Biography

Born and raised in Harlem, New York, Cooper was the first African-American screenwriter in history to have two films ("Sugar Hill" February 1994, and "Above The Rim" March 1994) released not only in the same year, but a month apart from each other.

In addition to screenwriting, Barry Michael Cooper is an award winning investigative journalist. His cover story in the February 1986 edition of Spin Magazine simply titled "Crack," was the very first national magazine story on America's emerging crack cocaine epidemic. Cooper's December 1987 cover story in the Village Voice titled "Motor City Breakdown: New Jack City Eats Its' Young," brought him to the attention of Quincy Jones, the late George Jackson, and producer Rudy Langlais ("Sugar Hill" and "The Hurricane"), who in turn, hired Cooper to write the hit Warner Bros. film "New Jack City (1991). "New Jack City" propelled the careers of Wesley Snipes, Chris Rock, Ice-T, Allen Payne, and Mario Van Peebles. Barry Michael Cooper worked with both Rudy Langlais (who was also Cooper's editor at both the Village Voice and Spin Magazine) and Wesley Snipes again on the Cooper's 1994 produced screenplay "Sugar Hill," which also starred Michael Wright, Clarence Williams III, and the late Abe Vigoda.

Graduated from CUNY-City College.

Barry Michael Cooper was an American writer, producer, and director, best known for his screenplays for the films New Jack City (1991), Sugar Hill (1994), and Above the Rim (1994), sometimes called his "Harlem Trilogy".

Cooper initially honed his craft as a journalist, contributing to esteemed publications like The Village Voice and Spin Magazine.