Issa Rae Officially Enters Vertical Drama Through a Hoorae and TikTok Partnership
New series launch this month under the deal. Hollywood stars are betting on the format.
Issa Rae is officially entering vertical drama.
Hoorae, Rae’s production company, has announced a partnership with TikTok, with new series launching this month. It is the first time a producer of Rae’s profile has committed a slate to the format.
Why Hoorae
Rae built her career on short-form web series before Insecure made her a network star, and Hoorae has consistently backed formats the industry was slow to take seriously. A vertical slate is a return to the form she started in, with the budget and the audience she did not have the first time.
TikTok as the partner is the other half of the story. The platform has been testing microdrama inside its main feed and building toward a dedicated product. Hoorae gives it premium scripted content from a name its audience already follows.
What it signals
Hollywood stars are betting big on the format, and the bets are getting more specific. Rae is not lending her name to a single title. She is building a line of business. Hoorae’s scripted reality dating series, The Compatibility Experiment, later premiered on TikTok and PineDrama.
For the association, the Hoorae partnership is also a model of how a producer with traditional relationships can bring them to vertical: cast with agents, crews with experience, and contracts written by people who have seen a union agreement. That is the standard the format should expect from everyone who follows.