Issa Rae: Why ‘Insecure’ Is Not Made ‘for Dudes’ or ‘White People’
Issa Rae didn’t find out how her dad, a Senegal-born doctor, felt about her HBO series Insecure until a couple months after the first season wrapped. In fact, she thought he might hate it. “Then in our family group chat, he dropped a really inappropriate reference about Lawrence’s back shots to Tasha,” she says with a laugh, referring to the shocking, explicit finale scene where her character’s ex-boyfriend rebounds with his bank teller. “I was like ‘Wow, he made it to the finale! That’s cool! This is not the place to show me, but…great!’”
Those uncomfortable moments are where Rae thrives. As a writer and performer, beginning with her successful YouTube series Awkward Black Girl and further explored in her 2015 memoir The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, she has found comedy in the minutiae that can make modern black women’s dating and professional world jarring, painful and sometimes incredibly comedic. Now with Insecure, the 32-year-old Rae has reached the biggest audience of her career — and is at the forefront of a new era of prestige TV that’s no longer led by white voices and stars.
Born Jo-Issa Rae Diop in Los Angeles, she spent her formative years doing a “zig-zag” across the world. Her family spent time in Potomac, Maryland and Dakar, Senegal before…
