Baby Boy, Baby Girl

Baby Boy is a 2001 American coming-of-age hood drama film directed, written and produced by John Singleton, and starring Tyrese Gibson, Snoop Dogg, Ving Rhames, Omar Gooding, A.J. Johnson and Taraji P. Henson. The film follows Joseph "Jody" Summers (Gibson), a 20-year-old bike mechanic as he lives and learns in his everyday life in South Central Los Angeles. The film was originally written with rapper-actor Tupac Shakur in mind to play Jody; Shakur had previously worked with Singleton on Poetic Justice. However, following Shakur's murder in 1996, Singleton decided to replace Shakur with R&B artist Tyrese Gibson. Additionally, the role of Rodney was originally written for Ice Cube, who had worked with Singleton on Boyz n the Hood and Higher Learning. The film marked the feature acting debut of Gibson and provided Henson with her first prominent role. Released in the United States on June 27, 2001, the film received predominantly positive reviews from critics and audiences, with many deeming it as Singleton's best film since Boyz n the Hood. The film is also the final feature film written by Singleton as he did not write any of his later feature-length directorial projects before his death in April 2019.