“Black-ish” creator Kenya Barris has partnered with Offscript Worldwide — the employee-run parent of the Revolt TV brand — to launch Revolt Labs, a new company focused on working with creators. Barris and Offscript will run Revolt Labs as a joint venture, with Barris serving as vice chair of the new entity.
The news was revealed on Thursday morning by Barris and Revolt/Offscript Worldwide CEO Detavio Samuels, who exclusively laid out the structure to Variety. “What excited me about this venture is the ability for us to tap into our superpowers,” Samuels said. “On the Revolt side, we’ve proven ourselves from a business standpoint as the fastest-growing Black-owned media company. We have a track record identifying the next generation of creators. Then being able to take those creators to Kenya, who makes the dopest content and can take things from raw ideas to real concepts to global franchises. And then the third piece is our marketing prowess — whether we are driving them to the Revolt distribution system to out to Netflix, Disney or whoever buys it.”
Barris and Samuels said they’re looking at creator talent in the vein of Druski and Kai Cenat, with a goal to create TV, film, digital and live experience content — with a promise of ownership and a larger footprint for creators vs. what they can pull off on their own.
“Creators have massive audiences, and tremendous influence,” Samuels said. “But what they’re missing is the infrastructure to turn some of their biggest ideas into premium IP. We know they’re dominating in places like social, but when we talk to them, so many of them have dream that go way beyond that. Bigger budgets, broader distribution, a different economic model than what they’re seeing in social.”
He cites MrBeast as inspiration, noting that the creator dominated on YouTube and social but still partnered with Amazon to bring “Beast Games” to life. “Our hope and dream is that we can help creators get their genius ideas, their non-TikTok, non-Instagram, non-YouTube ideas, out across any format, any category, any ambition,” Samuels said. “That’s why Kenya is so important to this thing. Because Kenya has touched documentaries, unscripted, reality, scripted. And so the idea that whatever special project the creator may have, we have the infrastructure and now the creative partner to be able to help them deliver that idea to the market.”
Landing Barris as a partner was a coup for Revolt, which has navigated choppy waters in recent years. Sean “Diddy Combs,” who founded the brand with Andy Schuon as a cable channel in 2013, fully divested his stake in the company in 2024 as his legal troubles mounted. (Combs remains in prison after a July 2025 conviction.) At that point, Revolt employees became the company’s largest shareholders. Last year, music entrepreneur Damon Dash claimed he had purchased the company and would become chairman, but that wound up being unfounded.
Barris lauded Samuels for steering Revolt through all of that. “The idea of a company that went through a major, major shift that would have toppled most companies, and then the next year, he came back at his upfront and didn’t lose a single advertiser, that just doesn’t happen,” Barris said. “Especially with what he’s had to go through.”
Barris helped create “America’s Next Top Model,” then focused his attention on writing on shows like “Girlfriends,” “Soul Food” and “The Game” — leading to his smash ABC comedy “Black-ish” and its spinoffs “Grown-ish” and “Mixed-ish.” He signed a megapact with Netflix, with output including “BlackAF,” before leaving that deal early. He then helped launch BET Studios, with series including “Diarra from Detroit.”
Barris said he’s still producing and pitching ideas for BET Studios, including Season 2 of “Diarra.” But he’s focused on getting Revolt Labs off the ground.
“I have no restrictions moving forward in terms of what I do,” he said. “But this is my horse. I feel like where we’re at, we’re Bezos in the garage selling used books at this moment. I’m really excited to work with new creators, people who have interesting ideas.
“I feel like we’re doing another shift in media,” he added. “You’re starting to see the young creators like Kai and Druski, and the power that they have. They have ideas, we can see language changing, fashion changing. Revolt has always been there on the edge of where the culture is. So when the idea of Revolt Labs came up, I was like, this is the right time… I just want to make shit. And if I don’t make shit, I want to help other people make shit.”
Samuels said he believed the timing was right for Revolt Labs given the consolidation happening across media. “When everything is together and predictable and the way that it’s supposed to be, then only the big guys, the conventional players, win,” he said. “When things are chaotic, anybody can win — the big guy, the small guy, the person in the garage. Nobody knows better than the creators about their audience, where they have cult fandom, and their own genius ideas about the type of content that can feed that audience.”
Leave a Reply