The first piece of music that Nella listens to on on the subway is the 1998 song "Gimme Some More" by Busta Rhymes. This song famously sampled some tension-filled violin riffs from Bernard Herrmann's score to Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 horror classic Psycho. This music quickly signals that this will be a story that tips toward the horror genre, told through a Black lens.
In 2021, when Zakiya Dalila Harris released The Other Black Girl, Harris listed the other works that she considered to be the book's main influences in interviews in The Guardian and the New York Times. These include the movie Get Out (written and directed by Jordan Peele), the novels Kindred by Octavia E. Butler, Toni Morrison's Sula, The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin, Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Passing by Nella Larsen.
Rashida Jones, a co-showrunner and cowriter of The Other Black Girl, played a regular role (Karen Filippelli) on another TV series that focused on the foibles and indignities of corporate office life, the sitcom The Office. Another regular from The Office, Brian Baumgartner (Kevin Malone) plays Colin Franklin on The Other Black Girl.