Rapper/actress Awakwafina, recently seen stealing scene after scene as Peik Lin Goh in the box office smash Crazy Rich Asians, will host the upcoming October 6 episode of Saturday Night Live.
By our rough count, that makes Awkwafina -- aka Queens-bred Nora Lum -- one of only a handful of Asian American hosts in the perennial NBC sketch show's 43-plus-season, 851-episode history. In fact, it's been eighteen years since an Asian American woman hosted SNL: Lucy Liu appeared on December 16, 2000.
Saturday Night Live officially announced the lineup Thursday on Twitter, sharing a photo of Post-It notes listing the first three hosts and musical acts of the upcoming 44th season.
The first three shows of the season! #SNL pic.twitter.com/YRH76gBDsn
— Saturday Night Live - SNL (@nbcsnl) September 27, 2018
The announcement a few weeks after Saturday Night Live posed the question to fans on social medai: "Who should be #SNLhost?" I was among the loud chorus of folks who threw down for Constance Wu, but Awkwafina was a close second and certainly makes a ton of sense.
Between her hilarious breakout turns in not one, but two summer box office hits -- Crazy Rich Asians and Ocean's 8 -- and the release of her latest record In Fina We Trust, on top of the Saturday Night Live hosting gig, it's pretty safe to say that Awkwafina is having a pretty damn great year.
Awkwafina's episode of Saturday Night Live, with musical guest Travis Scott, airs October 5 on NBC.
