Award-winning producers Mimi Valdés and Nina Yang Bongiovi are teaming up for a new venture, Fly Green Socks, a multicultural media company focused on producing hip-hop narratives in film.
“Hip-hop is a culture defining superpower, influencing fashion, technology and even politics. But it’s severely underrepresented in Hollywood as its own film genre,” Valdés and Yang Bongiovi said in a statement announcing their partnership. “Our goal with Fly Green Socks is to create a new lane of films dedicated to uplifting the hip-hop ecosystem.”
According to an IFPI survey, over 1.85 billion people worldwide listen to hip-hop.
The co-founders added: “With hip-hop celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, there’s a goldmine of untapped stories for us to champion with innovative filmmakers. We look forward to using our combined experience and deep relationships in music and film to deliver high-quality storytelling that impacts culture.”
Valdés and Yang Bongiovi first met while producing “Dope,” the indie darling that debuted at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and went on to screen at the Cannes Film Festival. They collaborated again on 2017’s “Roxanne Roxanne,” a biopic about hip-hop icon Roxanne Shanté, and now make their partnership official with Fly Green Socks. Under the leadership of two women of color, the new company is founded with the mission to tell “fun, bold stories inspired by the world of hip-hop,” and its name pays homage to a phrase from the rap song “La Di Da Di” by Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick.
Both individually and as a duo, Valdés and Yang Bongiovi have made immense cultural impact in their acclaimed careers, shepherding such projects as “Fruitvale Station,” “Hidden Figures,” “Sorry to Bother You” and “Passing” to the screen.
In addition to launching Fly Green Socks, Valdés will maintain her roles producing with Pharrell Williams at I Am Other, where she currently oversees film and television endeavors, and with Mahershala Ali at Know Wonder, winning an Emmy as an executive producer of “We Are The Dream: The Kids of the Oakland MLK Oratorical Fest” for HBO; meanwhile Yang Bongiovi will continue her partnership at Significant Productions with Forest Whitaker.
A former editor-in-chief of Vibe and Latina magazines, Valdés has championed the inclusion of diversity within pop culture for 30 years. Among her crowning achievements, Valdés served as an executive producer on the Oscar-nominated “Hidden Figures” and played a pivotal role in the creation of Williams’ groundbreaking 24-hour music video for “Happy.”
Yang Bongiovi, who was honored in March with PvNew’s Creative Impact in Producing award at the Sun Valley Film Festival, is celebrated for her in-depth knowledge of film financing and creative and physical production, as well as her knack for discovering talent. Among other talented filmmakers, Yang Bongiovi has helped launch the careers of Ryan Coogler (“Fruitvale Station”), Chloé Zhao (“Songs My Brothers Taught Me”), Boots Riley (“Sorry to Bother You”), Rebecca Hall (“Passing”) and Erica Tremblay (“Fancy Dance”).
Both voting members of the Television Academy, Valdés serves on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences’ (AMPAS) executives branch, while Yang Bongiovi serves in the same capacity for the producers branch. Yang Bongiovi is also on the board of Producers Guild of America and CAPE (Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment); Valdés is a former board member of the PGA. The producers are each represented by WME.
