The death of John Singleton has been announced after he recently suffered a stroke. He came to prominence with his debut Boyz N The Hood, a tale of the stresses and tragedies of growing up in the mean streets of Los Angeles, which garnered him an Oscar nomination at just 24, making him the first black director and the youngest person ever to be up for the gong. He continued to pursue what he saw as his calling to bring African-American experience to the screen, big and small, with Poetic Justice (starring Janet Jackson), college drama Higher Learning, lynch mob drama Rosewood, sequel/remake Shaft, Baby Boy (a follow up to that debut), action sequel 2 Fast 2 Furious, thriller Four Brothers, and his last before concentrating on television, Abduction. Recently he had been devoting his time to his acclaimed series Snowfall. Along with the likes of Spike Lee, Singleton earned his place in film history by ushering in an era where black Americans could tell their own stories as a matter of course, and not be a "novelty"; for that he will be remembered.
