Sean Love Combs, also known by stage names Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, or Diddy, is an American rapper, record producer and record executive. Born in Harlem and raised in Mount Vernon, New York, Combs worked as a talent director at Uptown Records before founding his own record label, Bad Boy Records, in 1993. Combs has been credited with the discovery and cultivation of artists such as the Notorious B.I.G., Mary J. Blige, and Usher.
Brett Ratner is an American film director and producer. He directed the Rush Hour film series, The Family Man, Red Dragon, X-Men: The Last Stand, and Tower Heist. He is a producer of several films, including the Horrible Bosses series, The Revenant and War Dogs, and was an executive producer of the television series Prison Break.
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell is a series of stealth action-adventure video games, the first of which was released in 2002, and their tie-in novels that were endorsed by Tom Clancy. The series follows Sam Fisher, a highly trained agent of a fictional black-ops sub-division within the NSA, dubbed "Third Echelon", as he overcomes his adversaries. Levels are created using Unreal Engine and emphasize light and darkness as gameplay elements. The series has been positively received, and was once considered to be one of Ubisoft's flagship franchises. The series had sold 19 million units by 2008. No further installments have been released since 2013. A remake of the first game was announced in December 2021.
Meagan Monique Good is an American actress and model. She first gained critical attention for her role in the film Eve's Bayou (1997) prior to landing the role of Nina in the Nickelodeon sitcom Cousin Skeeter (1998–2001). Good received further prominence after starring in the films Deliver Us from Eva (2003), Roll Bounce (2005) and Stomp the Yard (2007).
Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU), commonly known as Florida A&M, is a public historically black land-grant university in Tallahassee, Florida. Founded in 1887, It is the third largest historically black university in the United States by enrollment and the only public historically black university in Florida. It is a member institution of the State University System of Florida, as well as one of the state's land grant universities, and is accredited to award baccalaureate, master's and doctoral degrees by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
Kirk Dewayne Franklin is an American songwriter, choir director, gospel singer, and rapper. He is best known for leading urban contemporary gospel and Christian R&B ensembles such as The Family, God's Property, and One Nation Crew (1NC) among many others. He has won numerous awards, including 20 Grammy Awards. Variety dubbed Franklin as a "Reigning King of Urban Gospel", and is one of the inaugural inductees into the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame.
Trudie Styler is an English actress, director, and film producer.
Yolanda Yvette Adams is an American gospel singer, actress, and host of her own nationally syndicated morning gospel show. She is one of the best-selling gospel artists of all time, having sold over 10 million albums worldwide. In addition to achieving multi-platinum status, she has won four Grammy Awards, four Dove Awards, five BET Awards, six NAACP Image Awards, six Soul Train Music Awards, two BMI Awards and sixteen Stellar Awards. She is the first Gospel artist to win the Grammy Award for Best Gospel Song. She is also the first Gospel artist to be awarded an American Music Award.
Edward Thomas Hardy is an English actor, producer, and screenwriter. After studying acting at the Drama Centre London, he made his film debut in Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down (2001). He had supporting roles in Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) and RocknRolla (2008), and went on to star in Bronson (2008), Warrior (2011), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Lawless (2012), This Means War (2012), and Locke (2013). In 2015, he starred as "Mad" Max Rockatansky in Mad Max: Fury Road and both Kray twins in Legend, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Revenant. He has appeared in three Christopher Nolan films: Inception (2010), The Dark Knight Rises (2012) as Bane, and Dunkirk (2017). He has since starred as Eddie Brock/Venom in the film Venom and its 2021 sequel Venom: Let There Be Carnage. He also portrayed Al Capone in the film Capone (2020).
John Francis "Jon" Cassar is a Maltese-Canadian television director and producer, known for his work on the first seven seasons of 24. In 2006, he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for his work on the episode "Day 5: 7:00 a.m. – 8:00 a.m.". In 2011, he produced and directed all episodes of the Canadian-American miniseries The Kennedys, for which he won the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Television Film and was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries or Movie.
Will Packer is an American film producer who founded Will Packer Productions, and Will Packer Media. Packer has produced or executive produced a wide range of movies that have grossed more than $1 billion worldwide at the box office, including 10 films that have opened at number one. He has produced more than 30 features including big-screen hit comedies such as Think Like a Man (2012), Ride Along (2014), Think Like a Man Too (2014), The Wedding Ringer (2015), Girls Trip (2017), Night School (2018), What Men Want (2019) and Little (2019).
Stomp the Yard is a 2007 American dance drama film produced by Rainforest Films and released through Sony Pictures' Screen Gems division on January 12, 2007. Directed by Sylvain White, Stomp the Yard centers on DJ Williams, a college student at a fictional historically black university who pledges to join a fictional Greek-letter fraternity. The film's central conflict involves DJ's fraternity competing in various stepping competitions against a rival fraternity of the same school. The film's script was written by Robert Adetuyi, working from an original draft by Gregory Ramon Anderson. The film was originally titled Steppin', but to avoid confusion over the 2006 film Step Up, the title was changed. Delta Sigma Theta along with other sororities like Gamma Theta were in the movie.
Darrin Dewitt Henson is an American choreographer, dancer, actor, and producer. Hensen was a brief member of freestyle music 1980s group Trilogy and was featured on their single "Good Time". He worked as a choreographer for various artists and received the 2000 MTV Video Music Award for Best Choreography for "Bye Bye Bye" by NSYNC.
Gregory Ramon Anderson is a Tallahassee, Florida native who graduated from FAMU in 1994. He co-founded Rainforest Films, with fellow FAMU graduates Rob Hardy and Will Packer in 1994, working as a script writer, film producer, and fill-in actor. Rainforest Films has independently produced three feature films including Chocolate City, Trois, and Pandora's Box. Anderson wrote the screenplay for the film Stomp the Yard.
Trois is a 2000 erotic thriller film directed by Rob Hardy and produced by William Packer. It stars Gary Dourdan, Kenya Moore and Gretchen Palmer. The film was given a limited theatrical release and was one of the year's highest grossing African American-oriented films as well as one of the top fifty highest grossing independent films of 2000. The film was followed by two sequels, Trois 2: Pandora's Box (2002) and Trois: The Escort (2004).
Trois 2: Pandora's Box is a 2002 erotic thriller written and directed by Rob Hardy and starring Monica Calhoun, Michael Jai White, and Kristoff St. John.
Tom Rob Smith is an English author, screenwriter and producer.
Robert John Edwards is an Australian television drama producer.
Rainforest Films was a film production company founded in 1994 by Rob Hardy and Will Packer that produced films geared towards African-Americans.
Alpha Man: The Brotherhood of MLK is a television documentary film that reveals the story of Martin Luther King Jr.’s fraternity days as a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. Produced by Rainforest Films, the half-hour special originally aired August 28, 2011 on BET. The documentary special was scheduled to debut on the same day as the much-anticipated official dedication of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial statue on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The statue's dedication, which was to coincide with the 48th anniversary of the March on Washington and King’s "Dream" speech, was postponed until October 16, 2011, due to Hurricane Irene.
