Before HBO, there was a YouTube channel. Issa Rae began filming The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl with almost no budget in 2011, playing a socially clumsy young woman named J. The series went viral, and within five years she was the creator and star of Insecure, one of HBO’s most talked-about comedies.
Senegal and Los Angeles
Issa Rae was born Jo-Issa Rae Diop in Los Angeles in 1985. Her father is a Senegalese doctor and her mother an African American teacher. She spent part of her childhood in Senegal, and she has spoken about the experience of growing up between African and African American identities.
Stanford
She studied at Stanford University, where she began making videos and plays. Her early projects tested the comic voice that would define her work: frank, awkward and specific about the lives of young Black women.
Awkward Black Girl
The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl began on YouTube in 2011. It found a large online audience and won a Shorty Award. Its success showed television executives that there was a market for stories about Black women who were not glamorous stereotypes.
Insecure
Insecure, created with Larry Wilmore, premiered on HBO in 2016. Rae played Issa Dee, a woman working through career, love and friendship in Los Angeles alongside her best friend Molly, played by Yvonne Orji. The show ran for five seasons until 2021 and earned Rae Emmy and Golden Globe nominations.
Yvonne Orji
The show also made a star of Yvonne Orji, the Nigerian American actress who played Molly. Together, Issa and Molly became one of television’s most discussed friendships.
Producer
Rae built a production company, Hoorae, and signed deals to develop television, film and podcasts. She has produced and starred in films and series, and appeared in Barbie (2023) as the President Barbie.
Her influence
Rae’s career has inspired many young creators who start online and move into mainstream entertainment. She has spoken often about hiring Black writers and crew and giving new voices a chance.
Why Insecure mattered
Before Insecure, American television rarely showed young Black women as ordinary, flawed, funny people with careers, friendships and messy love lives. Rae’s show did, and it did it with specific detail: the neighbourhoods of South Los Angeles, the music of local artists, the awkward conversations at work. The soundtrack became famous in its own right, introducing many listeners to new R&B and hip-hop artists. African viewers, including many in Ghana and Nigeria, found in it a version of Black life that felt closer to their own experience than older American sitcoms.
The awkward girl filming herself in her apartment ended up running her own company. Issa Rae did not wait for Hollywood to invite her in; she built a room and made Hollywood come to it.
