Owen Alik Shahadah

Owen Alik Shahadah, was born in Hanover, Germany, raised in the Caribbean, New York and the UK. He has a background in Aerospace engineering but early on distinguished himself in Jazz, music videos and film music. Inspired by Malcolm X and Kwame Nkrumah his first independent film, 500 Years Later picked up 5 international awards including the UNESCO award in 2007 for 'films that dared to speak the truth about slavery.' As a filmmaker he has a unique African aesthetic which combines strong colors with what he calls a "4 part harmony" of on-screen info, visuals, narrative and score. As a multi-instrumentalist and jazz producer,he has worked with groups such as Ocacia. As a cultural historian he has written numerous articles on African history and culture. He is the curator of the internationally renown African Holocaust society and is one of the leading critics in the world against linguistic terminologies such as 'black people' an 'sub-saharan Africa.'He has adapted some of the work of renowned Turkish writer Harun Yahya for audio production. He is an accomplished professional photographer an has a website which documents people of Africa.Shahadah has also produced an audio CD (audiomentary) on slavery called African Holocaust: Dark Voyages. Known to some as creator of the audiomentary (audio documentary), his music genius is matched by his mission for social reform. He is a keen businessman and believes passionately in the economic and cultural advancement of African people, he believes the two are inseparable and calls for greater African ownership of African images and commodities related to African people. He encourages greater investment of the African Diaspora in the continent of Africa and the cutting of dependency from outside of Africa's cultural borders. Shahadah is involved in Pan-African and development and in the early to late 90's trained and invested in renowned Tanzanian music producer Joachim Kimaryo (a.k.a Master Jay) of MJ Records. Shahadah and Kimaryo continued to exchange and develop what has today has blossomed into the largest urban music industry in Tanzania.