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Abdul Malik Abbott was born in New York and raised in Harlem. He followed in his father's footsteps and became a filmmaker and photographer. Abdul attended the High School of Music & Art as a painter and illustrator, then went to the School of Visual Arts with film as his major. He worked as a P.A. on several feature films and studied documentary production at DCTV 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%". He 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".
Abdul then started working on music videos as a sound playback technician and eventually became a music video editor, cutting clips for new and established hip hop and R&B artists. He directed his first video for 2 Too Many, a rap group formed and produced by Will Smith, and won a Gold Award for "Best Jazz video" for his video "People In Me" featuring Abbey Lincoln.
Abdul's big break came when Jive records gave him a chance to direct a video for "2 Too Many". He 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 as videos for other established and up & coming rap, R&B and gospel artists.
In 1998 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.
Abdul's feature film directorial debut was "State Property" (Lions Gate),which 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.
Abdul has been a guest teacher at several High Schools, instructing students the art and politics of music video/film production. He 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 co-wrote and produced the feature film "My Normal" in 2010, and directed four episodes of the webseries "Who Da Man?" in 2011. He also 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 recently directed and 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.
Abdul 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.
