Filmmakers and Producers

Joshua Asen

After graduating from Brown University, Joshua made the first of several trips across the Atlantic to promote Hip Hop abroad. This first crossing was on behalf of storied Hip Hop label, Rocafella Records, for whom he created the label's first international promotions campaign in Paris. Later, Joshua ventured further south to Morocco, earning a Fulbright grant to study Hip Hop in an Arab/Muslim context.

Joshua immediately expanded his project into a documentary film and became the first American to interview the leading Hip Hop groups in Morocco. Responding to their need for more performance opportunities, Joshua began developing plans for the country’s first Hip Hop festival, which he convinced the American Embassy and the Coca-Cola Company to co-sponsor. The 3-city concert tour was attended by over 36,000 young Moroccans and reached thousands more, across the globe, in screenings of the eponymous documentary film “I Love Hip Hop in Morocco”

Joshua has gone on to produce independent features and shorts, and is currently working for an international production company specializing in non-fiction television and documentaries.

AVAILABLE FROM TWN

I Love Hip Hop in Morocco
Joshua Asen & Jennifer Needleman
Producer: Rizz Productions, Inc.
2007, 80 min., Color, US/Morocco
This feature-length documentary follows the creation of Morocco's first-ever Hip-Hop festival, from inception all the way to the stage. Along the way we meet DJ Key, a self-taught turntable prodigy who is torn between his love for Hip-Hop and his
devotion to Islam; H-Kayne, a pioneer rap group...


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