Khalik Allah

Khalik Allah (born 1985) is an American filmmaker and photographer. His film Field Niggas (2015) and book Souls Against the Concrete (2017) depict people who inhabit the notorious Harlem corner of 125th Street and Lexington Avenue in New York City. His film Black Mother (2018) depicts people on the island of Jamaica. "He favours visual portraits of people on the street – filming their faces for several seconds as they pose as if for a still camera." Allah lives in New York City.

Allah was born in Brookhaven, New York. His mother is Jamaican and his father is Iranian.

He started making movies at age 19 with a Hi-8 video camera. His first feature film, Popa Wu: A 5% Story (2010), was a "normal, talking heads documentary" about Popa Wu, "Wu-Tang Clan's de facto spiritual advisor" and a member of Five-Percent Nation. It took four years to make. Allah took up still photography in 2010.

Field Niggas (2015 film)

Described by The Village Voice as "more a woozy experience you press through than an ethnographic study you watch, Khalik Allah's hour-long non-narrative street-life doc Field Niggas stands as the most striking sort of urban portraiture." The film comprises observational footage of, and interviews and discussions with, people at night around the notorious Harlem street corner of 125th Street and Lexington Avenue in New York City. Its subjects are predominantly African American, experiencing poverty, homelessness, drug addiction (use of the synthetic cannabinoid K2 is prevalent), physical infirmities and harassment from the police; people with "a hunger to have their voices heard". The police are also portrayed.

The film's title is taken from "Message to the Grass Roots", a public speech delivered by human rights activist Malcolm X in 1963, "extolling the spirit of rebellion among outdoor slaves." Allah was director, cinematographer, and editor. It was made in summer 2014, filmed in slow motion using a hand held camera and available light. Allah recorded the sound of his conversations with people separately to filming them, so the sound is not synchronised with the images.Apart from his cinematography, it includes surveillance footage of the strangulation of Eric Garner as well as the overdubbed sound of field hollers by a 1950s chain gang.

Allah released the film for free on YouTube and Vimeo in 2015 for a short time, before removing it at the request of True/False Film Festival so it could show there. It has since been shown on the film festival and college circuits in the US and Europe.

Souls Against the Concrete (2017 book)

Souls Against the Concrete consists of Allah's photographs of people at night around the intersection of 125th Street and Lexington Avenue in New York City, between 2012 and 2016.

Allah used slow speed colour film, usually intended for daylight photography, for its high contrast, with a 35 mm SLR camera from 1971. Because of photographing at night using available light, he used a fast manual focus normal lens at a large aperture (hence the shallow depth of field).

Black Mother (2018 film)

Black Mother was made in Jamaica, its subjects are holy men, sex workers, beggars, hawkers and children. It was made in the same fashion as Field Niggas: "visual portraits of people on the street – filming their faces for several seconds as they pose as if for a still camera" – with a soundtrack out of synch with the images.

Allah used a Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH3 digital camera, and Super 8, Super 16 and Bolex film cameras.

• Souls Against the Concrete. Austin: University of Texas, 2017. ISBN 978-1-4773-1314-5.

Documentary films

• Popa Wu: A 5% Story (2010) – 1 hr
• Antonyms of Beauty (2013) – 27 mins
• Field Niggas (2015) – 1 hr
• Black Mother (2018) – 1 hr 17 mins

Short films

• Urban Rashomon
• Khamaica

Music videos

• The Razah Code Underground Hip-Hop Chapter 1

Films with contributions by Allah

• Lemonade (2016) – 46 mins, about Beyoncé, produced by Good Company and Jonathan Lia, premiered on HBO – Allah was second unit director and cinematographer