Issa Rae

Issa Rae

Jo-Issa Rae Diop is an American actress, writer, and producer. She is the co-creator, co-writer, and star of the HBO television series Insecure. Her 2015 memoir, titled The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, became a New York Times best-seller. Rae has also starred in films, with roles in the drama The Hate U Give and comedy Little.

About Issa Rae in brief

Summary Issa RaeJo-Issa Rae Diop is an American actress, writer, and producer. She is the co-creator, co-writer, and star of the HBO television series Insecure. Her 2015 memoir, titled The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, became a New York Times best-seller. Rae has also starred in films, with roles in the drama The Hate U Give and comedy Little. In 2018, Rae was included in the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world. She has been nominated for multiple Golden Globes Awards and Primetime Emmy Awards for her work on Insecure and other shows. She also has her own YouTube channel, which features various short films, web series, and other content created by people of color. She was raised in Potomac, Maryland, where she grew up with things that aren’t considered ‘black,’ like the swim team and street hockey and Passover dinners with Jewish best friends.

Her father is a pediatrician and neonatologist from Senegal, and her mother, Delyna Diop, is a teacher from Louisiana. She graduated from King Drew Magnet High School of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles, California, in 2007. Her parents divorced when she was in high school, and she is fluent in French. In 2007, Diop graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelor of Arts in African and African-American Studies. As a college student, she made music videos, wrote and directed plays, and created a mock reality series called Dorm Diaries for fun. She worked odd jobs and at one point was struggling to decide between business school and law school, but eventually abandoned both ideas when Aw awkward Black Girl started taking off.