Businesswoman and podcaster Emma Grede has been chasing the multifaceted Issa Rae for such a long time, and she finally landed the interview!
“I want to do stuff that feels special. I want to make people’s favorite sh*t,” Rae shared. The abundant chat felt like a blueprint, a masterclass on balancing all of life’s aspects as a creative who is shifting the landscape of entertainment. Across the latest episode of “Aspire With Emma Grede,” Rae talks plainly about what success actually buys you and why creators of color should treat visibility like currency that must be converted into control. “It feels like a show-and-prove season in a new way,” she told Grede.
That posture helps explain Rae’s business moves. Rae’s production company, HOORAE Media signed a three-year first-look film and television producing deal with Paramount, allowing her the space to bring new film and TV projects to a major studio, while keeping development and producing power in-house, a pragmatic next step for a creator who wants both scale and control. “I need to feel like I’m in control of my own destiny, and ownership allows that,” Rae told Grede, noting that ownership lets you “dictate your path” and protects the cultural integrity of work that comes out of Black communities. For Rae, ownership is less a trophy than a tool: money, IP, and leadership structures are what allow creators to build a foundation that survives beyond one hit show.
“This industry will make you feel like you’re important and that’s not real,” Rae said. That’s a particularly urgent lesson now. In 2025, major studios reframed DEI initiatives amid shifting political pressure and corporate recalibration. Big names — from Disney to Warner Bros. Discovery — have scaled back explicit diversity and equity language in corporate programs, prompting worry that the window of opportunity for fresh pipelines has narrowed. For Black creators who once rode swelling DEI budgets into rooms of influence, the math is no longer mathing. But for Rae, she and her company haven’t “switched up.”
She said she’s been maintaining what she’s built on the back of diversity. “The intention is still there. We still have that same passion [and] fervor to break people into the industry. It comes down to telling our stories and the commitment is just even more there.”
Rae also didn’t shrink from discussing practicality. She urged creatives to treat their work like businesses, with tips like: hire the right leadership, protect intellectual property, and avoid trading away long-term upside for short-term visibility. “Hire a COO. Own the IP,” she said, sharing that it’s important to increase leverage when studios come calling. For creators who rely on gatekeepers, that advice converts into a simple map: don’t just create; structure the enterprise that surrounds you so it can sustain others.
Rae’s advice also has a moral dimension. She pushed back on tokenism and urged listeners to “check the room” — a prompt for people in hiring positions to interrogate whether they’re real or simply creating optics. That bright-line practice — one person speaking up at the table — is the kind of daily accountability she says changes rooms. It’s a small ask with big ripple effects: true representation is less about single hires and more about systems that value people across the production pipeline.
“I want to be more prolific, even in the things that I make,” Rae admitted. One of her biggest fears is people seeing her work and thinking, “Oh Issa is just doing anything.” Rae explained that she’s never done anything just for the check, and what she does, whether it’s opening a restaurant or a coffee shop, is because she likes being nimble and pouring into her interests, or as she calls them, “side quests.” She said, “I don’t ever want to forget where I came from, where I was like, ‘I want to make something,’ so I can make it.”
And what does she want to make? More! “I want to make more movies. I want to make more TV shows. I want to expand my digital footprint,” Rae said.
Rae’s interview with Grede is a how-to for preserving cultural power. She expertly highlights the difference between a moment and a movement: craft projects that people love, leverage those projects into deals that respect your terms, and use the resources you earn to bankroll other Black storytellers. Rae’s mission — to make work people carry with them — is both a creative aim and a survival strategy in an industry that keeps reshaping the rules.
