American producer, director, and journalist
Joseph Patel |
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| Born | 1972 (age 52–53) |
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| Occupation(s) | Producer, director, journalist |
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Joseph Patel (born 1972)[1] is an American producer, director and journalist. He won an Academy Award in the category Best Documentary Feature Film for the documentary film Summer of Soul.[2]
Life and career
Patel grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. His father was from Gujarat, India, and his mother was born in Uganda, but after marrying they moved to the United States where Joseph Patel was born.[3] While studying at University of California, Davis, he contributed to student radio station KDVS,[1] and met a group of friends who formed the hip-hop collective SoleSides, including DJ Shadow and Blackalicious.[3]
Under pen name Jazzbo, Patel began writing for hip-hop magazines Bomb, The Flavor, Urb, Straight No Chaser, and Rap Pages.[3] In 1996, he wrote his first cover story for Rap Pages, on The Roots. This meeting led to a longtime friendship with Roots member Questlove.[3] In 2003, Patel began working for MTV and produced My Block, a series about hip-hop in Houston.[3] He also worked as producer, director, writer and executive for Vevo, Vice, and The Fader alongside MTV.[4]
Later, Questlove invited Patel to work on a documentary about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, which became Summer of Soul.[4] The documentary film won several awards, and made Patel the first-ever South Asian best-documentary-feature winner.[5]
In 2022, Patel was announced as Director and Producer for a documentary on J Dilla.[6] He signed an overall deal with Onyx Collective in 2023, for him to produce, write and direct new projects for Onyx, through his production company Dub Version.[7] He will produce Questlove's next film SLY LIVES! (aka The Burden of Black Genius), a documentary about Sly Stone,[8] set to premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.[9]
Awards and nominations
References
External links
