Barry Michael Cooper facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Barry Michael Cooper
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| Born | 1957 or 1958 Harlem, New York, U.S.
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| Died | January 22, 2025 Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
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| Occupation | Writer, producer, director |
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Notable work
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New Jack City Sugar Hill Above the Rim |
Barry Michael Cooper (1957 or 1958 – January 22, 2025) was an American writer, producer, and director, best known for his screenplays for the films New Jack City (1991), Sugar Hill (1994), and Above the Rim (1994), sometimes called his "Harlem Trilogy".
Background
Cooper was born in Harlem, New York, and grew up in Little Washington Heights between 164th and 165th streets on Amsterdam Avenue. He has stated that the neighborhood was very diverse and that he played with Black, Jewish, and Irish children. When he was ten, his family moved to the Esplanade Gardens, a co-op high rise in Harlem with tenants of various classes and races.
Cooper died in Baltimore, Maryland on January 22, 2025.
Career
Cooper began his writing career as a music critic for The Village Voice, serving later as an investigative reporter for the New York City alt-weekly from 1980 to 1989. He wrote "Teddy Riley's New Jack Swing: Harlem Gangsters Raise a Genius" for the Voice in 1987 and is credited with naming the then-new hybrid of R&B and rap.
Cooper's "Harlem Trilogy" includes New Jack City (1991), Sugar Hill and Above the Rim.
According to Spin magazine's Michael Gonzales, the three films had an influence on "hip-hop culture that can be heard in Jay-Z's lyrics and seen in P. Diddy's style".
Cooper wrote all three films after moving to Baltimore, Maryland, where he lived until his death. In 2005, Cooper made his directorial debut with Blood on the Wall$, a 14-part web series starring Sugar Hill's Michael Wright.
In October 2008 Cooper produced the "Larry Davis episode" for season three of BET's hit crime documentary, American Gangster. Thus far, the Larry Davis episode has been the highest-rated original-series telecast in BET's history.
From 2007, Cooper published a blog, "Hooked on the American Dream". In 2011, he published Hooked on the American Dream, Vol. 1: New Jack City Eats Its Young, a collection of his essays and articles from the 1980s, in an Amazon Kindle edition. He was also a contributor to the Huffington Post.
Honors and awards
- Best Magazine Feature, 1987, Ball State University, and Best Magazine Feature, 1987, National Association of Black Journalists, for "In Cold Blood: The Baltimore Teen Murders," published in the May 1986 issue of Spin
