Born on the eastside, raised on the westside — from the salt of a very specific earth. Detroit.
kA'RAMUU kUSH dropped out of high school and became a professor. Mind intact, he survived Hollywood for over two decades crafting work that disarms, questions the unmentionable and reconciles the sacred and the profane.
His work has screened at Cannes, Sundance, Tribeca, Hamptons, PAFF, ABFF, LA Film Fest and HBFF — and on CBS, BET, HBO and Cinemax.
His AFI thesis, SALVATION ROAD won the DGA Jury Prize and was acquired by HBO alongside Oakland's finest at USC, both scaling the walls of the most prestigious film schools in the world. One claimed the light. One embraced the shadow. Coogler remembers.
He holds an AMPAS vote.
Sir saw him. Singleton saw him. The King saw him. Ancestral voices don't lie. Nor do the resumes of over two decades of pupils taught to see with two sets of eyes, the ones in their heads and the ones in their minds, his name spelled with small k's and all caps.
From emerging to legendary artists: jessica Care moore, Chadwick Boseman, Vanessa Estelle Williams and Sir Sidney Poitier himself — the range speaks. Much wider than Hollywood.
I am a pupil of craft. I am a pupil of patience. I am a pupil of equanimity.
Everything taught has been tested. On the self.
As prof.kUSH — a decade at Howard, and the last four at Pace — he brings his entire being to the work, wild and learned, consciously carrying legacy.
A devoted pupil of Vipassana meditation and a doula-in-training, kA' moves fluidly from theatre to film, from uptown streets to downtown suites, between the eternal and the everyday — on screen, in the classroom and within.
Current work: MOOD. SWIMMOBILE. DETROIT ZOETROPE INC.
When the work warrants consequence, humanity and the courage to go THERE...
The conversation begins HERE.
Representation: Mark Herzberg at THE GERSH AGENCY, Gail Levin and Andrew Brown of LEVIN / BROWN MANAGEMENT and Stephen F. Breimer (Legal) of BRECHEEN FELDMAN BREIMER SILVER & THOMPSON, LLP.
