Jenn Nkiru is an award winning visionary artist and film director based in Peckham, London.
Named as one of the 200 women redefining the creative industries in 2018 by The Dots, Her first film EN VOGUE shot by Bradford Young & Arthur Jafa screened internationally to critical success. Previous credits include a documentary series for Redbull and a campaign for photographer Rankin where he selected Nkiru as one of 20 of the “industry’s top directors and most creative talent”.
2018 was a whirlwind year for Jenn. She directed music videos for Neneh Cherry and jazz musician Kamasi Washington; in June, the video for Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s Apeshit (under their duo, The Carters) was released, which she worked on alongside director Ricky Saiz.
Prior to that, Nkiru debuted the arresting short Rebirth is Necessary – a powerful exploration of the black experience which encompassed archive footage of Sun Ra and the Black Panthers – on NOWNESS. The expressionistic documentary is a forebear to her latest project – Black to Techno, part of Frieze and Gucci’s short film series, Second Summer of Love, following Josh Blaaberg and Jeremy Deller.
Black To Techno delves into the origins of the genre in Detroit, drawing parallels between the machine-like production lines of the city’s manufacturing heritage and the roots of black music in drum patterns and percussive variation. It features contributions from pioneering spoken-word and hip-hop group The Last Poets and Detroit DJs Stacey Hotwaxx, DJ Minx and DJ Holographic.
Sources: ft dot com, anothermag dot com, thevinylfactory dot com, britsandpcs dot com. Photo: ft dot com.
Comments