Nation19’s filmmaking roots span generations. Hakeem Khaaliq, raised in Los Angeles, comes from a family tied to early Hollywood. His father worked as a stuntman in influential Blaxploitation films, including The Spook Who Sat by the Door, widely regarded as one of the most important films of the era, and his grandfather built sets and appeared as an extra in the original King Kong. Queen Muhammad Ali grew up in a creative multi-cultural household with Samoan royal ancestry, shaped in part by her mother’s work as Assistant Film Director for Vaitafe: Running Water, a notable early film produced with the American Samoa Community College. Hakeem launched his film career in 1997 with Tha Bizness and later directed projects for major artists and brands under his Radio Bums moniker. The pair began collaborating in 2006 while documenting autochthonous communities in Mexico, a partnership that led to films such as The Last Matai (2013), the award winning #Bars4Justice (2015), which screened at the Museum of Modern Art, War on Us (2016), commissioned by the United Nations, and the feature Comin’ Up Short (2023), which screened at the British Film Institute in London. Together, they developed a filmmaking approach grounded in visual anthropology, indigenous research, photojournalism, and hip hop culture.