Writer, producer and director Barry Michael Cooper died today (1/22/25) in Baltimore, Maryland. Cooper wrote the screenplay for 1991's urban crime drama New Jack City and coined the Teddy Riley created music genre New Jack Swing. Cooper also wrote the screenplays for Sugar Hill, and Above The Rim, which along with New Jack City have been dubbed, "The Harlem Trilogy".

The Harlem born Cooper began his career as a music critic for The Village Voice. His article "New Jack City Eats It's Young" caught the attention of the late Quincy Jones, who commissioned him to write a screenplay about Harlem drug dealer Nicky Barnes. That screenplay later became New Jack City, which starred Wesley Snipes, Allen Payne, Chris Rock, Ice T, and Christopher Williams.

"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 Nelson George said in his weekly newsletter. "Though he lived much of the last decades of his life in Baltimore, he was Harlem to his core."

R.I.P. Barry Michael Cooper