ItsTheReal Ink Deal With MTV For New Scripted TV Show

Eight years ago, we began putting out weekly sketch videos that commented on the goings-on of the music and culture we loved: hip-hop. Slowly but surely, we grew a large and loyal audience who appreciated our voice and specific and funny point of view. Five years ago, we went from sketches with Cam'Ron and Max B to conducting short-form absurdist interviews with Stevie Wonder and Dwight Howard to hosting podcasts with Just Blaze and Jojo. Two and a half years ago, we put together a mixtape with DJ Drama, where we rapped alongside Bun B, Freeway, Maino, Lil Jon and Hannibal Buress, called Urbane Outfitters, Vol. 1. We performed at Bonnaroo, and our listening party was at Diddy's personal studio, sponsored by Cîroc. And we're proud to announce that last week, we signed papers selling a scripted TV show to MTV. It's co-produced by Get Lifted and Legendary Pictures, and our show runners are Jeremy Miller and Dan Cohn. It's written by us, it stars us, and is executive produced by us and John Legend. Stay tuned, cause it's gonna be pretty exciting where we are a year from now!

A photo posted by ItsTheReal (@itsthereal) on Oct 14, 2015 at 7:00am PDT

Eric and Jeff Rosenthal, the brothers who make up hip-hop comedy duo ItsTheReal, announced this morning that they've inked a deal with MTV to executive produce, write, and star in a still-untitled scripted TV show, which will be co-executive produced by John Legend. It's the culmination of eight years of YouTube parodies, celebrity interviews, collaborations with real rappers, and episodes of their podcast, A Waste of Time with ItsTheReal.

In a phone interview with The FADER, the brothers said that the show would be a fusion of everything they've done in the past, and described it as "a hip-hop Louie." They also added that it will "take a lot of cues from Rick Ross' MMG tour videos." Jeff described the show as being about "two signed rappers sitting on the shelf of a major music label just trying to get hot enough to get our album out."

The pair actually pitched the idea two or three years ago, but nothing got going until they signed with their manager Ty Stiklorius, who is a partner at Legend's Get Lifted Productions. Get Lifted and Legendary Pictures (The Dark Knight trilogy and The Hangover movies) will produce the show and Jeremy Miller and Dan Cohn are already signed up as show-runners. (A production timeline is still being worked out.)

"It's an extension of everything that we built over the last eight years so it's very authentic," Eric said. Jeff agreed and chimed in that, "We feel these aspects come together pretty neatly in a project that we're going to be very proud of."