Issa Rae came to USC on Feb. 5th to accept the Charlotta Bass Media Trailblazer Award, an award that honors Black media figures who are paving the way through their art, stories and voices.
In conversation with the USC Charlotta Bass Journalism and Justice Lab’s founding director, Dr. Allissa V. Richardson, Rae reflected on her creative journey and offered advice to the next generation of creatives.
The audience included students passionate about media, film and storytelling from the School of Cinematic Arts, Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism, and campus organizations such as the African American Cinema Society and the Center for Black Cultural and Student Affairs.
Rae’s career began online, creating skits and web series like “Dorm Diaries” and “The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl,” which ultimately propelled her into traditional media and led to the creation of her Emmy-nominated HBO series “Insecure,” cementing her place in mainstream media.
Even from her earliest creations, Rae’s work exemplifies the importance of representation and points to a larger phenomenon of self-authorship within the Black experience. Black artists often end up creating their own spaces—not just to make room for themselves, but to expand genres and reshape culture.
For example, in music, Tyler, the Creator built an entire musical and visual universe rooted in his self-expression, one that resisted genre classification altogether. Early in his career, he was often misunderstood by the industry for not fitting narrow expectations of how Black masculinity was “supposed” to look in hip-hop and R&B. Profiles and interviews often noted how critics struggled to categorize his sound and persona.
Tyler was goofy, eccentric and vulnerable — qualities that led some to police his “Blackness,” revealing how deeply the notion of Black identity as a monolith still runs in popular culture. Scholarly research on Black masculinity in hip-hop has noted this same tension, positioning Tyler as someone whose artistic voice challenges and broadens traditional ideas of what Black identity can look like in music, according to research published by Bates College.
So instead of conforming, he leaned further into himself. Over time, Tyler built an artistic world entirely his own and cultivated a fan base that not only understood him but was inspired and energized by his self-expression.
When reflecting on her early work, Rae said “The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl” was something she created for herself: “It was mainly a form of self-expression. It was what I wanted to make.” It became a reflection of her own voice and humor at a time when few shows centered Black women.
Like Tyler, she carved out a space for her artistic expression. The series, centered on an awkward, observant Black woman navigating environments not designed for her, reflected that desire for authenticity. In doing so, Rae didn’t just tell her own story; she opened the door for others to see themselves beyond the narrow archetypes often imposed on Black characters.
As a Black creator, Rae’s work has become about honoring the depth of who she is, without diluting who she is, and she has built something that reflects her authenticity, which not only inspires other Black creators to do the same but to finally see their own perspectives mirrored back to them in these roles.
These perspectives didn’t exist in mainstream comedy at the time. Instead of reshaping herself to fit existing molds, Rae reshaped the mold itself. She helped popularize a form of “awkward comedy” that still allowed a Black character to remain fully human. She showed a Black woman could appear quirky, lighthearted and funny outside of harsher stereotypes commonly depicted.
Just as Tyler and Rae crafted spaces that reflected who they were, their work shows how Black creators often innovate by making room for themselves when none is offered. These spaces are uniquely their own, built on self-expression and individual artistic vision. In doing so, they become cultural innovators, shaped by their distinct stories, creative expression and vision.
This happens because conventional pathways into film, television and music are often structured around cultural defaults that don’t center the Black experience. From production teams unfamiliar with Black hair and makeup to executives who don’t immediately understand the audience you’re speaking to or the humor references in a script, these systems were rarely built with Black creators in mind.
As a result, Black artists are often expected to translate their work by softening dialect, adjusting references or reshaping tone in order to be legible within frameworks that were never designed for them. So when Black creators begin by creating for themselves, leaning fully into who they are, as Tyler and Rae did, they often discover that what was once considered niche resonates with an audience hungry for art that reflects their lived reality.
Ultimately, the very limitations imposed on them become the catalyst that sparks innovative, creative works. However, this isn’t accidental. Black creators tend to bring a distinct blend of specificity, humor, contradiction, vulnerability and cultural memory into their work—qualities that don’t always fit neatly into existing traditional frameworks.
Frank Ocean offers another example of how Black creators reshape their genres from the inside out. Ocean genuinely redefined contemporary R&B. His music introduced a dreamy, interior and nonlinear sound rooted in emotional vulnerability and introspection, elements that departed from the genre’s traditional emphasis on rigid masculinity. In doing so, he expanded what R&B could hold, making space for softness, ambiguity and emotional complexity.
Frank Ocean’s “Blonde” rollout stands as one of the defining moments of creative autonomy and self-authorship in contemporary music. After years under Def Jam, Ocean fulfilled his contract with “Endless,” an avant-garde visual album that left many fans confused and disappointed. Then, the very next day, he independently released “Blonde” — the real album. In doing so, he turned “Endless” into a strategic decoy to exit his record deal and reclaim ownership of his true masterpiece. Today, “Blonde” is still celebrated as one of the greatest albums of all time, often mentioned alongside classics by artists like the Beatles and Prince.
What made the move significant was the control Ocean claimed in the process. By releasing “Blonde” through his own label, Boys Don’t Cry, and striking an exclusive deal with Apple Music, he not only owned his master recordings but also rerouted all profits, control and complete autonomy directly to himself. In an industry where labels traditionally hold the power to control an artist’s catalog and commercial returns, Ocean ensured that one of the most critically acclaimed albums of the decade belonged entirely to him.
Where Ocean reclaimed ownership over his work, Rae extended that same spirit of autonomy outward, through a vision that expands beyond her own career and toward building an infrastructure that creates freedom for an entire community of Black creatives. Through HOORAE, a multifaceted entertainment media company for Black creatives, artists, and entrepreneurs, she is building the kind of space that once did not exist for her.
She emphasized that HOORAE’s mission is grounded in giving Black artists the creative freedom and self-ownership of their work while providing support and guidance along the way. This provides Black creators a platform that gives them room to develop their work and offers the leverage they need to navigate traditional pathways in entertainment without being flattened into industry quotas or stereotypes.
Her approach is rooted in a simple question she once asked herself: “Why would I build a media company I wouldn’t have signed into?” This intentionality felt genuine yet also intuitive. It was necessary. This mattered to Rae because she valued self-authorship in her early days and felt a responsibility to extend that same freedom to others
Beyond a company, HOORAE is a radical blueprint. It shows what becomes possible when Black people build spaces where they don’t have to contort themselves to fit someone else’s idea of what brilliance or creativity should look like for them.
That’s what makes Rae’s media company especially meaningful in the context of the Charlotta Bass Journalism & Justice Lab Media Trailblazer Award, which honors a long tradition of Black self-determination in media. In many ways, Rae embodies the epitome of a trailblazer: someone who charts a path where none previously existed and creates new terrain for others to follow.
HOORAE isn’t about asking for access; it’s about building the architecture itself. It creates the conditions where Black creators don’t have to perform legibility, minimize their vision or ask for permission to exist in full.