Barry Michael Cooper, a screenwriter best known for his work in New Jack City and Above the Rim, died on Wednesday. He was 66.
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According to Variety, Cooper’s death was confirmed by a representative for Spike Lee. The duo had teamed up for the Netflix series adaptation of Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It. Cooper notably served as a producer for the show’s two seasons and wrote three of the episodes.
Variety further reported that Cooper made his feature screenwriting debut with Mario Van Peebles’ New Jack City. He co-wrote the film with Thomas Lee Wight. It starred Wesley Snipes and Ice-T. With one as a gang leader and the other a cop, the two dodge one another during the crack epidemic in Harlem.
Before New Jack City, Cooper was an investigative reporter at The Village Voice. He produced the 1989 cover story “Kids Killing Kids: New Jack City Eats Its Young, ” which detailed the drug war in Detroit, Michigan. He also worked as a reporter at Spin Magazine.
Following the success of New Jack City, Cooper worked on and completed the Harlem Trilogy, which included the film and two others, Sugar Hill and Above the Rim. The second and third films were released in 1994.
Snipes returned for the film Sugar Hill and worked alongside Tupac Shakur, Leon, and Marlon Wayans.
More than a decade after the “Harlem Trilogy,” Cooper made his directorial debut in the 2005 web series Blood on the Wall$, following a television producer in a downward spiral. Cooper went on to produce the Larry Davis Episode for Season 3 of American Gangster in 2008.
Cooper is survived by his son, Matthew. The cause of death was not revealed.
Former ‘The Village Voice’ Reporter Nelson George Speaks Out Following the Death of Barry Michael Cooper
Following the death of Barry Michael Cooper, the late screenwriter’s The Village Voice colleague, Nelson George, spoke out.
“It’ll take me a minute to gather all my thoughts,” George explained. “But just wanted to thank him for recommending to Robert Christgau at the Village Voice when I was trying to write for the Riffs section back in 1981. It was a key moment in my career and life.”
George further shared that Cooper had helped define culture in the ‘80s and ‘90s with his early reporting on drugs, his naming of Teddy Riley’s sound “New Jack Swing,” and his writing of the “Harlem Trilogy.”
“Though he lived much of the last decades of his life in Baltimore, he was Harlem to his core,” George added.