Antu Yacob was born in Dire Dawa, Ethiopia. When she was 5 years old, her family moved to San Francisco, CA and she was raised there until the age of 15, when she moved to Minneapolis, MN with her mother and younger siblings. She received a BA degree from the University of Minnesota-Duluth and her MFA in Acting from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in NJ.