MAKE WREN T. BROWN’S FAMILY YOUR BUSINESS
Wren T. Brown’s The Family Business is as much a celebration as it is a reckoning. Subtitled Four Generations of One Black Family’s Artistic Odyssey, it’s a beautifully rendered tribute to the Young and Brown families, who have left an indelible mark on American arts, but it also subtly interrogates the cost of that legacy. Brown offers a detailed lineage of Black artistic excellence, from vaudeville to Hollywood, but what elevates the book beyond a straightforward family memoir is its unspoken tension: What does it mean to inherit a creative legacy, and what is lost in the pursuit of preserving it?
Brown’s strength is in the details—rare photos, letters, and firsthand accounts that illuminate the resilience of his ancestors. His great-grandfather, Willis Handy Young, founded the New Orleans Strutters at a time when opportunities for Black performers were scarce. His grandfather, Troy Brown Sr., carved a space for himself in early Hollywood. His father, Troy Brown Jr., navigated the jazz world and television industry. Each generation adapted to an entertainment industry that rarely made space for them, and their triumphs are undeniable.
More than just a memoir, the book is essentially a scrapbook, overflowing with a vast array of over 100 astounding images—movie stills, an Equity card, newspaper clippings—chronicling not only Brown’s lineage but also his own career as an actor and as the founder of Ebony Rep in Los Angeles. Laid out like a lovingly assembled, yellowed scrapbook you might find in someone’s home, the book captures the resilience and creativity of a family that helped shape American entertainment (book design by June Seefeldt). It celebrates their triumphs while acknowledging the historical realities they navigated, including minstrelsy and segregated music unions. Through it all, you can sense a sweetness and unadulterated love—both for the art itself and for the generations who carried it forward.
With a forward by Wynton Marsalis and an afterward by Leslie Odom, Jr., Wren T. Brown’s The Family Business is a valuable contribution to the documentation of Black artistry in America. It functions both as a historical record and as a love letter to the power of perseverance. This isn’t about probing every uncomfortable corner of his family’s past, it’s an assurance that their contributions are neither forgotten nor diminished.
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