How Lena Waithe and Phylicia Rashad blend personal truth into 7th season of “The Chi”

The most-streamed season premiere in “The Chi” history has brought together an talented duo: Emmy winner Lena Waithe and Broadway legend Phylicia Rashad, who are exploring how three generations of Black women navigate love, family and Chicago’s South Side in the hit Showtime drama’s seventh season.

The drama series, which follows characters from different walks of life on Chicago’s South Side, has been renewed for an eighth season following the most-streamed season premiere in the show’s history.

“You can’t make a TV show without a loyal audience, and you also want to create characters that people fall in love with, that they can relate to,” said Waithe, who serves as creator and executive producer. “Being a daughter of Chicago, we understand the responsibility of making sure people know that Chicago is a community.”

Rashad, who won Tony, Emmy and NAACP Image Awards throughout her career, joined the cast this season as Renee, a mother dealing with family dynamics including her ex-husband’s attempts at reconciliation. Rashad recently made her Broadway directorial debut with a production that earned six Tony Award nominations.

 The 76-year-old actress praised the welcoming atmosphere on set.

“Everybody was so bright and warm and welcoming,” Rashad said. “We had fun at that dinner table.”

Waithe said she specifically wrote Rashad’s character to explore generational perspectives on relationships and social issues, drawing from her own experience growing up in a three-generation household.

“I kind of found that even though we were all speaking English, we were speaking different languages,” Waithe said, “We encountered three different countries and three different worlds.”

“The Chi” airs Friday nights on Paramount+ with Showtime and is produced by Showtime, a division of Paramount Global, which also owns CBS.