Photo: Bam0822 / CC BY-SA 4.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
Issa Rae earns my admiration because she refused to wait for permission. A Stanford graduate from Los Angeles, she built her own audience on YouTube when the industry offered no seat, then carried that vision all the way to HBO with Insecure. I find her model of creating the thing you wish existed genuinely inspiring, and the fact that she writes, stars, and produces speaks to a rare completeness of talent. Two Time 100 nods feel like the floor, not the ceiling. She tells overlooked stories with warmth and bite, and I expect her cultural footprint to keep widening.
Overview
Jo-Issa Rae Diop (born January 12, 1985), known professionally as Issa Rae, is an American actress, writer, and producer. She achieved recognition as the co-creator, co-writer, and star of the HBO comedy series Insecure (2016–2021), for which she was nominated for multiple Golden Globes Awards and Primetime Emmy Awards.
Summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Issa Rae
- Name (Japanese)
- イッサ・レイ
- Reading
- いっさ・れい
- Born
- January 12, 1985 (age 41)
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Capricorn / Ox
- Origin
- Los Angeles, California, United States
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- Private
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- film actor / screenwriter / YouTuber / showrunner / television producer
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- King Drew Magnet High School of Medicine and Science
- University
- Stanford University
Awards & achievements
- 2017 OkayAfrica 100 Women
- Gracie Awards
- 2018 Time 100
- 2022 Time 100
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
5. Works & records
| Category | Title | Role | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notable work | Insecure | — |
6. Links
- Official sitehttps://issarae.com
- Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/issarae/
- Xhttps://x.com/IssaRae
- Wikipedia (Japanese)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issa%20Rae
Film actor — see all → · Screenwriter — see all → · More people from United States →
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.