Jackson Allers

Archivist, storyteller, reporter, filmmaker and editor, Jackson Allers has focused the majority of his work on the subcultures of his surroundings. He has documented the plight of farm workers in rural North Carolina with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Coles (Duke University 1990-1994); advocated for the legal rights of the Roma population in Kosovo as the media adviser to the former Ombudsman, Marek Antoni Nowicki; created digital-audio archives for a book on ancient Bedouin stories in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, and spent the better part of 25 years writing about and documenting hip-hop culture and its musical predecessors. For the last 6-years, Jackson has been based in Beirut, Lebanon where he has been reporting on politics, and the independent musical trends in the Arab world for outlets like The National, Rolling Stone ME, Al Jazeera English, Democracy Now!, National Public Radio, Red Bull Music Academy Magazine, Free Speech Radio News, and primarily on his blog Beats and Breath. He is the Managing Editor of the prestigious global hip-hop news and culture website – World Hip Hop Market  (est. 2004), and his work on Arab hip-hop in the region has been cited frequently as a reference point in numerous academic settings. Jackson is currently writing a book and the rise of the Arab hip-hop movement, and he continues to crate dig for records in the flea markets and antique stores around the Middle East and North Africa.