Jibril “J” Blessing
Jibril “J” Blessing is a Kenyan cinematographer, music-video auteur, and television producer who has spent nearly two decades elevating East African visual storytelling. After cutting his teeth as a cameraman on gospel shows in 2007, he founded Link Video Global in Nairobi, a production house whose bold colour palettes and kinetic edits have defined hits for artists such as Bahati, Sauti Sol, Patoranking, and Yemi Alade.
Blessing won Groove Awards Video Producer of the Year in 2011 and three Mwafaka Awards for his gospel visuals, then crossed over seamlessly to secular pop, directing Sauti Sol’s viral “Live and Die in Afrika” and Otile Brown’s “Jeraha.” In television he masterminds camera direction for the long-running Churchill Show, whose weekly prime-time slot averages 3 million viewers and has launched scores of Kenyan comedians. In 2017 Google honoured him as the first Kenyan video director to surpass 100 million cumulative YouTube views, citing his “significant contribution to Africa’s digital content economy.”
Committed to nurturing talent, Blessing co-founded the Pace Link Foundation, which offers production apprenticeships and grants to young musicians, actors, poets, and dancers; alumni have gone on to win Pulse Music Video Awards and Netflix script fellowships. Now branching into Dolby Vision short films and TikTok vertical series, J Blessing continues to push the boundaries of African visual culture while opening doors for the continent’s next generation of creatives.