His 2015 documentary film Field Niggas and his 2017 book Souls Against the Concrete depict people who inhabit the notorious Harlem corner of 125th Street and Lexington Avenue in New York City.
[10] Described by The Village Voice as "more a woozy experience you press through than an ethnographic study you watch, Khalik Allah's hour-long non-narrative street-life doc Field Niggas stands as the most striking sort of urban portraiture.
[12] Its subjects are predominantly African American,[11] experiencing poverty, homelessness, drug addiction,[13] and harassment from the police;[14] people with "a hunger to have their voices heard".
The film's title is taken from "Message to the Grass Roots", a public speech delivered by human rights activist Malcolm X in 1963, "extolling the spirit of rebellion among outdoor slaves.
Because of photographing at night using available light, he used a fast manual focus normal lens at a large aperture (hence the shallow depth of field).
[1] It was made in the same fashion as Field Niggas: "visual portraits of people on the street – filming their faces for several seconds as they pose as if for a still camera" – with a soundtrack out of synch with the images.