For over two decades, 40-year-old Saeed Crumpler took the Oakland, California music industry by storm. With rap hits like Swagger Jackin, and Fa Sho featuring Kendrick Lamar, Crumpler became a rising star gaining fans around the world. It was a fulfilling career for the music enthusiast and one that also set him up for success with his most recent venture: becoming a screenwriter.

Crumpler, who signed with Bellevue Productions in 2019, has been on the rise in Hollywood since he began actively working towards becoming a screenwriter five years ago. His pilot script Flip was a Top 30 on The Black List, and in mid-April, he had his first meeting with industry executives.

His journey hasn’t been typical and exemplifies that a person can achieve their dreams at any age despite their personal—often preconceived—barriers.

Crumpler’s story begins at San Francisco State. He started university unclear of a career path and with an undeclared major. Crumpler simultaneously fell in with the local Oakland music scene, a move that ultimately helped influence his major: screenwriting and cinema, before graduating in 2003.

“I was doing music and hip hop and realized writing in music and film were similar,” Crumpler explains. “I noticed film has three acts and songs have three verses, and I was like, ‘this is dope.’”

But more parallels attracted Crumpler, including that oh-so-important ingredient story. In both music and screenwriting the underlying glue is story, and Crumpler had a lot of ideas he wanted to put out into the universe. He enjoyed the work too and excelled, always getting A’s.

“I had a black teacher, his name was Clark, and he taught Screenwriting 101. I think I was the only black guy in class,” Crumpler chuckles. “But we bonded, and I liked him and his ideas, and he pushed me to write and taught me how to tell my own stories.”

Despite his professor’s inspiration and Crumpler’s aptitude for screenwriting, he never followed through with the profession after graduation, partially because he didn’t know how to break in. As a black man from Oakland, he knew no one in the industry—there were no role models for him to follow.

But there were role models in music like Boots Riley from The Coup and E-40, so Crumpler followed in their footsteps, instead.

His music career flourished. Crumpler still worked a day job, managing a chain of record stores, but he was so successful as a rapper that Source Magazine and XXL Magazine profiled him and he collaborated with well-known rappers Kendrick Lamar and Chamillionaire over the years.

“I thought music would be my future,” Crumpler says. “But in the back of my mind, I always believed, maybe I would go back to screenwriting.”

In 2015, Crumpler finally acted on that voice in his head. A little rusty from years of not screenwriting, he enrolled in a class at San Francisco State to re-learn the craft he had taken up decades before. But it wasn’t until 2018 that he was inspired to fully immerse himself in the art form once again. Inspired by an interview he heard with Steven Canals, one of the writers behind FX’s Pose, Crumpler enrolled in UCLA’s online television/screenwriting program, the very same program Canals took years earlier.

It was a nerve-wracking experience for someone who, at the age of 38, was the oldest in the program and—once again—the only person of color. The course also cost him around $5,000, a lot of money to risk for something that wasn’t guaranteed. But he had learned through his music career as a rapper that creatives need to invest in themselves and hone their skills. Crumpler was determined not to let his anxiety steer him away from the future he saw for himself.

While in the program, Crumpler wrote a spec script for FX’s Atlanta, along with two original pilots. Flip, the script that eventually made The Black List, also led to his manager. 

But how he found representation demonstrates the importance of work ethic and hustle in Hollywood.

Crumpler is active on Twitter and follows Lee Jessup, a prominent screenwriting career coach. Jessup posted a list of manager emails and Crumpler jumped on the opportunity. He researched how to conduct a query email properly and sent a message to every manager on the list. Ten responded, requesting to read his material. In July 2019, Crumpler flew to Los Angeles to meet with Zack Zucker, a manager at Bellevue Productions, who ultimately took him on as a client.

Since signing, Crumpler said he has worked on improving his pilots and writing more scripts. He’s used social media, mostly Twitter, to meet and connect with industry professionals. His more immediate goal is to get staffed on a show; his long-term goal is to be a showrunner.

“It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” Crumpler says confidently.

But as he works toward the finish line, one of Crumpler’s main priorities is to be an example for young screenwriters—specifically screenwriters of color—so they don’t have to wait two decades to begin their careers in Hollywood, like he did.