opinion
HOW GHOSTS GET DOWN
Nicky Barnes was one of my heroes as a young man in Harlem. By the time I'd made him into New Jack City’s Nino Brown, he’d disappeared—with an assist from Rudy Giuliani.
Barry Michael Cooper is a journalist, screenwriter, and producer who wrote “New Jack City,” “Above The Rim,” and “Sugar Hill.” Cooper is the first African American screenwriter in history to have two films “Sugar Hill” and “Above The Rim,” released not only in the same year (1994) but a month apart from each other. He wrote the June 3 New York Times Men’s Style feature on legendary Harlem couturier Daniel “Dapper Dan” Day, which many say was the catalyst to Day landing his partnership deal at Gucci. Cooper is also a Supervising Producer and Writer for Spike Lee’s “She’s Gotta Have It” series on Netflix, and is currently working on a documentary on Harlem titled “Harlem on My Mind” and his first novella, “The Diary of Nino Brown: How Ghosts Get Down,” which is a prequel and sequel to the 1991 Warner Bros. film “New Jack City.