Cape Town - Black excellence doesn’t get better than this!
Popular American film mogul, Tyler Perry, has always been ahead of the game when it comes to film making for black people and celebrating black culture. And over the weekend, he raised the bar even higher. According to the Los Angeles Times, he’s the first African-American to own a studio outright, with no corporation or partners.
The brain behind the dearly loved character, Madea, recently launched his studios in Atlanta, Georgia, USA and invited the crème de la crème of black Hollywood to share the monumental occasion, including Oprah Winfrey, Cecily Tyson, Taraji P. Henson, Jill Scott, Whoopi Goldberg, Keshia Knight Pulliam, Spike Lee, Ava DuVernay, Beyoncé, Jay Z and Halle Berry, along with political figures such as John Lewis, Bernice King and Stacey Abrams.
Back in June, Perry explained during his BET Awards acceptance speech (where he was honoured with the Ultimate Icon award) that “when I built my studio, [it was in the] poorest Black neighbourhood in Atlanta so the kids can see that a Black man did that, and they can too. The studio was once a confederate army base,” he said of the land, known as Fort McPherson, which was used as a Confederate Army base during the Civil War, when the southern states fought the northern states to keep Black people enslaved.
According to his website, Perry purchased the land in June 2015. It now holds 12 sound stages for movie productions. He dedicated each soundstage to a Black person who’d made strides in Hollywood, including the late Diahann Carroll, Essence reports.
Guests were treated to an exclusive tour of the impressively huge studios. One tweep reposted a video of the tour and captioned it, “Tyler Perry ain't joking around! His studio is a whole damn town! What in the world???!!!” and we couldn’t agree more.
Tyler Perry ain't joking around! His studio is a whole damn town! What in the world???!!!???????????????? pic.twitter.com/3nT1uDbFbb
— THE KING IN THE SOUTH???????? (@mccoyinnocent) October 6, 2019