It might seem like she has the Midas touch, but Issa Rae knows it’s not always that easy to make magic happen and become a success, so she’s making sure to help others who are following in her path.
“I get irritated when others are in a position where they can help others and they don’t pay it forward,” Issa told Sister 2 Sister. “I think that’s the most important part.”
The The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl creator is putting actions behind those words with Color Creative, an initiative that gives “great writers of color a platform and an audience.”
First, the brainchild of Jahmela Biggs, is one of the projects Issa is supporting. It’s a Webseries about falling in love.
“I really, really liked it. It has ‘90s sensibilities in the way that I enjoyed Love Jones so much and it reminded me a lot of it,” the Exhale co-host said. The third episode of the Web series premieres Wednesday on Issa’s YouTube channel.
In addition to creating and supporting Webseries and co-hosting Exhale on Aspire, Issa said she’s also working on a book, a collection of essays. As if that’s not enough, she’s still in the process of producing a series for HBO.
It may seem like Issa mapped an uncharted road to success intentionally, by launching the Awkward Black Girl series years ago, but she said her rise to the top was sort of unexpected.
“I wish it was part of my master plan. I wish I was that smart,” she said. “I’m just taking it in stride. I was very surprised at how fast it did take off. You just don’t expect that magnitude. I never expected to have all these opportunities continue and that’s what I’m most appreciative for,” she said, thanking her fans.
“I have a ridiculously supportive viewership and fan base. They’re so dedicated to our success and I love that,” she said.
article by Tracy Scott via s2smagazine.com
Posts tagged as “HBO”
When Mickalene Thomas, 42, describes her short film, Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Girl, as a “moving portrait of my mother,” it’s meant both literally and figuratively. The 30-minute feature on Thomas’s mother, Sandra Bush, a beautiful statuesque preacher’s daughter from Camden, New Jersey, who has appeared in many of Thomas’s paintings, is rich in detail, provocative and endearing. It chronicles Bush’s life in her own words as she becomes a young mother and wife, a survivor of abuse and addiction, the reigning “mother of the art-world” and ultimately a warrior for her waning health.
“What I love about my mother is that she had a never give up spirit. Even when she was really sick and dying, you can see in the film that she didn’t want to die. She had hope and faith that she was going to survive,” says Thomas. Sandra Bush passed on November 7, 2012, shortly after Thomas’ first solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, where the Happy Birthday film debuted.
“The reason why I say this is a portrait of my mother is because for me it’s like looking at a painting—you don’t always have all of the answers, instead there’s lots of questions. It’s very open ended and that’s what makes life beautiful and mysterious and exhilirating and exciting and adventurous because it’s so tangible and intangible at the same time.”
Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Girl airs starting today on HBO.
article by Norell Giancana via bet.com
“The reason why I say this is a portrait of my mother is because for me it’s like looking at a painting—you don’t always have all of the answers, instead there’s lots of questions. It’s very open ended and that’s what makes life beautiful and mysterious and exhilirating and exciting and adventurous because it’s so tangible and intangible at the same time.”
Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Girl airs starting today on HBO.
article by Norell Giancana via bet.com
Beyhive, pat yourselves on the back. Thanks to your unwavering support of Queen Bey, according to MTV News, at the end of the Mrs. Carter Tour Beyoncé will be highest paid Black musician of all time.
According to estimates, the Mrs. Carter tour is expected to make well over $200 million which would make it Beyonce’s most successful tour ever and lead to her being crowned the highest paid Black musician of all time. This is on top of the Mrs. Carter tour already taking the honor of the highest-grossing concert by a female artist in 2013.
As MTV news points out, this feat would be an especially big one for Bey considering she’s the director and executive producer of the tour, via her production company, Parkwood Entertainment. That same company is also responsible for creating her self-titled visual album and her 2013 HBO documentary Life Is But A Dream.
The Mrs. Carter tour wraps March 27 in Portugal — unless Bey decides to extend it again — so it won’t be long before we see if she makes her mark.
See more at: http://madamenoire.com/402663/beyonce-highest-paid-black-musician-time-end-mrs-carter-tour/#sthash.KjVKdH5U.dpuf
Dwayne Johnson is headed to HBO‘s primetime. The pay cable network has picked up to series half-hour pilot Ballers toplined by the wrestling and movie star in his first major series gig. He is executive producing the series with his Pain & Gain co-star Mark Wahlberg; Wahlberg’s manager/frequent producing partner Steve Levinson, on whose original idea the project is based; showrunner Even Reilly; and Peter Berg, who directed the pilot.
Written by Levinson in his pilot-writing debut, Ballers is exploring the lives of a group of former and current football players. Johnson stars as Spencer Strasmore, a retired athlete. The cast includes Omar Benson Miller as Charles, an affable former pro athlete who is searching for his next career; Denzel Washington’s son John David Washington as Ricky, a highly competitive and highly spiritual pro athlete; Rob Corddry as Joe, a financial advisor who tries really hard to fit in; Troy Garity as Jason, a top-tier sports agent; Donovan Carter as Vernon, a deeply family-oriented pro athlete; Jazmyn Simon as Julie, wife of an ex-pro athlete; Taylor Cole as Michaels, an ESPN sideline reporter who is romantically involved with Spencer; and LeToya Luckett as Tina, widow to one of Spencer’s closest friends.
The series pickup for Ballers, which will start production later this year, comes on the heels of the series order on Tuesday of another half-hour project with marquee stars from a top director and producer, The Brink, starring Jack Black and Tim Robbins. Jay Roach, who directed the pilot, and Jerry Weintraub are executive producing. Both series have been touted as capable of attracting broad audiences, something Johnson already has done in primetime as his WWE alter ego The Rock and on the big screen. He next reprises his role on the Fast & Furious 7 movie, whose production has been delayed by the death of star Paul Walker, and also has feature Hercules and TNT reality series Wake Up Call coming up.
Aficionados of Black cinema and television arts are ecstatic about the announcement of a TV deal involving Black & Sexy TV’s hit web series The Couple and powerhouse cable television network HBO. Rumor has it the deal will also involve legendary filmmaker Spike Lee as an executive producer. Black & Sexy co-creator Numa Perrier recently confirmed to JETmag.com that the Web superstars did clinch a deal with HBO.
News first leaked Monday at Sundance Film Festival during the Blackhouse Digital Panel, which included Black & Sexy TV founders Dennis Dortch and Numa Perrier, actor Jay Ellis (The Game), Lena Waithe (Dear White People), Edwin Benton and was moderated by Brickson Diamond. The deal was revealed while Diamond and Dortch discussed the task of how to maneuver creative content to new platforms.
For those unfamiliar, the Black & Sexy TV original web series, starring Numa Perrier and Desmond Faison, follows a young Black couple, chronicling the everyday nuances of dating and living together in a hilariously fresh way. Some may recall the unprecedented 2012 Kickstarter campaign that surpassed an original $25,000 goal to raise more than $32,000 in an effort to turn the web series into a film.
Black & Sexy TV offers original programming that is intentionally and unapologetically for us and is responsible for creating breakout web series hits such as Roomieloverfriends—which is also produced by Awkward Black Girl’s Issa Rae, That Guy and a new docu-series Yellow, which explores the “pleasures and problems of the light skinned Black man.”
The development deal with HBO is said to still be in its early stages.
article by Marissa Wallace via jetmag.com
The DJ that has brought dance music fans songs including “Feel So Close” and “We Found Love” is making a move towards the small screen. According to Variety.com, HBO is developing a half-hour comedy with Calvin Harris that takes place in the world of electronic music entitled Higher. Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh on board to write the pilot, with a starry lineup of executive producers including Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, Jay Z, James Lassiter, Tyran Smith, Miguel Melendez, Mark Gillespie and Dean Wilson, along with Harris.
No word yet on the plot of Higher, which will hail from Overbrook Entertainment, Three Six Zero Group and Marcy Media. Jay-Z and Will Smith have previously collaborated on the Broadway production Fela, and are also teamed on forthcoming feature musical Annie.
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson
No word yet on the plot of Higher, which will hail from Overbrook Entertainment, Three Six Zero Group and Marcy Media. Jay-Z and Will Smith have previously collaborated on the Broadway production Fela, and are also teamed on forthcoming feature musical Annie.
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson
Beyoncé pulled off a coup late last Thursday night when she released a terrific self-titled “visual album” – containing 14 songs, each with an accompanying video – straight to iTunes with zero advance warning or fanfare. The record is expected to easily top the weekly album chart despite being released midway through the stanza, and according to Apple, the album had already sold more than 800,000 digital copies by Monday morning. Not only does Beyoncé rank as the year’s most accomplished and engaging mainstream pop album by a rather laughable margin, but its calculatedly shrugged-off release strategy can’t help but read as an imperious kiss-off toward the singer’s competitors for the 2013 crown — Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake, Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry, and even her husband Jay Z — all of whom worked up gallons of sweat and employed every eyeball-grabbing trick in the book to move their product, only to be upstaged by Beyoncé’s abrupt digital data-dump.
“I’ve been climbing up the walls, ’cause all this shit I hear is boring,” she sings on the album’s second track, by way of explanation. “All these record labels, boring.”
Of course, like Radiohead’s “name-your-price” release of In Rainbows in 2007, this is the sort of trick that can only be pulled off by an artist who has already spent decades tirelessly feeding the publicity machine, and it’s unlikely Beyoncé’s December surprise will “change the music business” any more than Radiohead’s did. Competition is Beyoncé’s lifeblood, and coming off of the commercially disappointing 4, it’s easy to see this as a gauntlet thrown down. Far more personal, confessional, and flat-out filthy than anything the singer has released in the past, Beyoncé offers some striking windows into the star’s personal life, while audio archival snippets from her early years shuttling between beauty contests and kiddie singing competitions are sprinkled throughout, hinting at the lifetime of rigorously maintained perfection and pageantry to which much of this record is a reaction.
Of course, like Radiohead’s “name-your-price” release of In Rainbows in 2007, this is the sort of trick that can only be pulled off by an artist who has already spent decades tirelessly feeding the publicity machine, and it’s unlikely Beyoncé’s December surprise will “change the music business” any more than Radiohead’s did. Competition is Beyoncé’s lifeblood, and coming off of the commercially disappointing 4, it’s easy to see this as a gauntlet thrown down. Far more personal, confessional, and flat-out filthy than anything the singer has released in the past, Beyoncé offers some striking windows into the star’s personal life, while audio archival snippets from her early years shuttling between beauty contests and kiddie singing competitions are sprinkled throughout, hinting at the lifetime of rigorously maintained perfection and pageantry to which much of this record is a reaction.
Steve McQueen, director of the Oscar-worthy slavery feature 12 Years A Slave, is making his first foray into television with another project featuring a black protagonist. McQueen has teamed with World War Z co-writer Matthew Michael Carnahan, hip-hop mogul/producer Russell Simmons and Oscar-winning producers Iain Canning and Emile Sherman (The King’s Speech) on the drama project, which is in development at HBO.
Co-written by McQueen and Carnahan and to be directed by McQueen, the untitled drama is carrying McQueen’s signature style of provocative filmmaking and is described as an exploration of a young African-American man’s experience entering New York high society, with a past that may not be what it seems. We hear the project, described by some as “Six Degrees Of Separation meets Shame“, 
is being fast-tracked, with casting choices already being explored for a potential shoot before McQueen starts his next movie. McQueen, Carnahan and Simmons executive produce with Canning and Sherman. Canning and Sherman produced McQueen’s second feature, Shame, with Canning also serving as an executive producer on McQueen’s feature debut, Hunger, which won the Camera d’Or in Cannes. McQueen’s third feature, 12 Years A Slave, got off to a strong box office start and is considered a prime Oscar contender. Simmons has been stepping up producing efforts through his recently launched RSTV, which has a first-look deal with HBO. 12 Years A Slave writer John Ridley also just set up a drama series project, a racially-charged murder drama at ABC.
article by Nellie Andreeva and Mike Fleming Jr. via Deadline.com
Larry Wilmore and Issa Rae have teamed to co-write a comedy series project for HBO, with Rae set to star. The project focuses on the awkward experiences and racy tribulations of a modern day African-American woman. These are also themes Rae has tackled in her successful webseries, The Misadventures Of Awkward Black Girl. Wilmore will executive produce with 3 Arts, which manages both him and Rae, while Rae will co-executive produce.
Rae, recently named to Forbes’ “30 under 30” list, is writing a memoir/collection of personal essays to be published by HarperCollins. Last season, she penned a comedy script for ABC and Shonda Rhimes’ Shondaland. The Bernie Mac Show creator Wilmore, repped by United Talent Agency and attorney Tom Hoberman, is a correspondent on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show and recently did two interview specials for Showtime entitled Larry Wilmore’s Race, Religion And Sex. Rae is represented by UTA and John Meigs Jr.
article by Nellie Andreeva via deadline.com
Today it was announced that John Legend and his Get Lifted Film Company have teamed up with the Showtime network for a half-hour comedy. The untitled project will take place in the world of high-profile music managers and will be penned by Austin Winsberg (Gossip Girl, Jake in Progress), who will also executive produce alongside Legend and Get Lifted Film.
Since making an exclusive deal last summer with Universal Cable Productions to develop TV series for cable and broadcast networks, Legend and his company have been busy. It sold its first project to Fox in October – a comedy project, which will center on a guy in his early 20s who becomes the guardian to his own siblings, while having to manage his fledgling career as well as a social life, and is said to be loosely based on John Legend’s years growing up.Earlier this year, Legend sold a second project, a crime drama, to the USA network. Titled The Edge, it was described as a crime drama about “an idealistic Harvard Business School graduate named Jeff Cross who joins a progressive financial firm called Edgeton Global (aka The Edge), where he discovers the company’s dark secrets while becoming entangled in a high-stakes FBI investigation.”
Since making an exclusive deal last summer with Universal Cable Productions to develop TV series for cable and broadcast networks, Legend and his company have been busy. It sold its first project to Fox in October – a comedy project, which will center on a guy in his early 20s who becomes the guardian to his own siblings, while having to manage his fledgling career as well as a social life, and is said to be loosely based on John Legend’s years growing up.Earlier this year, Legend sold a second project, a crime drama, to the USA network. Titled The Edge, it was described as a crime drama about “an idealistic Harvard Business School graduate named Jeff Cross who joins a progressive financial firm called Edgeton Global (aka The Edge), where he discovers the company’s dark secrets while becoming entangled in a high-stakes FBI investigation.”