What Issa Rae Taught Me About Owning Your Vision

By: Yasmine Duhe

The moment I found out Issa Rae would be attending Dream Con, I knew her panel would be one I couldn’t miss. I remember seeing the announcement and immediately thinking, “What?” I had so many emotions reading that post, but more than anything, I was filled with excitement and joy.

Issa has always been a huge inspiration to me, but there was something else that made the announcement feel special. I’ve also had the opportunity to witness Dream Con grow over the years and become a major phenomenon within Black creative and cultural spaces. Seeing one of my biggest inspirations appear at a convention that also helped propel me into the creative I am today felt incredibly full circle.

For its second year in Houston, Texas, Dream Con once again brought together creatives and notable figures across Black entertainment, media and culture, including Cree Summer, Carl Jones, Noah Lyles, Jessie T. Usher and one of the convention’s major headliners, Insecure creator Issa Rae.

This year, Rae’s conversation became one of those Dream Con moments that stuck with me.

Alongside comedian, rapper and actress Roxxy Haze, Rae participated in a fireside chat titled “Own The Narrative: Crafting Stories & Claiming Power in Media.” Throughout the conversation, Rae reflected on her rise within the media industry, the evolution of HOORAE Media and what it has meant to maintain her creative vision as her career continues to evolve.

Rae shared that Black women remain at the center of HOORAE Media and reflected on the personal inspiration behind the company’s name, which stems from her grandmother. But beyond building a media company, Rae spoke directly to creators about navigating an industry that continues to change.

One of the biggest messages I took away from Rae’s conversation was the importance of allowing your work to exist outside of your own head. She encouraged creators to put their work out into the world rather than allowing uncertainty about how it may be received to prevent them from creating altogether.

Rae’s own career reflects that willingness to create and pivot. Before Insecure became an HBO series, she built an audience online through The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl. During the conversation, she reflected on developing her ideas, pitching her work and eventually bringing Insecure to HBO, a network she had long admired.

But as Rae reflected on her evolution as a creator, she also spoke candidly about how her relationship with creative freedom has changed throughout her career. She discussed her previous deal with Warner Bros. and HBO, describing the experience of working with them as “amazing,” while also acknowledging the limitations that came with the partnership.

“I could only create for them. If they said no to something, it would just be no.”

Now, Rae has a looser deal with Paramount, giving her more flexibility to explore different creative projects. She also discussed experimenting within the digital space through her online microdrama series, Screen Time. That flexibility also connects to how Rae now views success.

Rae stated:

“Success to me, looks like building and being able to having the right access to an audience and not having someone in the middle of not telling me, ' Yes, this is great for our audience or ,this is not great for our audience, ' and to be able to directly serve is really exciting to me while also being able to make something on the whim. The success is balance and being able to make whatever I want.”

Hearing Rae describe success this way made the title of the conversation, “Own The Narrative”, feel even more significant. Owning your narrative isn’t simply about telling the stories you want to tell. It is also about having the freedom, access, and infrastructure to decide how those stories reach an audience.

For Rae, that journey has taken her from creating a web series independently, to developing Insecure with HBO, to now exploring what creative freedom can look like across traditional and digital media. Her career shows that growth doesn’t always mean abandoning where you started. Sometimes, it means returning to those same creative instincts with more experience, resources and control.

And maybe that is what stuck with me most.

Each time I attend Dream Con, I leave thinking differently about what it means to be a creative. Watching the convention grow while listening to someone who has influenced my own creative journey speak so openly about hers reminded me that there is no singular path to success in media.

Sometimes success is the opportunity to create something massive. Sometimes it is knowing when to pivot. And sometimes, as Rae put it, success is simply having the balance and freedom to make whatever you want.

Rather than completely compromising her vision, Rae found a way to maintain creative control while letting the project evolve into what audiences now know as Insecure. Her story highlighted something that continued to surface throughout the conversation: owning your narrative does not necessarily mean refusing to change. Sometimes, it means knowing which parts of your vision can evolve and which parts are worth protecting.