Top 5 influential African filmmakers you need to know

Blitz the Ambassador

Blitz the Ambassador didn’t think the youth in Ghana (where he was born and raised) was allowed to have a voice. So, as a teen, he looked up to rappers like Public Enemy and KRS-One for speaking their mind – and he eventually decided to follow their footsteps.

The critically-acclaimed rapper is now making a wave in the hip-hop industry, and what makes him so special is that he collides his music with film that he creates himself. His 2016 hit album, “Diasporadical” came equipped with a 15-minute short film called “Diasporadical Trilogía,” a candid tale of a woman who wakes up in three different continents during three different times of her life.

“Sometimes I would write a song and then figure out how it fit into the storyline; sometimes I would write a treatment, score it, then shoot. I never have a rigid plan in my creative process because I believe that everything bleeds into everything,” he said in a TEDx article.

Other films of his include “The Burial of Kojo” and “Native Son.” He is set to appear in the 2019 Whitney Biennial, an exhibition of contemporary American art created by the youth.