Senegalese writer, director, producer, and actress, Issa Rae has been nominated for the 2017 Best Actress in a TV Comedy or Musical for her performance on HBO’s Insecure. She nabbed a nomination in the category last year.
Rae produces, writes, and acts in Insecure, a show starring two millennial Black women as they navigate their way through work, family, friends, and relationships in Los Angeles. The show has received several awards, including AFI Awards and African-American Film Critics Association (AAFCA) awards. Rae has also won Best Actress nods from BET and Black Reel Awards for Television for her performance in the show.
Sharing her vision for the show, Issa has said: “We’re just trying to convey that people of color are relatable. This is not a hood story. This is about regular people living life”.
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Issa Rae first rose to prominence with her highly popular show Awkward Black Girl, a web series she wrote, acted in, and produced on Youtube about the experiences of young awkward black girls, to over 20 million views and over 260,000 subscribers.
Now, with almost a decade of work under her belt, the writer and entertainer produces other shows by black creators on her Youtube platform. Issa is also the writer of the New York Times best-selling memoir, the Misadventures of an Awkward Black Girl, a Forbes 20 under 30 Fellow, and an Essence Magazine Game Changer.
A proud African, Issa often shares her experiences about growing up in Senegal as a child in juxtaposition to her experiences in America. She once joked with comedian Conan O’Brien that her “African friends assumed her life was like ‘Beverly Hills 90210’ and her American friends assumed she had a lion”.
All the best to Rae on this nomination. As Issa said on the Emmy carpet this year, we too are “Rooting For Everyone Black”.