John Singleton

CTL-E-6193 · Person · other · 1968–2019

VERIFIED evidence grade — master store (canonical CSV)

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-03232 · provenance: canonical master store (CSV), record CTL-P-1173 + build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6193. Master record source: CTL seed 2026-10-16 — UNVERIFIED, verify before public citation.

John Daniel Singleton (January 6, 1968 – April 2019) was an American director, screenwriter, and producer from South Central Los Angeles whose work represented the Black urban experience on screen. Fresh out of the University of Southern California's film school, he wrote and directed his feature debut, Boyz n the Hood (1991), an ode to the neighborhood where he grew up. The film made him, at twenty-four, the youngest person and the first African American ever nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director, with a second nomination for his original screenplay; NPR noted at his death that the youngest-nominee record still stood. He followed it with Poetic Justice (1993), Higher Learning (1995), Rosewood (1997), Shaft (2000), and Baby Boy (2001), directed episodes of Empire and The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story, and co-created the FX television drama Snowfall, returning to the South Central world of his debut. Singleton suffered a stroke on April 17, 2019, and died at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles at fifty-one after his family removed him from life support; sources differ on whether the date of death was April 28 or April 29, 2019, a conflict this record shows rather than resolves.

The record

• Also known as: John Daniel Singleton
• Role(s): creator
• Known for: Creator of Boyz n the Hood

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Scan Tail Wave 5 — 747 Program, Wave 12; fifth Scan Tail packet at the founder's 40-record size). Gate A (2026-10-16): Gate A hand-check (2026-10-16) against live graph (3,843 entities): no 'John Singleton' Person entity by exact name, alias, or token search. Near-misses checked and distinguished: Boyz n the Hood is homed as a Work at CTL-E-5480 (its notes explicitly flag Singleton as holding no Person record); Andrew Singleton Jr. (CTL-E-5540, clergy) is a different person. No Person home; CTL-E-6193 is new. Supply: Supply: 747 Supply Ledger Tier 4 scan-tail reserve banked by Scan Tail Wave 4, corpus-gap-candidates rank #2215. Ledger supplied the name only; every fact herein is sourced to an opened source (CTL-GOV-004). SCOPE GATE: 747 Supply Ledger Tier 4 scan-tail reserve, corpus-gap candidate rank #2215, banked by Scan Tail Wave 4; Batch D, Scan Tail Wave 5. Scope: foundational Black American filmmaker; his debut Work is already homed in the graph (CTL-E-5480) while the Person was not. Vital status: DECEASED — April 2019, aged 51, at Cedars-Sinai Hospital, Los Angeles, following a stroke on Apr. 17, 2019 and removal from life support. Exact day in conflict between opened sources: Apr. 28, 2019 (Wikipedia) vs. Apr. 29, 2019 (NPR obituary, 'died Monday'). Conflict shown, not resolved. STATISTICS — Death date — CONFLICT SHOWN, NOT BLENDED: Wikipedia's biographical record gives April 28, 2019 (removed from life support and died that day at Cedars-Sinai); NPR's obituary, published April 29, 2019, reports he 'died Monday' — April 29, 2019 was a Monday — after his family took him off life support. Both dated accounts are preserved here; this record does not choose between them. Other sourced figures: born Jan. 6, 1968 (Wikipedia); stroke Apr. 17, 2019 (Wikipedia); age at death 51 (both sources); Academy Award nominations for Boyz n the Hood: 2 — Best Director and Best Original Screenplay (NPR; Wikipedia). Tribute language appears only in curators_judgment, per brief. MEDIA: photo HELD (HELD — Candidate: Associated Press photograph of John Singleton in Los Angeles, July 1991 (Bob Galbraith / AP, reproduced in NPR's Apr. 29, 2019 obituary). No license claimed, cleared, or verified; slot HELD under CTL-PHOTO-001. — named candidate only; file-level rights verification per CTL-PHOTO-001 still required; no license claimed); chart FILLED (charts/chart-ctl-e-6193-john-singleton.svg); video HELD (no matching-entity CTL Short or verified-rights archival video staged); audio HELD (no rights-cleared matching-entity audio staged); map N/A (person record). MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Person records carry no map slot.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (CTL-created chart (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record's sourced statistics and timeline fact) | video = HELD (CTL Shorts Link Map (2026-10-15, 233 entries) checked by name, variants, and film titles: no Short whose subje) | audio = HELD (HELD — No CTL-owned or rights-cleared matching-entity audio at staging.)

Referenced by

• Boyz n the Hood — authored by → this record
• Poetic Justice — authored by → this record
• Snowfall — authored by → this record

Sources

• NPR, 'John Singleton, Pioneering Director Of Boyz N The Hood, Dies At 51,' Apr. 29, 2019 (via Montana Public Radio) (accessed 2026-10-16) — Died at 51 at Cedars-Sinai after removal from life support, reported Apr. 29, 2019 as dying 'Monday'; stroke less than two weeks earlier; at 23, fresh out of USC film school, made Boyz n the Hood (1991); youngest person and first African American nominated for Best Director Oscar, a record still standing; two Oscar nominations (director and screenplay); later Poetic Justice, Shaft, Empire, The People v. O. J. Simpson, and co-created Snowfall — https://www.mtpr.org/2019-04-29/john-singleton-pioneering-director-of-boyz-n-the-hood-dies-at-51 (primary source · build store)
• Wikipedia, 'John Singleton' (accessed 2026-10-16) (accessed 2026-10-16) — John Daniel Singleton, born Jan. 6, 1968, Los Angeles; died April 28, 2019 (aged 51); feature debut writing and directing Boyz n the Hood (1991), at 24 the first African American and youngest Best Director nominee; stroke Apr. 17, 2019; removed from life support and died Apr. 28 at Cedars-Sinai; filmography incl. Poetic Justice, Higher Learning, Rosewood, Shaft, Baby Boy; co-created Snowfall — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Singleton (build store)
• https://web.library.yale.edu/film/notes/fn00028 (verification source · master store)

Evidence note (master store)

Boyz n the Hood (1991) was written and directed by John Singleton (Yale Film Archive notes).

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Record CTL-E-6193 · Combined Graph record U-03232 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 3 sources · 3 mapped relationships.
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