Rae, Issa
1985-present · Contribution: 2011-present
Created the YouTube web series “The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl” in 2011 after networks wanted to make Black-led content “less black,” crowdfunding its second season herself before it led to HBO's “Insecure” and her own production studio
Portraits are AI-generated interpretations, not photographs.
Impact on the world
After Hollywood repeatedly told Rae her stories about awkward, relatable Black women weren't marketable — one network reportedly proposed replacing her as lead with a lighter-skinned, straight-haired actress — she self-produced “Awkward Black Girl” for YouTube in 2011, writing, filming, and editing it herself and crowdfunding over $50,000 to keep the second season alive when no studio would back it. The series' success led to HBO's “Insecure” (2016-2021), which Rae co-created and starred in to multiple Emmy and Golden Globe nominations, fundamentally shifting how South Los Angeles and Black women's friendships were portrayed on television; she went on to found the production company Hoorae Media in 2020, encompassing television, film, a record label (Raedio), and a marketing division, becoming one of the entertainment industry's most influential Black-owned studios and a consistent advocate for other Black creators' work.
Life & background
Born Jo-Issa Rae Diop on January 12, 1985, Rae graduated from Stanford University in 2007 with a degree in African and African-American studies, where she founded a theater company doing adaptations of Spike Lee films and made an early mockumentary web series about dorm life. After a brief, unsatisfying theater fellowship in New York, she began “Awkward Black Girl” in 2011, publishing her memoir of the same name in 2015 to New York Times bestseller status; she has since appeared in films including “The Hate U Give,” “Barbie,” and “American Fiction,” and has used her platform to support the ACLU, Black Lives Matter, and organizations advocating police accountability. She co-owns several Black-owned coffee shops in Los Angeles under the Hilltop brand and married businessman Louis Diame in 2021.
Sources
- The Root; Black America Web; Chicago Maroon
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