This Barbie is a body-positive queen — and her name is Issa Rae.
07.07.2023 - 18:47 / deadline.com
EXCLUSIVE: Jacob Romero (Greenleaf) and Kyle Bary (Ginny & Georgia) have joined the Season 2 cast of Issa Rae’s Max series Rap Sh!t in key recurring roles.
Rap Sh!t follows two estranged high school friends from Miami, Shawna (Aida Osman) and Mia (KaMillion), who reunite to form a rap group. In their rise to fame, Shawna and Mia find themselves at a pivotal moment in their rap career as they are forced to decide if they will stay true to themselves or conform to the demands of the music industry.
Romero will play Lord AK, a notable musician/rapper from Los Angeles who is headlining a U.S. tour.
Bary will portray Courtney Taylor, an up-and-coming rapper who opens for his friend, Lord AK.
Rap Sh!t is created and executive produced by Rae for Hoorae. Syreeta Singleton serves as showrunner and executive produces alongside Dave Becky and Jonathan Berry for 3 Arts Entertainment and Jim Kleverweis.
Hip-hop duo Yung Miami and JT of City Girls serve as co-executive producers, along with Kevin “Coach K” Lee and Pierre “P” Thomas for Quality Control Films, and Sara Rastogi and Jax Clark for Hoorae Rae’s Audio Everywhere Company, Raedio, handles music supervision for the series.
Bary is known for his role as young Zion Miller in Netflix’s Ginny & Georgia. His other TV credits include the role of Quincy Dupont in Our Kind of People, and a guest-starring role in The Wonder Years, among others. He’s repped by Brillstein Entertainment Partners, CESD, and Gang, Tyre, Ramer, Brown & Passman.
Romero played AJ in OWN’s Greenleaf and will next be seen in Netflix’s upcoming live-action pirate adventure series One Piece. His other TV credits include Grey’s Anatomy, All Rise and The Resident. He is repped by SDB Partners and attorney John
This Barbie is a body-positive queen — and her name is Issa Rae.
Barbie’s America Ferrera recently revealed something that brings her joy — and it definitely threw fans for a loop.
Greta Gerwig’s much-anticipated “Barbie” movie — which opens in theaters on Friday — “Insecure” actress Issa Rae brings some black power to the iconic doll’s pink world as President Barbie.But it was another African-American woman, Louvenia “Kitty” Black Perkins, who designed the first black Barbie — released in 1980 in a box that touted “She’s black! She’s beautiful! She’s dynamite!”Rather than the long, straight blond tresses and pastel-colored fashions of the traditional white Barbie, the brown-skinned beauty rocked short, curly black hair and a glittering red dress complete with matching dangling earrings.“Everything Barbie [typically] was, I wanted to do the opposite,” Black Perkins, now 75 and based in Los Angeles, told The Post. “I knew exactly how black women wear their hair, how their clothes were different from … all of Barbie’s ball gowns.“Basically,” she continued, “I wanted my black Barbie doll to look more like me.” Although Mattel had introduced a black Christie doll as Barbie’s friend in 1968 — and Cara would follow her in the ’70s — this was the first time an African-American bore the name of the leading lady herself.Not relegated to being an “accessory to Barbie,” this was a main-character creation that Black Perkins made on her way to becoming chief designer of the fashion doll line in the mid-’80s.Coming 21 years after Barbie made her debut in 1959, it was a barrier-breaking move for Mattel as doll demand was changing.“The collectors are the ones that really made a difference because every convention that they had, they were looking for black dolls,” said Black Perkins.
Selome Hailu Eight years after the last controversy-flanked season of “Project Greenlight,” the show still thrives on movie magic and the drama that follows. Max debuted a revamped version of the docuseries on July 12, this time led by Issa Rae’s production company Hoorae. Rae, Kumail Nanjiani and Gina Prince-Bythewood act as the official mentors, meeting up to select a female first-time feature filmmaker to direct a script they’ve commissioned by an outside writer. They land on Meko Winbush, a writer, director and editor with extensive experience making trailers and short films. Notably, after the selection process is complete, Rae jets to London to shoot “Barbie” and Nanjiani enters production. Their screentime drops dramatically after the first episode. Prince-Bythewood remains more involved thoughout, regularly making time to call Winbush while editing her own film, 2022’s “The Woman King.”
Leonardo DiCaprio is standing with his fellow actors. The “Revenant” star took to his Instagram Stories to show his support not long after it was announced that SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) formally approved a strike upon negotiations falling apart between the actors’ union and major Hollywood studios and streamers, who are represented by the AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers).
Leonardo DiCaprio is standing with his fellow actors. The star took to his Instagram Stories to show his support not long after it was announced that SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild — American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) formally approved a strike upon negotiations falling apart between the actors' union and major Hollywood studios and streamers, who are represented by the AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers).The actors will now join the writers on the picket line, marking the first time since 1960 that two major guilds will be striking at the same time.
Israel defender Or Dadia has rejected two offers in his homeland with a move to Aberdeen seemingly imminent.
Do you feel like the genre aspect of the film Meko had to make presented certain challenges, and at the same time, benefits for viewers to see inside the process?Rae: As a producer, that was a learning lesson. I felt like we were really ambitious on our side to one, I think that finding a talented female filmmaker wasn’t a challenge at all, it’s more just having them produce something with a limited budget in a limited amount of time.
for the first time—at star and executive producer 's home theater, no less—was definitely not what she expected. In fact, after she finished watching, she almost wished she hadn't seen it at all. “It was such a great experience,” says the 38-year-old, who plays President Barbie in the –directed film. “It's so great, and I love the movie so much, but there's so much happening it's hard [to talk about] because you don't want to give things away.”Oversharing has been the name of the game in Hollywood for years now in an attempt to get as many eyeballs on a TV show or bodies in a theater as possible, but the approach to Barbie has been completely different.
formally approved a strike upon negotiations falling apart between the actors' union and major Hollywood studios and streamers, who are represented by the AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers).The actors will now join the writers on the picket line, marking the first time since 1960 that two major guilds will be striking at the same time. The writers' strike began May 2 and is in its 10th week.In addition to Rae, a number of others stars are speaking out following news of the strike, including Josh Gad, Olivia Wilde, Rosie O'Donnell, Margaret Cho, Jamie Lynn Spears, Mandy Moore, Amber Tamblyn, Riley Keough and Kaley Cuoco, who posted messages of support for SAG on social media. A post shared by Josh Gad (@joshgad)star Cynthia Nixon posted to her Instagram Story, «The @sagaftra strike has at last arrived.
Issa Rae can’t wait to stop wearing pink after the Barbie press tour ends.
The stars of Barbie are stepping out once again in London!
Issa Rae‘s Raedio, the audio division of her Hoorae Media company, has inked a multi-year partnership with Def Jam Recordings. The deal includes publishing, music supervision, podcasts, digital content, and beyond. It will also allow Raedio to sign, market, and distribute Def Jam artists.
Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Raedio, the “audio everywhere” division of Issa Rae’s Hoorae Media, has announced a multi-year deal with Def Jam Recordings. The partnership will give Raedio the opportunity to sign, market, and distribute signed artists through Def Jam’s network, according to the announcement. It includes publishing, music supervision, music library, podcasts, digital content and events divisions. Raedio’s “symbiotic pipeline to Hoorae Media’s ecosystem of film, television production and talent management divisions provides a unique all-in-one infrastructure paving the way for a new, disruptive approach to music label models,” the announcement states.
Max has set Thursday, August 10 for the Season 2 premiere of Issa Rae’s comedy series Rap Sh!t. The eight-episode second season will debut with two episodes on August 10, followed by one episode weekly, leading up to the season finale on Thursday, September 21.
Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic Each episode of the new season of “Project Greenlight” begins with a worthy mission statement. “We’re choosing a woman director,” executive producer Issa Rae tells us, “because ‘Project Greenlight’ has never had one before.” Gina Prince-Bythewood, the director of films including “The Woman King” and also an executive producer here, adds, “It’s about time the world sees how many dope women directors there are just waiting to get their shot.” These are statements that are hard to argue with — “Project Greenlight,” this season, did choose a woman director, the first-time filmmaker Meko Winbush, to pull together a feature film, the sci-fi family drama “Gray Matter,” in just 18 days of shooting. And Winbush, who is Black, is one of many who deserve a chance of the sort the industry doesn’t tend to hand out freely to women of color, something both “Insecure” creator Rae and Prince-Bythewood surely understand well. (They’re two of three putative “mentors” for Winbush on the show, along with actor Kumail Nanjiani, who also co-wrote “The Big Sick.”) And yet the show is purpose-built not to elevate or to celebrate Winbush but to somewhat ruthlessly pull apart the ways in which she might be made to look unready for the job and unsteady on her feet. It’s a shockingly watchable series that evinces that sickly feeling of humiliation from a past, crueler era of reality TV — “The Comeback,” but make it indie.
the ‘Barbie’ movie after last night’s star-studded Los Angeles premiere.The initial chatter is filled with praise for the Greta Gerwig-directed flick, which stars Margot Robbie, 33, as Barbie and Ryan Gosling, 42, as Ken. More than one critic even went as far as to say that Gosling deserves an Oscar for his role in the hotly-anticipated film, which hits theaters July 21. “Barbie caught me off guard & I mean that in the best way possible,” one critic proclaimed on social media. “It’s funny, bombastic, & very smart.
Hollywood’s biggest names proved life in plastic is indeed fantastic at the Barbie premiere in Los Angeles on Sunday, July 9.
America Ferrera stepped out on the pink carpet in a stunning two piece look for the premiere of Barbie in Los Angeles on Sunday (July 9).
Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer In a display of pink visible from outer space, Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” held its lush world premiere on Sunday in Los Angeles. The Shrine Auditorum, located smack in the middle of the USC campus, was hosed down in colors of blush and bashful for the anticipated Warner Bros. release (as in, the security guards wore pink polo shirts), which drew the film’s stars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling. One notable absence was Noah Baumbach, the film’s co-writer and Gerwig’s partner. “My co-writer and co-creator, my partner in love and art, Noah Baumbach is not here. He is passionately supporting the fight of the Writers Guild of America,” Gerwig said. “He is a Barbie girl. Nothing in ‘Barbie’ happened without him, and nothing in Hollywood happens without writers.”