How Cheo Hodari Coker Went From Hip Hop Journalist to 'Luke Cage' Creator and Showrunner | Blueprint

[Music] pioneering hip-hop journalist screenwriter and showrunner Jo hidari coker literally wrote the book on biggie and then gave new life to Marvel's Luke Cage on Netflix this is his blueprint [Music] tell me about growing up in Connecticut what was your first introduction to hip hop I was bored with him in Connecticut but I grew up in stores where the University of Connecticut is and so like you weren't I wasn't hearing any hip hop on WTIC everything was late and so and also because I'm like one of the only you know black kids in my school I'm like any kind of anything I'm searching for I'm searching for myself I'm trying to you know figure out who it is I am and you know my cousin's they lives in in Montclair New Jersey so they were like taping like Red Alert and mr. magic off the radio and then I would just like listen to the tapes and I would just like to a point whether they broke I I think what made me become a hip-hop journalist was I was so searching for myself in the music that I held on to it tighter than most people who were too surrounded oh yeah like the song I like that song for me it was life at death did your parents work in creative fields my mother um was she was a lawyer you know daughter of a Tuskegee Airmen and again my grandfather was career military my father grew up in New Haven grew up at Hamlin Street projects my mom and dad split when I was really young that kind of cultural schizophrenia of divorce in Connecticut from the tuna and the to Connecticut's it's like you know I'm with my dad in the projects and his in in his apartment saying you know he drinks a lot and you know I'm going with him to bars and just kind of being around like relatively gritty stuff and then I'm at my grandfather's with my mom and he has a Porsche and so when you grow up with that kind of confusion you like like Who am I after high school you go to Stanford mm-hmm when you're applying thinking about where you're gonna go did you have any sort of sense like professional purpose you think that you want to be like a lawyer you know particularly with my mom's background but then I read my first law book I'm like man it's like reading in a thousand-page instruction booklet and then all of a sudden there's a first issue of the source that I ever bought was the the color Malcolm X cover reading that issue of the source changed my mind about what I thought I wanted to do and I think I was back in New York again over the summer and with the s obese and caressed one was performing and I remember there was like this table and it was like I think Chris Wilder John Schecter Roxy Lowe you know a lot of early members of what was considered the source mind squad and the fact that Karras wanted afternoon.the you know during the break in the set goes and he's hanging out in shaking hands with with with these guys I'm like man that's what I want to do that's what that's who I want to be and then all of a sudden it's just like you're in the Bay Area and you're around hip-hop and you have the opportunity to write so I started writing for the bomb hit by magazine and also started writing for rap pages and then after a while it was almost like almost famous where like I was living in a dorm in skipping classes and then flying down to fly to Miami to interview Magic Mike for a rap pages or you know flying to LA to interview Ice Cube and I thought as the publication's know I was grown living in the city they didn't know they were sending records to my dorm room you know and that was kind of the start of my career is all of a sudden guy used to you know talking and asking questions and I think the most important lesson I learned from hip hop that I still applied to this day is be who you are don't try to be more or less than who you are because rappers in particular they thing to sniff through anything false and then I think as a result by that better interviews because people sense the sincerity you were involved through no fault of your own in one of the sort of defining moments of hip-hop journey isn't saying yeah you could interview tank land for rap pages yep the back pages editors commissioned a illustration for really but by by Alika okay because they couldn't get a right so what happens you know any time you're around would saying it's it's controlled cast I wrote the piece for rap pages and then because they didn't show up for photos the likud does these illustrations based on the names so but they're kind of cartoon characters so Raekwon the chef is now Raekwon and his chef's hat roasting a pig which of course because he's five percent nation that's that's offensive you know you God has an illustration where he's kind of elevated in the air ol dirty bastard's a blow-up doll it was just the kind of it wasn't just the illustrations it was the fact that the group wasn't really being taken seriously from their perspective and so then everybody forgets about it and then months later I get my first piece for mouth to mouth the piece was supposed to be Staten Island hip hop and so I was catching loot saying and so at first run into Ghostface and so we're sitting we're talking and one by one members of the group end up showing up at the managers house in Staten Island so I'm interviewing the group finally and talking everybody wizard wizard is a master killer pull up in a car master killer gets out of the back so I walk up to the car Master killer you know he comes up to me says yo yo yo you you chill right and I'm like yeah that's that's to let you know we'll take laying down the way with you you know we know cartoon cares we come real what I said my eye is like Boop like blazing he has my tape recorder I'm just really I'm trying to figure out oh can I save the interview cuz this is um hip-hop true believer so how can I save the interview I go in the house in and you know I don't end Raekwon comes up to me say you'll kill the snuff do yo sit down I mean this was like every day thanks for them they fight all the time so they all gotten in the minivan and this drove off to this show and then the manager he says you know what do you want to do like you know I said look I just want to replace my tape recorder and so leases I so then he pulls out this cheque and I still have it and you know it's funny it's a I think it's a sixteen sixty five dollar cheque and so by the time I catch a flight to get back to Stanford I'm getting calls from all over the country like one rumor was that it was Ghostface that had me not master because goes race killer bass skillet who got confused and then somebody said I got shot and so was all this all these rumors that's why I went public because I had to kind of clear up what happened like no was not ghost it was master and ultimately all the notoriety is what finally led Anthony DeCurtis to say hey I read your clips do you want to write something for us for Rolling Stone that's how I ended up writing directly reviews ready to die as your career starts to bloom mom you make another very important connection in the hip-hop community with Biggie and puff how did that relationship start this was two weeks after the first record drops so this was like he still lives on 226 ain't James he not go there and we're talking and it was crazy cuz you know every single car you know passing down the street was playing a different song from ready to die and he's like right on his stoop try Finn Larson he coming up to him and ask him for a gun to go rob somebody and him saying I don't know what the gun is and then as soon as they go I know that we're good you can't judge big by the photos because he was he was so funny the the three different interviews I did with them I I got to just kind of know him and really ask him a lot of questions about his childhood and about his life you know the first one was he was literally the record just came out he's still living on its own st. James his whole fear in life was I don't want to move out of Brooklyn and make a wack record the big that I hung out with two years later with a Cabana by the pool at the Four Seasons it's like I can make a record anywhere but then the last interview I had with big was really the most introspective that was that was after the Soul Train Awards when we were in his hotel room and he kind of he had a room service Pizza balanced on his stomach he had a big Ponce and he was sitting there and he was eating and we were talking and that's when he talked about like wanting to give us you know to give Tiana away at her wedding wanting to be there for CJ he was just born you know imagining a life where he was just kind of a suburban soccer dad you never know the interview that's going to your life and so talking to biggie changed my life because you know if I hadn't of talked to big that first time and then also the last time I wouldn't have written the live cover story I wouldn't have written you know the book unbelievable life death enough left or SPG I wouldn't have the opportunity to write them you know co-write the movie notorious co-writing the movie notorious gave me the opportunity to become a television writer to write Southland and all those experiences and television ultimately ultimately led to me writing creating and executive Rousset Luke Cage chose iconic interviews laid the groundwork that would propel his career but gaining credibility in Hollywood proved even harder than in hip-hop in the late 90s you penned these epic interviews with big how do you transition from that to getting involved in screenwriting in Hollywood there was so much competition between even though we were all writing for all the different places there was always so much competition and so much politics why am I gonna compete and get bitter over a 5,000 dollar cover story when I could be making a hundred and fifty thousand dollars selling the screenplay for roughly the same amount of effort you get to a point where you're like am I gonna spend my life writing articles about people pursuing their dreams or am I eventually gonna pursue my own dreams myself my uncle Richard Wesley because besides being you know my greatest influence my uncle he as a screenwriter wrote uptown Saturday and I okay so you when you're growing up you have these archetypes in your sort of immediate orbit kind of yeah I'll show you the blueprint I was either gonna be a fighter pilot or I was gonna write movies you know this is right around town the two pockets killed Connie Brooke wrote an article about PAC's death and it was funny because my uncle you know read that article we both read it we had two different interpretations and that fictional conceit became the screenplay for flow which was kind of our like hip-hop version of The Godfather about brotherhood and friendship things that kind of split apart and the economics maybe was Empire 20 years before you fire and so you're writing this in the late 90s yeah this was like right around the time that right after big dies you know right around the time I leave the LA Times I lose this other writing opportunity I went through a breakup and I go back to to Connecticut and I'm and I didn't realize at the time but I was depressed I said wait a minute let me look at myself I'm just I'm watching television for like 20 hours a day I'm not really sleeping something's wrong with me this is my last night of acting like this I'm going to get up and I'm going to make myself will myself through the rest of the screenplay we ended up selling to New Line Cinema because I was able to attach you know because I knew John Singleton John read it he liked it he attached himself we sold it and then you do that it sells in 1998 you get an ounce of variety you figure all this out it is easy you're gonna sell a screenplay this is out flow still hasn't that made here it is like 20 years later like I'm talking about this thing what was the biggest challenge of tackling fiction from having you know done nonfiction for 8 10 years professionally all the script is is a document that allows 150 people to work together and everybody looks differently at that document but the thing about a good script is that when the script is good for whatever reason that every department knows it and they feel it and they give their 150% because they believe in it but what happens is like you just kind of after a while you sell things and they're not getting made and you're just basically changing details because your development executive is getting bored and then you get into this weird place where it's like am i professional writer at my selling screenplays every two three years enough to maybe get some health insurance or be able to add a Hollywood party respectfully call myself a writer yes but is anything getting made no how many years from you finishing that first screenplay until you were in a movie theaters looking at your work was it was nine years because between co-writing flow its selling that I wrote the I wrote of a few drafts of the Bob Marley story from Warner Brothers rich and I collaborated again on a script about marionberries life for HBO that Jamie Foxx got attached to and was it gonna make and then he said you know what there's this movie I'm making in New Orleans about Ray Charles's life that I'm gonna do that and after I do Ray Charles I promise I'm gonna come back and do Marion Barry that didn't happen one version of all of all eyes on me I wrote lowrider which actually just came out but my first version of that it wasn't really until notorious gets made that all of a sudden like there's heat the movies a certain extent was ahead of its time I think the thing about notorious is that budget wise and just certain the environment and certain things it couldn't be as candid look at Biggie's life but because it was a serious look and because there was a well-made film it opened the door for you know these are the biopics I mean we're really the best of which is of course Straight Outta Compton I wrote the first two drafts of the script Regirock both would rewrote the scripts I probably wrote an on producible movie not from the standpoint of it wasn't well written but because it was so big and I think Reggie's approach was that he was able to navigate those waters that I now navigate all the time between studio and network where the wants of this state and also then wants a Fox Searchlight but still make sure that he maintains a you know the character the first part of your career in Hollywood you're writing full screenplays you know with your uncle or by yourself then you move into TV with Southland what is day one walking into a writers room like scary I look to my right John Wells is at the end of this long marble table over here Chris Chula is at the end of this table here Dianna stone is on the other side of the table sitting next to Robin green and Mitch Burgess The Sopranos emmy-winning team that eventually also created blue bloods everyone is more experienced than I am and I'm like scared and I'm like how the hell did I get in here while I'm in this room and then I realize okay this is Southland this is about cops and I'm pretty much the only person in this room that has you know had an experience like I had with the game where it's like you're sitting in his living room and he's got an ak-47 on the Ottoman and there's a police helicopter outside or having the experience have been in cars where you get pulled over as opposed to just being on the other side with being with the cops when you're doing a ride-along having that perspective gives me the opportunity to both write authentically about that side in addition to hanging out with cops and understanding their perspective and that's why Southland I think still I love that show at the same time like you know right of working with an again on runway Donna mills great what Ann taught me is emotional truth not only having your characters be you know makes sense and understanding what they wear and why those kinds of details are important and also overall what I learned from and as a showrunner is just every single detail visual detail music you it all matters so how does the Luke Cage opportunity present itself to you when amphetamine left ray Donovan after season two you know out of loyalty when my superior left I left and I'm trying to figure out what's next I wrote a pilot it's on spec with q-tip called lyrics to go which was about the early years of a child Called Quest but then at the same time I also started talking with Marvel because they were looking for somebody to do Luke Cage and so I went in and and you know I just talked about my passion for the character and then also at the same time talked about the importance of you know heroes for african-americans particularly african-american males knowing that having a black male superhero was the opportunity because being a black male writing about a black male it gives a certain perspective that I don't even think television really has because when you have black men writing about black men they write it's a different kind of perspective it was the perfect opportunity because 13 episodes were already greenlit it wasn't about writing a pilot and then if everybody likes the pilot and then eventually comes out and people like it enough we're gonna make 12 more episodes it was already ready to go just add water what I pitched essentially was City of God meets belly as written by the staff of The Wire where does one even begin putting together the building blocks for this they gave me the scripts the first two scripts for Jessica Jones and the first season one and the first two scripts of daredevil season one because those were the Marvel television Netflix shows that were in production I'm just completely floored I'm completely intimidated reading this I'm like oh my god how the how the am I gonna compete with this and that's what I realized is that wait a minute what which locates do I take do I take the loot cage that's eluded to an alias or do I take the loot cage the sweet Christmas Luke Cage that everybody lived with the tiara and the and the chain bell and what I realize is that you could really do both but just basically instead of being afraid of the characters blaxploitation past think about what blaxploitation really is all blaxploitation is is giving a black male character the agency to do things that white male characters take for granted how do you modernize blaxploitation but instead you know lose the misogyny obviously but at the same time having this fourth white swagger like how do you kind of have a character that has that and then at the same time make it a comic book character Marvel characters all have tragedy or at the same time aren't happy to have their powers Luke Cage is somebody who doesn't he'd rather than I have his bulletproof skin he rather not be strong in this way he just wants to be a normal dude and so the first step is writing this writing you know the first two episodes and then at the same time having some ideas about what's gonna happen for the other thirteen is that before you've assembled the writers room like do you go into your whole by yourself and knock out that pilot well you know what it is everything for me is music and so I said okay let me take an old trick from you know my hip-hop journalism experience of like you know how cover lines are constantly coming from song titles so let me assemble different song titles and diss things just from a just a simple thematic basis think about like how Luke Cage and a story kid kind of play off some of these interesting titles did Luke Cage have an outsized budget in order to afford like this sort of over-the-top scoring and all these music cues we said to figure out how with our budget like being very selective with which songs we went after in terms of known songs for Neil Jobs then also from that allotted budget okay how are we going to use this money towards affording an orchestra and you know the secret weapons beyond the acne and everything else was Adrian young I didn't know that Adrian was working with Olli Sheikh Mohammed and so the fact that getting them both together it was the perfect combination and the way that they wanted to do the score was different and them using the wanting to use in Orchestra it's not anticipating how how good the means I mean I did I knowing them I knew that they were it was dope but just what they did particularly for the show became like this development I take every lesson that I learned from hip hop and then I apply it to this job suburban example was III DJ for a while watching crowd move to a record it teaches you things about the pulse that you can take with you everywhere all those lessons all that nervousness it applies directly to up the television show because all of a sudden it's the same nervousness it's like you have a concept you look the people dig it and just saying relax you've done this before you've seen this done don't let the record drop look you got to figure it out you got to take that adrenaline and push it forward always as chair navigated the terrain of having a hit show on Netflix he came to embrace his power by channeling the swagger of his earliest hip-hop subjects there was a documentary on show running and I think somebody says that is it's one of the only jobs in Hollywood that has a 100% burnout rate and I kind of view myself as the editor-in-chief of Luke Cage so it's like the episodes have their own life you we plot them together but then each individual writer not only is going to have their say in their episode but they're also going to you know since we did this in Los Angeles they're gonna come to New York and they're gonna produce the episode they're gonna be on set for every take they're going to interact with the actors in the director at the same time I'm back in LA getting notes and you know we're getting notes from both Marvel and Netflix and the thing about both those companies is that very particular they're very smart and they're very passionate and that's kind of the hardest part of being a showrunner is that sometimes you're gonna be in a room and 40 people are gonna tell you that you're wrong and that you just have to say this is what we're doing and a but you better be right and just trying to figure out okay it's like do I push it this time because I feel it's right do I because I trust the people that I work with you know am I gonna back off on certain things or you know do you just kind of have to throw caution to the wind you know and what was an example of this and it season one perfect example it's like the you know doesn't exist in the Marvel Universe in terms of like being award that that's used off it and so my thing was in some of the scenarios in Luke Cage particularly the street scenarios that didn't seem realistic that the characters in these scenarios wouldn't use the word in the in the pilot the first episode the you know the moment with with Herschel Ollie and alfre woodard and then the balcony when she's saying that she despises that word and he says like he embraces the word because because everybody underestimates a you know they never see you coming I mean to me that that's that's hip-hop in a nutshell because people you know thought that the rappers that were call themselves were ignorant but instead now they're captains of industry and now they've not only flipped the word in the attitude on its ear they also have basically created a culture and monetize that culture in a way that people they have their own rules and that's kind of the whole point of what cottonmouths records this in the first place and so it's always about taking these things here and there that you've experienced that you've witnessed and just putting it into the art so you put out season one to essentially universal adulation and it raises your profile personally in addition to you know the show being very well received how did your life change I you know it is it's your life doesn't change isn't like all of a sudden people think that your ideas are any better they listen a little more it's more like it's being on the other side it's like all of a sudden going from being a journalist quoting people to realize and they virtually every aspect of what you say is gonna be quoted even something at Comic Con you up there on stage and you have these bright lights and you're so nervous and you just try not to look you know scared up there and then so you just start talking off the top of your head and you say something like the world is ready for a bulletproof black man and then that quote is literally just all of a sudden there's a Vanity Fair article about it and this is being bounced all over the place and you know you've been saying variations of that thing over all the different interviews but then when you say it in this one place it just pings you're gonna get hit with problems you're gonna get hit with with you know so much adversity at times and you just have to kind of calm down and just giving yourself the advice that I give my children all the time I'm like how do you need an elephant it's the one bite at a time do you have ambitions outside of showrunning like is there a future and directing for you or I think everybody says they want to direct but I mean directing is just like it's a thankless job I mean you know writing on one hand but directing is just like with with the amount of hours and just you know having to marshal a vision in a different way it's like it's it's a challenge I want to eventually take on but it's one that I don't do lightly I'd rather just kind of like lay in the cut and really absorb as many lessons as I can before taking off something like that I'm kind of like you know thinking about how Luke Cage how he was reluctant to kind of come out of the shadows and eventually do when he did I kind of feel the same way identify with that I understand where that is I know that eventually I'm gonna properly direct something but I really want to just absorb as much as I can before doing that the one thing I learned from watching the BIG's and the Puffy's of the world it's not what you know as much as it is if you know something and you're confident that's something that's lead into it you know and let the rest figure itself out like it's not really what you think everybody else is gonna think is cool just do it you like and hopefully you're right and also be willing to live with failure as well because you could be wrong and so you just have to live one way or the other but you can't live in fear that's the one thing you can't do [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Complex

Views: 133,418

Rating: 4.8834953 out of 5

Keywords: sneakerhead, complex, complex originals, sneakers, news, entertainment, current affairs, young man, culture, cool, edgy, funny, complex tv, complex media, cheo hodari coker, cheo coker, coker, journalist, luke cage, hip hop, rap, southland, ray donovan, netflix, interview, blueprint, tips and tricks, entrepenuer

Id: zy-UHd_SPCg

Length: 28min 29sec (1709 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 29 2017