ABOUT
Beats and Breath – The intersections of culture, politics and the everyday experience. The beats and breath of life.
Filmmaker, music journalist, radio broadcaster, archivist, and storyteller, Jackson Allers has focused the majority of his work on the subcultures of his surroundings. He has documented the plight of farm workers in rural North Carolina with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Coles; advocated for the legal rights of the Roma population in Kosovo as the media adviser to the former international Ombudsman, Marek Antoni Nowicki; created digital-audio archives for a book on ancient Bedouin stories in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, and spent the better part of 25-years writing about and documenting independent arts and culture movements.
For the last 13-years, Jackson has been based in the Arab world (Beirut, Lebanon) where he has been making documentaries, film portraits, and engaged in numerous multimedia productions about politics, and the independent musical/art trends in the Arab world for clients like VICE, BBC Culture, BBC World Service, BBC Radio 4, Red Bull Music Academy Magazine, Red Flag Magazine, Audio Kultur, The National, Rolling Stone, Al Jazeera English, Radical Media, National Public Radio, Free Speech Radio News, Art Dubai, Beirut Design Week, UNHCR, and ARTE.
MUSICAL BACKGROUND
In 1996, Jackson co-founded the groundbreaking Los Angeles-based production company – Working Class Productions – with the left coast’s gifted purveyor of spirit music – Carlos Niño.
From 1996 – 2000, Jackson and Carlos put together some of the most seminal musical collaborations in LA-history – intergenerational events bridging the divides between hip-hop culture and the elders that made them – jumbled in with the new soul springing up in between. Think: Horace Tapscott, Billy Higgins, Pharoah Saunders, Gil Scott-Heron, Brian Jackson, Gary Bartz, Les McCann, Eugene McDaniels, Derf Reklaw, Dwight Trible, Kamau Daáood, Terry Callier, Phil Ranelin, Charles Owens, Jessie Sharps, Dr. Art Davis, Leon Mobley, etc. hip-hop generation DJ Prince Paul, The Original Scheme Team (Divine Styler & Cokni O’Dire), Saul Williams, DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist, DJ Nu-Mark, Abstract Rude, Aceyalone, The Beat Junkies (J-Rocc, DJ Babu), Anti-pop Consortium, BLK Sunshine, Rob Smith, Mike Ladd, Sonic Sum, Huge Voodoo, and the beat goes on…
Although Jackson turned to journalism full-time late in 2001, he has maintained his connections to his past as an events producer.
IN THE NEWS
Beats and Breath has been featured in publications like TIME Magazine, The National, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Star (Lebanon), LA Times, MTV Iggy, and several regional culture websites. Television and radio appearances include interviews for Red Bull Music Academy Magazine, National Public Radio, Afropop Worldwide, Swedish TV, NDTV (India), CBC, Arte, France5, Pacifica Radio, Free Speech Radio News, Channel4, BBC, Re-Volt Radio, KPFT 90.1 Fm (Houston, Texas), KPFK 90.7 FM (LA, California), KPFA 94.1 FM (Berkeley, California), Radio du Liban 96.2 FM (Beirut, Lebanon), and several local Arab satellite TV channels.
BEATS AND BREATH 