Issa Rae Can Take The Heat

In today’s golden age of T V, there’s only one rule: Go big or go home. The Insecure co-creator—and eight more small-screen renegades on the following pages—wouldn’t have it any other way.

- Angelica Nwandu

IT’S A HUMID NIGHT IN NEW ORLEANS, AND ISSA RAE’S publicist has invited me to an exclusive nineties-themed dance party. Immediately after I enter the dimly lit room, I notice a woman in a fitted mustard-yellow dress, dancing like she doesn’t have a care in the world. It isn’t until I get closer that I realize I’m watching Rae as she gets her life to the old-school R&B bumping through the speakers. I’m surprised by the public display; everything I’ve read about the 33-year-old Insecure co-creator is that she shies away from being the center of attention. I also can’t stop staring.

What I learn over the course of my weekend with Rae— we meet in her hotel room the morning after the throwback turn-up—is that she isn’t afraid to make a scene. Not on a dance floor, in a writers’ room, on Instagram, or in a room full of white HBO execs who might not understand her vision. “All I know is who I am,” she tells me. “At the end of the day, all I know is my intentions, and no matter what you take out of context, no matter what pictures you post, I know what I am aligned with. I know what my truth is.”