Issa Rae entered the entertainment industry as a breath of fresh air. Rae is an American actress, comedian, writer, and producer who had first gained public recognition with her work on a YouTube web series by the name of Awkward Black Girl. Rae has built her career by developing her YouTube channel since 2011. Her channel features web series, short films, and content created by Black people thus also acting as a channel for Black people to communicate and showcase their work to the World. She is most well-known for having co-created, co-written, and additionally starred in HBO’s TV series Insecure.
She has also starred in TV series as well as in feature films.
She has also been named on the Time 100 list of the Most Influential People in the World in 2018 as well as in 2022.
What was Issa Rae’s early life like?
Jo-Issa Rae Diop was born on 12th January 1985 in Los Angeles, California, United States. She was born to parents Abdoulaye and Delyna. She has 4 siblings. As a child, she lived with her family in Daker, Senegal for a while. She spent some years in Potomac, Maryland, and participated in street hockey and swimming with her Jewish friends. Rae’s family moved back to Los Angeles when Rae was in the 6th grade in an affluent neighborhood called View Park-Windsor Hills. Rae graduated from the King Drew Magnet High School of Medicine and Science.
It was here that she had developed an interest in acting. After school, she went on to attend the prestigious Stanford University. Rae graduated in 2007 with a Bachelor’s degree in African and African-American studies. While in college, she kept working on her acting skills. She also made music videos, and wrote and directed college plays. She had also created a mock reality series called Dorm Diaries. It was during her stay at Stanford, that Rae met Tracy Oliver who assisted her in producing Awkward Black Girl as well as starring on the show as a character named Nina.
Once college was over, Rae received a theatre fellowship at The Public Theatre located in New York City. Oliver and Rae, who had already become good friends, took classes at the New York Film Academy. While pursuing her education, Rae took up a couple of part-time jobs and struggled to choose between going to law school and business school. However, as luck would have it, she abandoned both options and started to seriously pursue acting once Awkward Black Girls took off in 2011.
How did Issa Rae’s career take off after Awkward Black Girl?
Before Issa Rae had first started her YouTube series, she was torn between what line of the profession she wanted to pursue in the future. However, that changed once awkward Black girl premiered on YouTube in 2011. The played the protagonist J around whose life the series is centered.
The simple premise and the simple narrative (with J being the narrator of the series) of the series made it a relatable program which also helped with the show’s popularity. Rae has also partnered with musician Pharrell Williams to premiere the second season of the series on his YouTube channel called iamOTHER.
Her career took another turn when she started working on a comedy series with Larry Wilmore in 2013. The plot, revolving around some awkward experiences of the modern-day African-American woman, prompted it to be titled Insecure. It was eventually picked up by HBO television and 2015 and eventually broadcasted in 2016 until 2021. Her work earned her a number of nominations including Golden Globe Award nominations and Primetime Emmy nominations.
She published her memoir in 2015 titled The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl. The memoir was a New York Times bestseller.
Rae’s work has extended to feature films with drama films like The Hate U Give (released in 2018), fantasy comedy Little (released in 2019), and rom-com The Lovebirds (released in 2020). She worked as a voice over artist in the Academy Award-winning short film hair Love (released in 2019). She is expected to voice Spider-Woman/Jessica Drew in the upcoming Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, slated to be released in 2023.
What is Issa Rae’s estimated net worth and earnings?
The Awkward Black Girl star has been able to amass great fortune during her decade long career. Her estimated net worth is a huge sum of $4 million with an approximate annual earnings of $1.2 million.