Imani Lewis was pretty good about surrounding herself with some impressive talent when she was just starting out, even when she was playing teenagers. Her debut role as Zulu Girl Tanya in the series The Get Down in 2017 had her working with people like Jimmy Smits and Baz Luhrmann. She then jumped right into the role of Karen on Star from 2017-2018, the Lee Daniels musical series starring Queen Latifah; this is also where her sexy self got down and dirty with some female loving and co-star Brittany O’Grady. Her feature-film premiere was in the role of Aniyah in the indie darling Eighth Grade (2018), written and directed by Bo Burnham. Her well-chosen projects paid off, because she’s been working ever since, in a variety of feature films and series. She played Roxanne Shante in Wu-Tang: An American Saga in 2019, a Hulu bio-series about the formation of the group, and reunited with Queen Latifah in the revival of The Equalizer in 2021. On the big screen, she played Elaine in the Netflix movie The Forty-Year-Old Version (2020), Gloria in Vampires vs. the Bronx (2020), and Ricki Fennel in Killer Among Us (2021). The dark-haired diva picked up fans with her part as Charmaine in the Starz series Hightown in 2020-2021, and even more as Calliope in Netflix’s First Kill in 2022, where she plays a vampire slayer for the new millennium. And if you think she looks familiar, but the name isn’t ringing a bell, you might know her as Mocha Bands, the name she goes by as a rapper and recording artist. In 2018, the New York City native was crowned winner of the “Mic is Open” talent showcase “Pancakes and Poetry.”
