Kenya Barris to Receive Producers Guild Visionary Award

By Dave McNary

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – The Producers Guild of America has selected Kenya Barris as the recipient of its 2019 visionary award.

Barris will accept the award at the 30th Annual Producers Guild Awards on Jan. 19 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in California. The visionary award recognizes television, film, or new media producers for inspiring storytelling of unique and uplifting vision or quality to our culture.

Barris is the creator of the Emmy-nominated series “Black-ish” starring Tracee Ellis Ross and Anthony Anderson, along with its spin-off series “Grown-ish” led by Yara Shahidi. He also wrote last summer’s breakout comedy “Girls Trip.”

“ is simply a fearless producer,” PGA presidents Gail Berman and Lucy Fisher said. “Time and again, Kenya has stepped up to tackle the difficult conversations, from the ones we have as families at the kitchen table to the ones we have as colleagues in company boardrooms and network offices.  These are challenging days for many of us, but Kenya’s unique voice –honest, passionate and so very funny — has been one of our industry’s strongest antidotes to ignorance and intolerance.  We are gratified to recognize his inspiring work with the Visionary Award.”

Previous honorees include Ava DuVernay, Illumination Entertainment founder Chris Meledandri, and Plan B’s Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, and Jeremy Kleiner.