Issa Rae - Biography

Who is Issa Rae?

Issa Rae is an actress, writer, director, producer by profession and American by nationality. Since rising to fame with the YouTube web series Awkward Black Girl, she has starred in Insecure which earned her two Golden Globe Award nominations.

Issa Rae – Age, Parents, Siblings, Education, Ethnicity

Issa Rae’s birth took place on January 12, 1985, in Los Angeles, California, USA. She was born as Jo-Issa Rae Diop to Senegalese father Dr. Abdoulaye Diop, a pediatrician and neonatologist and African-American mother Delyna Diop, a teacher.

young Issa Rae (Image: People)

She is not the only child of her parents and has 4 siblings and one of her brothers is named Lamine 'Enimal' Diop.

For education, Issa Rae attended King Drew Magnet High School of Medicine and Science where she started acting. She went on to study at Stanford University and graduated from the same with a Bachelor of Arts degree in African and African-American Studies.

Her ethnicity is multi-ethnic (Senegalese,  African-American).

Issa Rae – Boyfriend, Husband, Children, Divorce

After years of dating, Issa Rae got engaged to her longtime boyfriend Louis Diame, a businessman in March 2019. The couple is very private in their relationship and is yet to share details of their wedding.

She is yet to get married, take him as her husband. Currently, she does not have any children and as she has never been married, divorce is out of context.

Issa Rae, Louis Diame (Image: Yahoo News Singapore)

Issa Rae – Net worth, Salary

Her net worth is estimated at around $4 million while the figure on her annual salary has not been shared with the public.

Issa Rae – Career

Early Career

While a college student she made music videos, wrote and directed plays. There she met Tracy Oliver,  who helped produce Awkward Black Girl as well as starred as Nina. The pair started taking Awkward Black Girl seriously after the web series took off in 2011.

The web series Awkward Black Girl which premiered on YouTube in 2011 went viral through blog posts, social media resulted in mainstream media coverage and attention. After receiving $56,269 in donations, they went on to release the rest of the season. 

Issa Rae collaborated with singer, rapper, songwriter Pharrell on his YouTube channel iamOTHER to premiere the season two of Awkward Black Girl.

In 2013 Issa Rae worked with actor, writer, comedian Larry Wilmore to create comedy-drama TV series  Insecure, which was eventually picked up by HBO in early 2015 and release in 2016. The show has been running for three successful seasons.

Issa Rae, Jay Ellis in Insecure (Image: lavishrebellion)

Films, Series

In addition, she has worked with films The Hate U Give (2018), Hair Love (2019), The Photograph (2020), The Lovebirds (2020) and TV series True Friendship Society (2013), The Choir (2013-2015), BoJack Horseman (2018), A Black Lady Sketch Show (2019).

Others

Issa Rae’s memoir titled The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl was released in 2015. The book became a New York Times best-seller. 

Moreover, Rae has used her platform to raise awareness about police violence and brutality against Black Americans. She also helped raise $700,000 for the Sterling Family Trust after Alton Sterling was shot dead by the police.

Co-stars

On Insecure, Issa Rae starred alongside Yvonne Orji, Jay Ellis, Amanda Seales, Natasha Rothwell, Y'lan Noel.

Issa Rae – Awards, Nominations

For her work with Insecure, Issa Rae has been nominated for Golden Globe Awards (2017, 2018) and Primetime Emmy Award (2018).

Issa Rae – Instagram, Twitter, Facebook

On social media handles including Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Issa Rae is active with more than a million followers and counting. She also has an official website-  issarae.com and a YouTube channel with over 461k subscribers.