thing to do!”

Osman’s writing credit on Big Mouth gave her clout, while her life and experience in New York City had given her street cred — Osman was now on the radar as a top TV writing talent.

Osman infuses her personality into her work. When it comes to writing for Betty, it gives her the opportunity to add her personal layers into each character: “So the people at HBO, I think had just started to pay attention to me as well, and wanted me to write for a show that was about a young woman in New York. And I’m very aware of the skateboarding culture in all cities. The show is an ensemble show, so you really get to investigate multiple different characters, which is a passion of mine. They’re all different. They all kind of have a facet of who I was. And it solves the earlier issue of me being like, how do you write a pansexual, queer black Muslim? Betty takes each of those things and puts them in one of the girls, and I can speak to one chamber of my heart through each of them.”

Osman never saw someone who looked like her, doing the things she dreamed of as a young girl in Nebraska.

“I grew up seeing gender queer people in fashion and media, but they were all white, skinny, tall, androgynous people. And I hope that through my existence and through my passion for getting on-screen roles and stepping into fashion and being in the music world, that people will start to see that non-binary people look ‘femme presenting’, and black and fat and punk or whatever it is — we’re just alternative forms of non-binary people.”

As for having a seat at the table as a young, black queer creative, on several hit shows:

“I want young creatives to know that we’re in a black Renaissance. We’re in a black rush right now where it’s important and vital to get black stories out. And I would encourage everyone who is young and of color, and who wants to write, to figure out what their story is as quickly as possible, so that they have a perspective to write from. I would also encourage people to just do it, and also to invest in themselves. So that’s something that took me a long time to figure out is, that if I saved the money, and then put up the money, and then bought something that was representative of the thing I wanted to do, I was more likely to succeed in that thing. Like, go buy that tablet, go buy those speakers, go buy that mini keyboard, go buy that guitar, go buy the thing that monetarily represents what it is you want to do, not only will you have the tech to do it now, but you will have the self-efficacy because oh, I bought that thing. Now I believe in myself, and I have to use it. And it’s just like a journey in that way.

As for upcoming goals? Well, this one will take Osman back to New York City, where her career began.

“Maybe I’ll be hosting Saturday Night Live one day. My dream is to be a host, the musical guest and a cast member at one point.”

As Osman proves, there are no limits when it comes to dreams.

“Live your field. Don’t shy away from it and be adamant in the title you give yourself. That’s another thing that took me forever to figure out! I’d be like, I think I write, but do you know how long it took me to put ‘comedian’ in my bio? Pick your title and own it and put it to your name. Say your name and that you do this. And once you say it enough, people just got to believe you.”