Marie Claire’s May issue is devoted to multiple covers of their “Fresh Faces.” Issa Rae is a legitimate Fresh Face! She broke through into the mainstream a few years back with her successful HBO show Insecure. All you need to know about Insecure is that Michelle Obama watches it!! That tells you everything. Anyway, Issa is now super-famous and she’s even securing beauty contracts and getting invited to all the awards shows. In the excerpts from Marie Claire, Issa talks about gratitude, Inglewood and Friends.
Her gratitude: “I’m happy and grateful to be in a position where I can want to see something, and then support the people who are telling stories I want to see.”
The changing landscape of her neighborhood, Inglewood: “You see so many ‘For Lease’ signs go up because people are being pushed out. Part of me is conflicted—I want a cycling studio. I want a coffee shop. But it’s always at the expense of black and Latino people. There’s never an assumption that we could benefit, too.”
Which Friends character she could be: “I would never peg myself as a Rachel. Definitely more of a Phoebe. Maybe with Monica neuroses.”
Keeping her private life private: “I get so much feedback about everything. The one thing I don’t need feedback on is who I’m sleeping with.”
One, I feel like she’s just straight-up Monica, right? She’s not Phoebe. She’s Monica with a little bit of Rachel. Two, gentrification is real and so are the conflicting emotions that come with it. She’s upwardly mobile – she wants the good kind of gentrification, which would mean a good coffee place close by and a SoulCycle. But she also hates that any kind of advancement comes at the expense of communities of color being pushed out.
As for who she’s sleeping with… I have no idea. Is it Drake?
Covers courtesy of Marie Claire.
I love her and the show. I can’t wait for season 3. I love her take on gentrification.
Love her and love her show! I’m beyond happy that mainstream media shows a diverse lineup of talented women and men from different backgrounds. Seeing myself represented in positive ways on TV (beyond the Cosby Show, Different World and Living Single in the 80s/90s) is incredibly refreshing. I’m just sorry the cycle took so long to swing back in this direction…..
I really enjoy her show, I think she’s very talented and I’m impressed with what she has created.
I’m from Chicago…and for the last 25-years…I have watched our city government PURPOSELY let our south side neighborhood’s infrastructure go to hell in a hand basket…THAT’S the foundation of gentrification…first they let the area go down in terms of public works, schools, not awarding business licenses so that small business can come into the areas so that real estate prices can tank…the area looks AWFUL…and then money folks can come in and scoop up EVERYTHING raise the property values/taxes and long standing folks are priced out. My Mama’s taxes are OFF THE CHAIN and she has pot holes in her area where you can ACTUALLY see the devil having dinner on a nightly basis…yet Gov. Rauner and his buddies have been scooping up HUGE parcels of wonderful brick apartment buildings for pennies on a dollar…There’s no justice…NONE!
That is the best description of a pot hole I’ve ever heard.
Yes!! Right on the money Lala.
Chicago was the one of my favourite cities when visiting the US, the people were amazing.
I don’t know if you have ever read the book ‘The Color of Law’ by Richard Rothstein but it is an excellent book on this very subject.
Damn straight. I’m addicted to her show. When is the new season starting?
She’s an amazing woman , talented, smart, culturally important far too good to be reduced to another notch on Drakes bedpost, so let’s hope it’s not him.
Thank you! It seems no matter how successful you are as a woman, the primary concern still seems to be who you are dating or sleeping with or should be dating.
Maybe he’ll be a notch on HER bedpost. She is not who she beds. It doesn’t change her talent or intelligence…
How about we just focus on her work? Especially since this drake shit is weak and no evidence for.
Agreed @NameChange — Drake would be a notch on HER bedpost!
I love this cover. I’m glad she is keeping her business to herself.
And I love what she says about the double-edged sword of gentrification. I live in a neighborhood in West LA that used to be primarily Black and Latinx pre the Northridge quake in the 90s. When I moved in three years ago it was still hella diverse, beautiful, still somewhat affordable, and just a wonderful vibe.
The Silicon Beach tech boom has caused housing prices to SOAR especially on the Westside and the area is becoming increasingly white in only the last few years, while at the same time, we are seeing homeless communities pop up around the neighborhood and it is just such a stark contrast of the haves and have-nots.
I LOVE Issa and Insecure. I hear her voice and it just makes me smile.
She’s funny, smart, uber talented, and beautiful. She seems really authentic too. I want to hang out with her and be besties.
I love her take on gentrification, as an upwardly mobile Latina, my fiancé and I have chosen a very cute downtown apartment to rent and I feel like one of the bad guys. It’s always the minorities that are pressured to be everything. Like can’t I just enjoy this? Why do I have to be the one to champion change?
Mindy i with you… as a modestly mobile/affluent Sista I just bought a modern reno house in South East dcin the 8th or 7th ward (sorry i know i need to know this its the virginia suburban cluelessness of me lol) Everyone I know at first was so afraid of the big blackity lol SE but now they see they missed out on living among your people and really trying to be apart of the gentrification convo…. I mean but its true what Issa and some of the commentators are saying.
Its a collective racist kinda thing….they let the neighborhood go to hell, pothole, no trashcans …out of the way public transit, shotty street lights reactive police instead of community policing…. then property values plummets then condos and townhomes and mcmansions on everyblock…whole foods… trader joes…dog parks…salad and blowout bars LOL and property values go up and brown and black ppl are pushed out.
Truth be told my fiance and I are just like i guess capital heights is the next area we can live and still be in the neighborhood but not gentrified out..idk
i’ve followed her work ever since she was hyping season 2 of “Awkward Black Girl” on youtube. That was such a great show!!
On YouTube, Issa Rae Presents , is an Issa Rae production company which has several shows running, which she sponsors. My favorite is “Giants”, about this three millennial friends and their struggles as they approach 30 and struggle with finding themselves. It’s like a cross between will and grace and friends, only a black version and it’s a drama instead of a comedy. It tackles issues such as being black and gay, acceptable career options for millenials vs their parents, mental health in the black community, etc. I love it.
LOVE her 😍
Love Love LOVE Issa, she’s insanely smart, witty, and cool. And she’s a go-getter, and has a killer smile, and hair, and those eyes. I think that cover was a bit MEH, But once she shows her pearly whites (there’s another picture from this shoot), she just makes it all better.
I can’t wait for Insecure 3. They recently started shooting again, and they posted a shot of her, Amanda Seales, Natasha, and Yvonne filming, and it made me so happy. Just as it made me happy to see Jay Ellis on John Legend’s new video.
What a GIFT is this woman to the world. Thank you Issa, can’t wait to also watch her other two shows she’s producing!
Sorry to sound repetitive, but I LOVE her too! She’s incredibly talented, gorgeous and I adore her style. Season 3 can’t come soon enough.