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The Simpsons are going Hip Hop. Next January the long-running animated sitcom will air a Hip Hop themed episode featuring Tariji P. Henson.

Entertainment Weekly reports:

The animated Fox comedy will offer up an hourlong episode (including commercial time) that is a hip-hop homage to The Great Gatsby and features such guest voices as Taraji P. Henson and Keegan-Michael Key, the network announced at the TCA Summer Press Tour on Monday.

This mega-episode — which is titled “The Great Phatsby” and airs in January — also centers on that merciless, geriatric tycoon who owns the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. “The Great Phatsby” riffs on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic Roaring Twenties novel The Great Gatsbywhile chronicling the destruction of a friendship between Burns and an enigmatic hip-hop mogul named Jay G. (Jay G. Jay Gatsby. Get it?)

Later in the episode — which also sees Lisa get a wealthy boyfriend and Marge open a boutique store — Empire star Henson voices a character named Praline (Praline. Cookie. Get it?) “She plays a Simpsons version of Cookie,” says Selman. “She teams up with Burns and Homer and Bart and our all-star team of rappers to help get revenge on Jay G.” Also on the revenge squad is rapper Jazzy James (Key), one of Jay G’s original collaborators who has a score to settle from 20 years ago.

Matt Selman tells EW, “This was just going to be a regular episode, but the table read went so well, in a fit of passion and excitement and ambition and excess, we decided to supersize it. And we haven’t done a huge amount of stories in the world of hip-hop and rap culture, so we just went for it.”

The Simpsons is entering its 28th season this September. They will also reach 600 episodes this fall.

Photo: Screenshot