Barry Michael Cooper, ‘New Jack City’ and ‘Above the Rim’ Screenwriter, Dies at 66

Barry Michael Cooper, the acclaimed screenwriter best known for his “Harlem trilogy” consisting of the films “New Jack City” (1991), “Sugar Hill” and “Above the Rim” (both 1994), died Wednesday of undisclosed causes. He was 66.

The news was announced by his son and by his friend and fellow writer Nelson George.

Prior to his career as a screenwriter, Cooper was a journalist and music critic who changed the music industry when, in 1987, he coined the term “New Jack Swing” to refer to the then-nascent genre of R&B music fused with hip hop popularized by producer Teddy Riley and acts like Bobby Brown, Kool Moe Dee and Janet Jackson.

Cooper’s background as a journalist and critic, and his deep knowledge of the still-young hip hop scene carried through with his screenplays, which were some of the earliest in Hollywood to channel hip hop authentically, and with a focus on Black culture and characters. They in turn helped popularize the music as the defining sound of the 1990s and had a major influence on artists who rose up after.

His films also boosted the careers of some of the era’s most notable actors, most notably Wesley Snipes, who’s menacing turn as crack lord Nino Brown in “New Jack City” was a career-defining and star-making role. The film was also a breakthrough for Chris Rock prior to his stint on “SNL,” and established groundbreaking rapper Ice-T as a respected actor best known, ironically given his music career, for playing cops.

Born in 1958 or 1959 — as of this writing his date of birth wasn’t publicly known for certain — in Harlem, Cooper got his start as an investigative reporter for the Village Voice, where he wrote from 1980 to 1988. He was particularly regarded for his groundbreaking reporting on the growing crack epidemic as well as for his writing about the growing rap music scene. His writing got the attention of Quincy Jones, who hired Cooper to rewrite a script about 1970s NYC gangster Nicky Barnes — which eventually became “New Jack City.”

He continued to work in and out of Hollywood, and occasionally contributed to publications such as Huffington Post.

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