Blitz the Ambassador

Blitz the Ambassador, also known as Blitz Bazawule and born Samuel Bazawule in Accra on 19 April 1982, is a rapper, filmmaker, author and visual artist. He released four studio albums before moving behind the camera, where he co-directed Beyonce's Black Is King and directed the 2023 film musical The Color Purple.

Early life

He is the third of four children and attended Achimota School, where he won prizes for visual art. Hearing his older brother play Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back turned him towards hip hop, and he became known at school for rhymes packed with history.

Music

After Achimota, producer Hammer of The Last Two brought him into the studio, and his verse on Deeba earned him Best New Artist at the 2000 Ghana Music Awards. In 2001 he moved to the United States to study business administration at Kent State University in Ohio. He self-released Soul Rebel in 2004, then settled in New York, where he made Double Consciousness and Stereotype, formed the live band The Embassy Ensemble and set up the label Embassy MVMT. His fourth album, Diasporadical, came in 2016 with a short film set in Accra, New York and Salvador, Bahia. In 2015 he received the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Contemporary Music.

Film

His first feature, The Burial of Kojo (2018), was acquired by Ava DuVernay's ARRAY for cinemas and Netflix. It won Best First Feature Film by a Director at the Africa Movie Academy Awards and the Grand Nile Prize at the Luxor African Film Festival. Black Is King (2020) brought him his first Grammy nomination, and The Color Purple earned him the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Breakthrough Creative. Variety named him one of its 10 Directors to Watch for 2024.