Barry Michael Cooper, the groundbreaking screenwriter who shed light on urban experiences through film and journalism, died Tuesday in Baltimore. He was 66 years old.
Filmmaker Nelson George confirmed Cooper’s death, though the cause was not immediately known. Cooper leaves behind a significant legacy in Black cinema and journalism, best known for his influential “Harlem Trilogy” of films: New Jack City, Sugar Hill, and Above the Rim.
A Harlem native, Cooper began his career as an investigative journalist for The Village Voice and Spin Magazine in the 1980s. His reporting on the crack epidemic, particularly a 1986 Spin article titled “Crack, a Tiffany Drug at Woolworth Prices,” would later inspire his screenwriting work.
Cooper’s breakthrough came with New Jack City in 1991, a film that dramatized the crack epidemic through drug kingpin Nino Brown, played by Wesley Snipes. The movie was a major success, earning nearly $50 million on an $8 million budget and opening doors for future Black cinema.
“If there was no New Jack City, there would be no Boyz n the Hood, there would be no Menace II Society,” Cooper told Stop Smiling magazine. “I think it set it off.”
Beyond film, Cooper was also a pioneering music journalist. In 1987, he coined the term “New Jack Swing” in an article about producer Teddy Riley, describing a innovative blend of R&B and rap music.
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Cooper’s later work included writing and producing three episodes of Spike Lee’s Netflix series She’s Gotta Have It in 2017. He also made his directorial debut in 2005 with the independent film Blood On The Wall$.
He is survived by his son, Matthew.
