Mos Def, Narrator

Regarded as one of hip-hop's most introspective and insightful artists, Mos Def has shaped a career that transcends music genres and artistic mediums.  With the release of "Universal Magnetic" (1996), Mos became an underground favorite in the hip-hop world, leading to his legendary collaboration with Talib Kweli.

As with his music, Mos has demonstrated insight and passion in his acting career, appearing in Spike Lee's Bamboozled, 2002's critically acclaimed Monster's Ball, Showtime, and the 2002 romantic comedy Brown Sugar, for which he received an NAACP Image Award nomination. In addition, Mos has served as the host, music supervisor and co-executive producer for the HBO series Def Poetry. He also wrote, producer, and acted in the MTV sketch comedy series Lyricist Lounge. In 2002, Mos debuted on Broadway in the Tony nominated, Pulitzer Prize winning Topdog/Underdog. In 2003, Mos Def starred in Paramount Pictures' The Italian Job. In 2005, he starred opposite Alan Rickman in the critically acclaimed HBO movie Something the Lord Made, playing heart surgery pioneer Viven Thomas, for which he received an Emmy nomination.

 

Bill Duke, Director of Re-enactments

The reenactment sequences for the film were directed and produced by Bill Duke, the acclaimed director and actor who appeared with Arnold Schwarzenegger in Predator and Commando and with Anthony Hopkins in The Red Dragon. Bill Duke has also headed the cast of many television dramas. He has directed episodes of many well known TV dramas including Miami Vice, Cagney & Lacy, Hill Street Blues, Robbery Homicide Division, and Angel. For Hollywood, he has directed A Rage in Harlem, Deep Cover, and Sister Act II, among other films.

Duke has worked on several award-winning PBS productions. In 1984, he directed the PBS drama The Killing Floor, which screened at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival. He then directed the PBS presentation of A Raisin in the Sun, starring Danny Glover and Esther Rolle, which brought him an Emmy Award, and The Meeting, depicting a fictional encounter between Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. Duke garnered NAACP Image Award nominations for these outstanding dramas. Most recently, he directed the reenactments for the PBS American Experience presentation of Partners of the Heart, an award-winning documentary directed by Andrea Kalin (See below).

 

Michael Wolfe, Co-Founder, Executive Producer

Michael Wolfe is the co-Executive Producer of A Prince Among Slaves, Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet and Cities of Light: The Rise and Fall of Islamic Spain.

In 1997, Wolfe wrote and narrated a special televised Hajj report from Mecca for ABC Nightline. The program was nominated for Peabody, George Polk, Overseas Press Club, and Emmy awards; it received the Muslim Public Affairs Council's Media Award for that year. In 2003, he contributed to and helped produce a Hajj Special broadcast by CNN-International.

Wolfe has been featured on many regional and national radio talk shows. He writes an occasional column called “From a Western Minaret” for the Web journal Beliefnet.com. He has published three books about Islam: a travel narrative, The Hadj: An American's Pilgrimage to Mecca (1993); an historical anthology, One Thousand Roads to Mecca: Ten Centuries of Travelers Writing about the Muslim Pilgrimage (1997), and an anthology of articles by American Muslims called Taking Back Islam (2002), which received a Wilbur Award as Best Book of the Year on a religious theme. He holds a degree in Classics from Wesleyan University.

Wolfe's work on Islam has been widely reviewed in the mainstream press, in Western academic journals, and among Muslim scholars. He has lectured at Stanford, Harvard and Georgetown University, among others.

 

Alexander Kronemer, Co-Founder, Executive Producer

Alexander Kronemer is the co-Executive Producer of A Prince Among Slaves, Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet, and Cities of Light: The Rise and Fall of Islamic Spain.  In addition to his filmmaking work, he is a frequent writer and lecturer on religious diversity, Islamic awareness, and cross-cultural communication. He has a Master’s in Theological Studies from Harvard University, where his research concentrated on the philosophy of religion and comparative religion. In 1996, he was awarded a Malone Fellowship for Middle East and Islamic Studies, which funded him for a study tour of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

He has published essays in numerous newspapers including the Christian Science Monitor, the LA Times, the San Jose Mercury News and the Washington Post. His articles have been included in several books, including “What Would Muhammad Say About Terrorism,” in the 9/11 memorial Up From the Ashes, and “Islam and Democracy” in Taking Back Islam.

He has received numerous writing awards, including a Halberstam Writing Fellowship. As a lecturer, he has delivered talks on religious diversity and Islam for the World Affairs Council in Washington, the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, numerous universities, including Northeastern, Penn State, and Harvard, and for private corporations, including Nike, Aetna, and Disney.

He has appeared as a CNN commentator on several occasions, including during CNN’s historic live coverage of the Hajj in 1998, which was broadcast to 400 million viewers. He has also been heard in many radio interviews on NPR and the Voice of America.

In 2000, Mr. Kronemer served a one-year appointment at the Bureau of Human Rights in the U.S. State Department focusing on U.S. foreign policy and Islam.

 

Andrea Kalin, Director, Producer and Writer

The director, writer and producer of Prince Among Slaves, Andrea Kalin is also the founder of Spark Media, a DC-based production company, specializing in social issues. Spark has garnered over 50 prestigious industry awards, including a Primetime Emmy, numerous CINE, Chris, Gracie Awards and Gold and Silver UNESCO medals. She and Bill Duke also collaborated on Partners of the Heart, which tells the inspirational story of the partnership between Dr. Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas, a white surgeon and a black lab technician who defied segregation to become pioneers of modern heart surgery. Partners of the Heart, a best-seller on PBS, was awarded the 2004 Eric Barnouw Award for best history documentary, and also garnered a coveted Chris Award, a Gold Special Jury Award from WorldFest Houston, and has received outstanding reviews by film critics nationwide. Her latest documentary feature, The Pact, won Best Documentary at the Boston International Film Festival, and was accepted by more than 15 film festivals and had a sold-out run at select theaters nationwide. Presented by the National Black Programming Consortium, The Pact, will air Spring 08 on public television stations nationwide.

 

Lloyd "Raki" Jones, Writer

Raki Jones is an award-winning independent producer and writer who joined the team at Spark Media to work on the Men in White and Prince Among Slaves films. In addition to winning numerous awards for various projects, Raki was also nominated for an Emmy for his work on the Colored Cyclone in 1995. Raki is also a professor at Howard University and the University of the District of Columbia, and brings the same sage-like wisdom to Spark. When not dispensing knowledge as Spark's  Obi-wan Kenobi, Raki can often be found carefully examining the latest offerings in books, DVDs, music, etc. at the local Olsson's Bookstore.

 

Jennifer Lawson, Creative Consultant

Ms. Lawson serves as General Manager of Howard University Television, WHUT-TV and as executive producer for its specials and limited series.  For nine years, she headed Magic Box Mediaworks, an independent company which co-produced an eight-hour television series, AFRICA, in association with Thirteen, New York and National Geographic Television.  This award-winning series, which portrays Africa through African eyes, was developed from ideas based on her experiences in Africa.  The series premiered nationwide on PBS and internationally in over 130 countries to critical acclaim in September 2001.   Ms. Lawson is also known for her highly successful PBS series The Civil War and Baseball.  She also developed several highly regarded children’s series including Barney & Friends, Lamb Chop’s Play-Along and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

 

KEY ADVISORS

 

Sulayman Nyang

At Howard University, Dr. Nyang is a Professor of African Studies, heads the advisory board, and serves as an academic project liaison to the University.  He has written extensively on Islamic, African and Middle Eastern affairs and is one of the foremost scholars in the field of Islam in America.

Kwame Anthony Appiah

Dr. Appiah is currently a Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University. He has taught at Duke, Columbia, and Harvard universities. He has written three novels, several books of cultural criticism, and is a leading scholar of African Philosophy and African-American life.

Terry Alford

Dr. Alford wrote the ground-breaking and meticulously researched biography of Abdul Rahman that serves as a starting point for this film. He currently teaches in Annandale, Virginia. He has served as an advisor and content expert for the film

Sylvianne Diouf

Dr. Diouf is a renowned scholar of the African diaspora and the author of numerous books, including: Servants of Allah: African Muslim Slaves in the Americas, Growing Up in Slavery, Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America, Bittou’s Braids and others. She received a doctorate from the University of Paris and had careers has worked professionally in journalism, diplomacy, and academia. She is currently a Curator at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York.