The Closers | Issa Rae - video Dailymotion

TIME

2/1/2024

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00:00 I live in imposter syndrome.

00:02 It comes and goes.

00:03 If I don't take my medication, which is like doses of confidence,

00:06 or feeling like, "Oh, I feel success here,"

00:09 then I will generally default to, "Oh no, what?

00:13 This is all wrong," or "I'm a fraud."

00:16 And sometimes I think it's healthy.

00:18 Honestly, it does drive me in that way,

00:21 and it's why I think I'm able to survive.

00:23 And I think finding the benefits of what scares you

00:29 can only help to, I think, provoke greatness.

00:33 You know, I don't want to stop,

00:34 so I have no choice but to persist and just be better.

00:37 Go, shawty. It's my birthday.

00:47 But no one cares because I'm not having a party.

00:49 'Cause I'm feeling sorry for myself.

00:53 Once one entity invests in you,

00:56 then it does open the eyes of others to be like,

00:59 "Okay, well, if I can't have you in this area,

01:01 what do you have here?"

01:02 And I never like to put all my eggs in one basket either,

01:05 so it also helped me to kind of diversify

01:08 what I could do and what I wanted to do.

01:10 ♪♪

01:20 ♪♪

01:30 ♪♪

01:39 I can visualize what it can do for South LA in particular,

01:44 and then I can see how necessary it is.

01:46 When I was shooting this fourth season of "Insecure,"

01:49 it took an hour out to get a studio to shoot in,

01:52 and I was like, "We're going away from the neighborhood

01:55 that we shoot in, which is down the street from my house,

01:58 because there's no studio spaces."

02:00 And I recognize that the industry is changing,

02:03 but I think there'll always be a need for that here.

02:07 And then the opportunity for jobs to employ people

02:11 within the community, for training programs, for --

02:16 I honestly know that there's so many iconic areas

02:22 in South LA that tourists would be interested in,

02:28 you know, recognizing, like, "This is from 'Boys in the Hood,'

02:30 and this is from 'Love and Basketball.'"

02:32 There's just so many things that could engage the community

02:36 in general that I feel like we need.

02:40 The advice I'd give young creators of color

02:45 who are facing roadblocks would honestly be to,

02:49 you know, kind of build a tunnel around.

02:52 I know that's easier said than done,

02:53 but for me, so much of it came --

02:56 and I speak about this all the time --

02:58 from, like, these other connections that I've had,

03:00 that I've built with people, and just saying,

03:02 "Hey, do you want to do this together?"

03:05 Or, "Hey, what do you need? What can I help you with?"

03:08 And kind of building from there.

03:11 I had countless times where I tried to go through

03:16 this system traditionally,

03:17 whether that's, like, writing a spec script

03:19 to be able to get in a writer's room,

03:21 or working with -- or trying to get representation,

03:25 just being like, "Where do I even start?"

03:27 And it really -- where I started was with the community

03:31 around me that I had built.

03:33 ♪♪

03:36 My mogul era, let me tell you, this year was not fun at all.

03:40 This past year was the first,

03:44 like, this is hard in a different way.

03:47 It's hard in the company way, as opposed to, like,

03:50 "Oh, creatively, I'm stuck.

03:52 This is like, oh, these are real --

03:54 these are real issues that I have to confront.

03:56 They're real needs.

03:58 They're real problems."

04:00 ♪♪

04:03 I was scared that I had only one good idea

04:05 because there was a period of just stagnation

04:08 where I was like, "Oh, maybe 'Awkward Black Girl'

04:11 is what I was supposed to put out into the world

04:14 and inspire somebody else."

04:16 But then, when I got an opportunity again,

04:19 I wasn't about to, like, let that, you know,

04:21 go by the wayside.

04:22 And when I met one good idea,

04:23 one good idea that could be successful,

04:25 you know, one good idea that could open the door,

04:29 and I felt like, early on, like, the door was open,

04:32 and then it just was like, "Nope, that's it.

04:34 That's what you get."

04:35 And so, that second time around,

04:38 it taught me to just take advantage

04:39 of these other opportunities

04:40 and these other ideas that I had.

04:42 ♪♪

04:45 (upbeat music)

The Closers | Issa Rae

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