Barry Michael Cooper, the prolific writer and producer behind the classic Harlem trilogy New Jack City, Sugar Hill, and Above the Rim, died at age 66.
Cooper died in Baltimore, Maryland, on Tuesday, a representative for Spike Lee confirmed. The pair last worked together on the series adaption of Lee’s film debut, She’s Gotta Have It, Variety reports. Cooper produced both seasons and wrote three episodes.
A Harlem native, Cooper was used to working alongside the greats after making his screenwriting debut with Mario Van Peebles on New Jack City, a cult classic film he co-wrote with Thomas Lee Wright. The film, which starred Wesley Snipes, Ice-T, and Chris Rock, marked a major success for Cooper after his shift from investigative reporting at The Village Voice, where he penned the impactful 1989 cover story “Kids Killing Kids: New Jack City Eats Its Young,” which delved into the drug war in Detroit.
“Barry helped define pop culture in the ‘80s and ‘90s with his early reporting on crack, by naming Teddy Riley’s sound ‘new jack swing’ and writing star vehicles for Wesley Snipes (New Jack City, Sugar Hill) and Tupac (Above the Rim],” writer and friend Nelson George wrote about Cooper in a Substack post. “Though he lived much of the last decades in Baltimore, he was Harlem to his core.”
Dubbed a “Harlem trilogy,” Cooper’s inception into the film industry helped amplify Black onscreen talents like Snipes and Ice T, who played a ruthless gang leader and hardened cop in New Jack City, and a young Rock who was getting his footing in acting while continuing his rise as a standup comic. Snipes returned for Sugar Hill in 1994, the same year Cooper released Above the Rim, which starred Leon, Tupac Shakur, Duane Martin, and Marlon Wayans.
Cooper made his directorial debut in 2005 with Blood on the Wall$, a low-budget web series about a television producer’s descent into a downward spiral. 2008, he produced the Larry Davis episode for Season 3 of American Gangster. His Harlem upbringing served as inspiration for much of his work in film and television.
Cooper’s death came shortly after his most recent Instagram post on MLK Day, in which he paid homage to the civil rights icon and his classic film New Jack City.
“15 January 2025 – Dr. MLK Day – “Am I My Brother’s Keeper? – Baltimore, MD,” he captioned his final shared photo of himself.
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