Barry Michael Cooper RIP

The early 1990s were the Golden Age of the inner-city movie -- movies about the brutal, violent experience of black American city life in the time of crack and rampant police violence. This era last about five years, roughly from the time of Boyz in the Hood in 1991 to Dead Presidents in 1996.

In the interim three such movies were released, all written by a guy named Barry Michael Cooper. While many of these kinds of movies were set in Los Angeles, Cooper's movies were set in NYC, specifically in Harlem. The first and best of these was New Jack City (which made Wesley Snipes a star) followed by Sugar Hill and Above the Rim (featuring Tupac Shakur). 

Before he turned to screenwriting, Cooper was a journalist covering the same territory. He actually wrote one of the first articles about the crack epidemic for otherwise lily-white Spin Magazine in 1986 with the brilliant, chilling title "Crack, a Tiffany Drug at Woolworth Prices." He also invented the term "New Jack Swing."

Cooper recently died at the age of 66, far too young. But he chronicled and contributed to an important, pivotal moment in American culture, and left a great legacy.