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Born in New York and raised in Harlem, Abdul Malik Abbott at an early age decided to follow in the footsteps of his father to become a filmmaker and photographer. Abdul attended the acclaimed High School of Music & Art as a painter and illustrator. After high school he went to the college, (SVA) School of Visual Arts with film being his major and worked during the summers as a P.A. on several feature films as well as studying documentary production at DCTV (Downtown Community Television) and Educational Video Center. Abdul graduated from SVA at the top of his class with a Bachelor degree in fine arts and a completed thesis short film entitled "99%".
During the next few years, Abdul worked as a sound technician on several commercials, TV shows and feature films including, "Def By Temptation", "City Of Hope" and Spike Lee's "Do The Right Thing" and "Mo' Better Blues". Eventually, he started working on music videos as a sound "playback" technician. Soon after, Abdul commenced on the journey of his second career as a music video editor, cutting clips for new and well-established hip hop and R&B artists.
Abdul's big break came when Jive records gave him a chance to direct a video for "2 Too Many", a rap group formed and produced by Will Smith. Abdul soon landed his next video for a jazz track by late, legendary singer/actress - Abbey Lincoln. The video "People In Me", won Abdul a Gold Award for "Best Jazz video". Soon after he was commissioned to direct a video for a hip-hop trio called Original Flavor -"All that", where he met the group's manager Damon Dash and his partner Jay-Z of the newly formed Roc-a-fella records. Abdul was soon hired to Direct and Produce Jay-Z's first video, "I Can't Get Wit That", followed by both versions of Jay-Z's "In My Lifetime" videos. In the next few years Abdul directed several other videos for Jay-Z including the #1 videos for the songs "Ain't No"(featuring Foxy Brown) & "Dead Presidents" as well videos for other established and up & coming rap, R&B and gospel artists.
In the '98 Abdul collaborated with Damon Dash and Jay-Z to direct a series of "B-side" videos interwoven with narrative skits for Jay-Z's new album. The project was shot over an eight-day period with an extremely modest budget. The project was entitled "Streets Is Watching". It was a huge hit amongst new and old fans, earning the #1 slot for several weeks in Billboard magazine's "long form music video category" and eventually certified platinum earning over 7 million on home video. "State Property"- (Lions Gate) marked the feature film directorial debut for Abdul Malik Abbott. It was released in theaters in several major U.S cities and has become an underground classic. The hip-hop driven gangster film was shot for under a million and has earned almost 11 million to date. After being released on home video and DVD, "State Property" rose to be the 10th top selling video in the U.S. according to Videoscan and Billboard and continues to air on B.E.T. In 2003 Abdul was invited to join the prestigious Director's Guild of America as a feature film director and is currently Co-Chairman of the African American Steering Committee at the DGA as well as being a member of the WGA(w)'s Committee of Black Writers.
Over the years Abdul has been a guest teacher at several High Schools, instructing students the art and politics of music video/film production and has also appeared on several film/music video related panels at a number of film festivals and conferences as well as starring in a pilot for a VH1 reality show called "Video Playground", which showcases music video directors remaking 80's videos with kids playing the lead roles. Abdul also appeared as on the VH1 series "Driven: Jay-Z" in which the long-form video "Streets Is Watching" was praised in helping transform Jay-Z into "superstar" status and Abdul has appeared as a guest host on several local TV and internet shows.
In 2010, the feature film Abdul co-wrote and produced entitled "My Normal" was released by Wolfe Entertainment.
In 2011, the webseries "Who Da Man?", based on the play "Waitin' 2 End Hell" was released on the internet. Abdul directed four episodes of this dramedy series. Also Abdul started a music project entitled B.O.S.S, a R&B, Electronica, Pop music group in which he produced and played all the music as well as directed, produced, shot and edited the music video for their 1st single entitled "Come Again". Abdul also recently directed & edited a country music video for Bonnie Paul's single, "Childhood Sweethearts" and Directed the 2nd video for B.O.S.S entitled "Me & You". Abdul recently completed an HD project for Oscar nominated actor Burt Young (Rocky), "Artist found in Port Washington Flat". The filmed portion of the project will appear in the stage play of the same name in which Burt will be playing 2 characters, with the filmed character being projected on a translucent screen.
Mr. Abbott resides in L.A and spends time in NYC and ATL where he continues to direct, write, edit and produce. Abdul also works as a freelance videographer for several entertainment channels, filming today's top filmmakers, actors and musicians as well as a freelance photographer.
