MK Asante
MK Asante is a best-selling author, award-winning filmmaker, recording artist, and distinguished professor who the LA Times calls “One of America’s best storytellers.”
He is the author of Buck: A Memoir, praised by Maya Angelou as “A story of surviving and thriving with passion, compassion, wit, and style.” Buck is a multi-year Washington Post Bestseller and the recipient of numerous literary awards. Buck is currently being adapted into a major motion picture.
Asante studied at the University of London, earned a B.A. from Lafayette College, and an M.F.A. from the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television.
Asante has been featured on the CNN, NPR, The Breakfast Club, VH1, and MTV. His essays have been published in the New York Times and USA Today. His inspirational story “The Blank Page” is featured in the #1 New York Times best-seller, Chicken Soup for the Soul: 20th Anniversary Edition.
Asante has lectured at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, as well as hundreds of other universities. He has toured in over 50 countries and was awarded the Key to the City of Dallas, Texas. He is featured in A Changing America, a permanent video exhibit at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
He is a recording artist, most recently featured on the album Indie 500 by Grammy-winning producer 9th Wonder & Talib Kweli.
Asante is a Distinguished Professor at the MICA Business School in India and a tenured professor of English and Film at Morgan State University.
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Born in Harare, Zimbabwe, and raised in Philadelphia, he is the son of scholar Molefi Kete Asante and choreographer Kariamu Welsh. Growing up he struggled with the disintegration of his family, the incarceration of his brother, and the city's urban decay. After being expelled from multiple schools, he discovered his talent for writing at 16 and decided to pursue it as a career.
Books
Asante is the author of four books, most notably Buck, a memoir about his troubled yet profound youth in Philadelphia. Buck was selected as a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick and made the Washington Post bestseller list in 2014 and 2015. Poet Maya Angelou, who mentored Asante, described Buck as: A story of surviving and thriving with passion, compassion, wit, and style.
His other books are the poetry collections, Beautiful. And Ugly Too and Like Water Running Off My Back and the creative nonfiction book It's Bigger Than Hip Hop.
Films
Asante is a Sundance Institute Feature Film Fellow for the movie adaptation of his memoir Buck. Asante wrote and produced the documentary 500 Years Later, a documentary about slavery which received the Breaking the Chains Award from the United Nations' UNESCO. Asante directed and produced The Black Candle, a documentary about Kwanzaa, co-written and narrated by Maya Angelou.
Lectures and essays
Asante has delivered numerous distinguished lectures, including the Yale University; Vanderbilt University; Southern Methodist University; and commencement addresses at UCLA, University of Wisconsin, Vassar, and Harvard University.
Asante has lectured and performed in over 25 countries. He is featured in ′Changing America: 1968 and Beyond′, a permanent exhibit at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. He has written essays on art, Hip Hop, technology, and culture for USA Today,Huffington Post, San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Times.
Music
Asante's debut music project, the Buck: Original Book Soundtrack, was released on May 14, 2015. The Soundtrack features hip-hop music by Asante and is inspired by his memoir Buck. Okayplayer wrote:
Delivering realism as vivid as Nas' work on the seminal Illmatic LP, MK Asante has managed to churn out one of the most moving and visually brilliant rap projects to land in quite some time.
Rapper Talib Kweli called Asante "an incredible MC" and released the Buck Soundtrack on his Javotti Media record label.
Asante is featured on the song "Bangers", along with Halo, from the critically acclaimed album Indie 500 by Talib Kweli and 9th Wonder.
Education and professorship
Asante studied film and literature at the University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies, earned a BA in Africana Studies and English from Lafayette College, and an M.F.A. in Screenwriting from UCLA School of Theater Film and Television.
At 23, he joined the faculty of Morgan State University. He received tenure at 26 and was Associate Professor of creative writing and film in the Department of English and Language Arts. In 2017, he was appointed to Distinguished Professor-in-Residence at the MICA (Institute of Strategic Marketing and Communication) in India. In 2018 he took a sabbatical from teaching.
For more about MK and his works, go to https://mkasante.com/
