Hollywood May Destroy You
It’s been two months and eleven days since I lost my friend. Technically, it’s been two months and twelve days. But who’s counting. It was a quiet Thursday night and something told me to check in on Brotha Reek. It had been exactly a week since we last texted and it was time for me to follow up. He had asked me for my opinion on Hulu’s latest series, Woke, and I had finally watched it and gathered my thoughts. I told myself that I would Facetime him in the morning and formulated a light agenda in my head. I didn’t have the energy to sustain a long conversation and since we always talked shit for at least two hours at a time, I wanted to be fresh.
My best friend called me the next morning to inform me that Reek had passed away. By the time he had crossed my mind the night before, he had already transitioned to another dimension. My friend Mark, being the considerate and loving person that he is, pushed through his own shock and sorrow to call me. He wanted to be the first one to tell me before I got on social media and saw the news. He knew that would’ve both confused and wrecked me, but that ended up happening anyway.
It is difficult to describe an all-encompassing sensation like grief. It creeps up in the middle of the night — or in the middle of a Zoom table read — demanding that you cry your eyes out as an offering to the God of Sadness, who never seems to be satisfied. It shifts your perspective on everything seemingly overnight, causing you to simply not care about that which you once felt was of the utmost importance (i.e. eating, joining meetings with your camera on and leaving the house). It depletes your fuck jar, then shatters it.
I met Brotha Reek in 2013.
I was a senior at USC and it was my final semester. I had signed up for a graduate level TV writing class because I wanted to strengthen my screenwriting skills before I graduated. We met on the first day of class and I remember his energy distinctly. He was vibrant — inside and out. He had lots of personality and was a jokester, like me. We instantly hit it off; so much so that I am having trouble remembering all that we did throughout our first year of knowing each other. It was one of those friendships that simply started and never stopped. There was an ease and instant familiarity despite our differences; we just got each other.
One of the first photos we took together was captured later that year at a friend’s super indie film festival, hosted by Motown Maurice in a small vacant warehouse room in Downtown LA. Reek screened the first episode of his web series, CLASS. The episode was titled “Drunk and Hot Girls” and tackled the casual ways that sexual assault plagues college campuses. Long before the great Hollywood “Me Too” reckoning, Brotha Reek was investigating and exposing the rampant nature of rape culture. Forever ahead of his time, he was a visionary in every sense of the word.
After writing, producing, and directing a number of fly and funny shorts, he set his sights on making his first feature film, Bush Baby. It was an extension of the short film of the same name that helped put him on the map, garnering attention from the likes of Spike Lee, who was a clear and direct inspiration for his work. I was a struggling executive assistant at the time and frequently invited him to the office to catch up on his latest creative endeavors, brainstorm our own crazy ideas, and enjoy happy hour at the bar on the ground floor of my office building. We always spent a good portion of our conversations lamenting over the way that Hollywood felt closed off and only theoretically interested in emerging filmmakers like him. Like us. It felt weird existing as a relative “industry insider” while still feeling like a disenfranchised outsider with no real power to make something happen independent of the white gaze. We would create and analyze complex Hollywood power maps over $5 chicken wings and well drinks, plotting our takeover. The tone was always more productive than a traditional venting session, but never toxically optimistic, just how we liked it.
Reek knew he was the shit.
And because he was so confident in his abilities, he often found himself frustrated by Hollywood’s refusal to catch up and give him a real shot. He was intimately aware of the barriers that kept him from experiencing the same types of success as some of our classmates and knew that his raw energy and authenticity was too much for some people. For white people, in particular. And he knew that 9 times out of ten, the Black executives he was meeting across town would have to go through a white executive (or a senior Black exec who demanded unrealistic levels of perfection from Black artists while hiring mediocre white men to tell Black stories) to greenlight his work.
This loop of general meetings that often results in a series of false starts is commonly known as the “water bottle tour.” If you’re lucky, one of these could lead to getting your project made, but more often than not, young writers leave with nothing more than an empty water bottle. He maintained that there were only so many “real ones” in Hollywood, but a lot of us were still rising the ranks, often fighting to be heard ourselves and facing a myriad of difficulties in trying to advocate for new filmmakers who hadn’t yet made a feature. I remember feeling like I had to come prepared for battle, just to advocate for my friends who I knew could execute if given the chance. But over the years, I found that the doubt and fear of my bosses began to manifest in my psyche, which deeply troubled me. If my superiors were so afraid to take a chance on someone like Reek, was I making a mistake in being so confident that he could deliver? Of course not, but it sometimes felt like that. What I appreciated about him is that we could have these conversations honestly without it impacting our relationship. We’d go from me expressing my own frustrations with the hypocrisies of the Hollywood machine to discussing the latest drama in our love lives. We knew white artists got double the opportunity from half the effort, and vowed to shake things up together once we were finally “on.” He fully recognized that the climb to the top would be far from easy, but strapped up for the ride anyway. He was a daredevil like that, always craving a challenge. However, we both knew this obstacle course was rigged.
I vividly remember the night our friendship transcended to a whole nother level. My friend Patriana had been hosting her wildly popular Kinky Game Night for weeks and had invited me out every time. I was a stressed out junior exec at the time, so I always politely declined and offered to promote the event for free on Black Book LA. But on this night, I had finally worked up the confidence and was feeling frisky enough to attend. I put on my sexy bra, pulled together a cute outfit and pulled up solo dolo. As I was walking up, I instantly started regretting my decision to come.
What if I don’t know anyone here?
What if no one talks to me?
OMG this is gonna be so awk!!
My anxiety was threatening to send me right back to my car, but I managed to push through. And I’m so glad I’m did. A few minutes later, in walked none other than Brotha Reek! My face instantly lit up and I rushed over to greet him, only to discover that he was with…gasp…a WHITE WOMAN!!! He introduced me to her as I tried to maintain my composure and fix my face. As soon as the opportunity presented itself, I quickly pulled him to the side in playful disbelief.
“Why the hell did you bring a white woman to KINKY GAME NIGHT?!” I whispered.
“Well, had I known Sista Makiah was gonna be here, I wouldn’t have invited her,” he replied. “I shoulda known you was a freak.”
We both laughed our asses off and carried on as if we had arrived together, playing a variety of risqué games and living our best carefree lives. (Sorry not sorry to that whyt woman!) This beautiful chance encounter became a solid foundation for what was easily the most rewarding year of our friendship. It was as if the wall between who I was and who I thought I had to be came tumbling down. We saw each other for real and talked about everything, from obscure film critiques to sex toy reviews and fuck boy chronicles. When I told him I was tired of entertaining boys who didn’t take me seriously, he invited me to join the Black & Poly group on Facebook to help me explore my options and introduced me to a whole new world that I had been curious about for a while. He was the type to drive out of his way and be late to his own writing session just to bring me a big bag of my favorite jalapeño kettle chips, complete with an impromptu dance party upon arrival. When I threw my first Halloween party via Black Book LA, he vowed to pull up if I added him to the guest list for the free, which I was happy to do. He pulled up and quickly became the life of the party, per usual. He showed up to all my house parties, albeit in the last hour, never failing to bring good vibes and a bottle. I made sure to return the favor by promoting his monthly UCB comedy show, Cornbread Kitchen, for free. They performed to a packed house every month. I attended all but a few performances and left feeling lighter every time. Reek would always invite me to the after parties, just dying to keep me out late and help me loosen up a little. I got the sense that it was secretly a dark time for both of us, but we were pushing through it in our own ways.
He was one of the few guys I could talk to honestly without having to suffer through a problematic rebuttal. He agreed with me when I declared that men ain’t shit and was quick to call out his own behavior when he knew he was in the wrong. We supported each other in the most holistic of ways and shared many more experiences that are far too wild and sacred to share on the innanets. A part of what hurts the most is that we were both so close to finally living out our full dreams, simultaneously. In our last in-person conversation, we sat under the stars gazing up at the most beautiful meteor shower. He shared that for the first time in a while, he could see a clear path forward and was elated to finally have the opportunities he had been grinding so hard for. He had just been accepted into the HBO Access Directing Program and was thrilled about all the doors it would help open for his career. In my head, I couldn’t help but wonder why someone as talented as Reek with so many short films and experiences under his belt even needed such a program to be validated by this industry. I found it ridiculous that it had taken so long after graduating from the #1 film school to be recognized, let alone hired, by a place like HBO. But I was excited nonetheless because I recognized how monumental this was.
How do you mourn someone who, by all accounts, should still be here?
I travelled across the country in a pandemic to attend Reek’s funeral in Brooklyn, New York. As much as the thought of potentially catching the Rona scared me, not being there to pay my respects to a true friend who always showed up for me frightened me even more. He not only changed, but deeply enhanced my life in so many ways. I knew that if I didn’t properly process this unimaginable loss, I would become undone. And though the services and quality time with his family and loved ones helped me say goodbye, my grieving process is far from over. And probably won’t be for some time.
How do you honor the legacy of someone who was still in the process of building it? I don’t know, but I am determined to find out. One day and deep breath at a time. In the past two months, I have vacillated between wanting to quit and end everything to recognizing the unique opportunity in front of me to make sure that artists like Reek are protected, supported, and sustained by this industry that claims to love the creativity and originality that he naturally possessed. I have moved from a crippling fear that Hollywood could eventually destroy me too, to realizing that it doesn’t have the power to do such a thing unless I make it so. When I started this piece, I felt powerless against a system that often underestimates too many of my friends and collaborators. I even contemplated leaving Hollywood entirely. What’s the point of being in these rooms if I couldn’t help keep my friend alive? To be honest, I’m still asking myself these questions, but I now realize that as much as I don’t agree with and actively fight from the inside against discriminatory industry practices, I am now a part of this system and am more powerful than I give myself credit for. Reek taught me that.
Revisiting his work, it’s so clear that he was a Star.
I desperately wish that I could hold Hollywood accountable for not recognizing his light in time, even though I know that’s not feasible or fair. I know that what happened is much more complex than I will ever understand. Perhaps I’m just looking for a scapegoat, when there isn’t one.
One of the things I loved most about Reek is how free he was (and still is!). He created art from the heart and sacrificed more than people know to preserve his artistic integrity and vision. Though he had many more stories to tell, he has already left behind such a rich legacy of love and laughter. (And infamous farts — there are whole stories about them!)
Thankfully, he has been guiding me in the weeks since his transition. What’s wild, though, is that he hasn’t been saying anything new. He’d been encouraging me to start writing again for years, often saying that I should create my own Insecure type show with all the crazy stories I’ve accumulated over the years. Unfortunately, he had to leave this earth for me to finally listen and exercise my voice again. I found every excuse in the book to justify why I wasn’t writing consistently. Exhaustion from work, anxiety and depression, intense development and production schedules, you name it. But I really wish I hadn’t waited until he was gone to truly tap into our creative synergy. I have a notebook full of ideas that we discussed throughout the years. God only knows what we could’ve created together. If our friendship was any indication, it would have been a masterpiece.
