Today we’d like to introduce you to Kwame Edwards.
Hi Kwame, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I’m a self-described aesthetic engineer. My artistic and community work centers on people of African descent living in the western diaspora. It all started for me back in 2013 when upon moving to Shenzhen, China. Shenzhen was the first place where I lived where I wasn’t balancing the demands of school, and with that free time, I could merge with really dope people whose stories needed to be told. And with a gifted camera I received from a family friend (Joanne Vaderhoarst), I began my nonfiction film career as it was.
I began interviewing Black expatriates living there to make a single documentary. After interviewing over 40 people around the People’s Republic of China, I shifted from one singular documentary. I turned it into a fifteen-episode series called “Black in China,” with the purpose of “creating a resource for Black people who were considering moving and those who were moving to China since our nuanced ex-pat experience was often overlooked [at the time].” After some coaxing by my homies, we ran a successful Kickstarter campaign to purchase enhanced equipment and shoot season 2 in 2015 and, subsequently, season 3 in 2017.
In 2015, in-between stints living in China, I moved briefly to Qatar to pursue a random international education job. While there, I made a similar limited series called “Black in Doha.” I took his first group of HBCU undergraduate students abroad that same year.
In 2017 Marcus Long and I started production on our first feature-length documentary, which wrapped post-production in 2019. This documentary’s subject matter focuses more locally, as it identifies and seeks to alleviate the disparate conditions of various Black communities in DC. The film focuses on how Plexiglas barriers in stores is just further symptom of racism against the native Black people of the city. “68” was selected and featured during Busboys and Poets Focus-In! Film Series: Cinema for a Conscious Community was first screened at the Anacostia location in April 2019. The film also earned me (since I was the director) the distinction of being the Washington DC Office of Cable, Television, Film, Media and Entertainment’s July 2019 Filmmaker of the Month.
In 2020, I finally went back to school. I learned codified filmmaking, completing the Documentary Filmmaking Graduate Certificate at The George Washington University Columbian College of Arts and Sciences School of Media & Public Affairs Documentary Center, where two films two short films were completed: “Interrupted Greatness,” a short documentary about Fred Hampton, and “Heartbeat of the City,” a short documentary about the intersection of gogo music and gentrification.
In 2020, I co-founded the Saturday Night Bike Club with social worker Natalie Noel to provide people with a low-impact, healthy method of enjoying and actively engaging with the Black history Washington, D.C., area. The club has since grown, providing youth mentorship, hosting women’s only rides, sponsoring a developmental amateur race team, hosting inclusive bike inclusive races, bike protest actions, and partnering with local Black-owned businesses.
In 2022, other club members and I started Them Bammas Racing, a group designed to get more Black women and Youths into competitive cycling. We work from the D.C. Bike Academy in Congress Heights.
I released “Saddled Solace” in 2022 (filmed 2020-21), a non-fiction visual representation of Black people reclaiming their power and joy in an aggregately hostile modern space. It was featured in the “Black Joy is My Protest” exhibition. I am a proud member of Groove Phi Groove SFI. I’ve taught various sociology courses, including the Sociology of Hip-Hop and Race and Ethnic Relations at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, University of Maryland College Park, the Community College of Baltimore County, American University, and Bowie State University. I’ve guest lectured at Wolfson College of the University of Cambridge (Cambridge, England), Heilongjiang University (Harbin, China), and the University of Havana (Havana, Cuba). My undergraduate and graduate degrees were earned at Bowie State University and UMBC.
Would it have been a smooth road, and what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
My life has been more privileged than most, but not without adversity. My parents worked hard to ensure that I didn’t “know” we were not fiscally abundant. My mother lost her full-time job when I was in high school, and she cobbled various part-time jobs to keep us afloat. My father passed away ten days after my 21st birthday, which was traumatic. While in graduate school, I worked 4 jobs simultaneously, including teaching at a DC charter school for full-time hours but devoid of full-time benefits to pay for school and rent. When I moved to China, the company that recruited me to come misled me about the opportunity. I had to switch jobs and housing situations in a place where I couldn’t understand the culture’s language or nuances. In Qatar, the kafala system prevented me from getting an exit visa to leave the country. I wanted to leave to help HBCU students and move forward on my life journey.
I built Bowie State’s semester-long credit-bearing scholarship-based study abroad programs from scratch starting in 2015, only to be unjustly fired in 2017 by a vindictive acting provost who harbored a grudge against me from a previous interaction. Since my contract was contingent, as soon he got the acting title from the new president, he decided to purge those he did not like, including myself. I lost my full-time job in mid-2020 and was out of work and just freelancing until January 2022, so economic insecurity had been an ever-present theme for most of my adult life but particularly exacerbated from 2017 until 2022.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For readers who might need to become more familiar, what can you tell them about what you do?
https://www.kmatikc.com/kwame
My goal is to share and help share the stories of the western African Diaspora as they traverse the planet Earth. What sets me apart is that I always remember my proletariat roots and make sure never to make art at the expense of or exploit my people.
Networking and finding a mentor can positively impact one’s life and career. Any advice?
I’m an introvert. However, I allow myself to be open to the wisdom of others. But I could improve at networking. I know that genuine people have a habit of finding each other.
Contact Info:
- Website: KMATiKC.com
- Instagram: @kmatikcmedia
- Youtube: YouTube.com/KMATiKC
