At SXSW 2025, Issa Rae presented Seen & Heard, the HBO documentary series she produced on the history of Black television. In a long, funny conversation, she also talked about One of Them Days, her first film as a producer, the pull of a “female midlife crisis” and the yes that changed her career.
A history of Black television
Seen & Heard was made during a renaissance for Black creators, to record a history that was at risk of being forgotten. Rae wanted it to look cinematic, and credits director Giselle Bailey. Participants include Oprah Winfrey, Shonda Rhimes, Debbie Allen and Tyler Perry. The first episode shows how networks built their success on Black audiences, then abandoned them. Hearing it from the creators themselves, Rae says, makes it “undeniable”, and “history repeats itself”.
From reality TV to “Insecure”
Rae grew up on Moesha, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and A Different World. When those shows disappeared, reality TV and its portrayal of Black women became her “villain origin story”: one humiliating scene on Flavor of Love convinced her that there had to be more. When someone told her to stop complaining and make something, she did. Her mother warned her about an industry of rejection; her father still reminds her she could get a master’s degree.
Fans of Insecure still visit locations from the series in Los Angeles, and many tell her it inspired them to make their own work. The yes that changed everything, she says, was HBO’s green light to shoot the pilot, after more than two years of development and seven or eight drafts.
Producer, entrepreneur and risk-taker
Her rallying cry is risk: the industry fears original stories, and diversity efforts are being pulled back. “Diversity needs a better publicist.” Her rule for collaborators: not all money is good money. One of Them Days, starring SZA and Keke Palmer and released in cinemas by Sony, was nearing $50 million at the box office, a strong result for a comedy led by Black women.
Her screenwriting tips: find an accountability partner, clear whole days to write, and lean into procrastination, because you will do it anyway.