How ‘Love & Basketball’ Allowed Issa Rae to Dream

Issa Rae says she had every reason to think she could be a filmmaker when she was growing up.“The ’90s had lots of black television and film … a lot of the shows were helmed by black people,” she recalls.

“That’s what inspired me to at least try it.”She may have only been 5 years old when “A Different World” — a spinoff of “The Cosby Show” that took place at a historically black college and ran on NBC from 1987 to 1993 — went off the air, but it left its mark.But perhaps even more influential was “Love & Basketball.” The 2000 romantic drama, written and directed by Gina Prince-Blythewood, stars Omar Epps and Sanaa Lathan as childhood friends who fall for each other while they’re both pursuing careers on the court.“It took place in my neighborhood in Los Angeles,” says Rae, 35, who grew up in Inglewood.

“It was a

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