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Rahman Ali Bugg

· SENIOR CREATIVE EXECUTIVE
· EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
· SHOWRUNNER
· CREATIVE DIRECTOR
· FILMMAKER

30 years leading television, live event, documentary, and branded content productions — available for executive, fractional, and consulting engagements.

"In search of my mother's garden, I found my own." — Alice Walker

HIRE RAHMAN

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HIRE RAHMAN

A senior creative executive who solves storytelling, production, and audience problems.

Every business is a media brand now — through video, live events, podcasts, social, or branded content.

Most have a strong product and a real story, and no reliable way to get that story in front of the people who need to hear it.

I help organizations build and execute the content and creative strategy that closes that gap, using thirty years of experience leading productions for BET, MTV, A&E, Amazon, and Roc Nation.

Available For:

Executive Producer roles
Development deals
Showrunning

Services:

Executive Producing & Showrunning Full creative and operational ownership of a series or special, from development through delivery.

Development & Launch Strategy Taking a concept from idea to a financeable, castable, sellable production.

Fractional Creative Leadership Ongoing executive-level creative direction for organizations that need senior production judgment without a full-time hire — typically structured as a monthly retainer.

Live Event Production & Creative Direction End-to-end ownership of a live event's creative vision and production execution.

Documentary Strategy Editorial and production guidance for documentary projects at any stage — concept, funding, production, or post.

Branded Content Content built for a brand partner that still holds up as real storytelling, not an ad in disguise.

Digital & Content Systems Oversight Building the repeatable systems — not just individual pieces of content — that let an organization publish consistently across video, social, and podcast.

Creative Direction
Fractional Creative Leadership
Interim leadership
Live Event Production

Documentary Strategy
Branded Content
Creative Partnerships

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RECENT PROJECTS + OUTCOMES

Not just credits. Results.

Scale and trust, demonstrated the way networks actually measure it

— repeat engagement, operational complexity, and platform reach.

Live PD — A&E Networks Live Control Room Producer, 137 episodes Real-time, live production leadership with no second takes and no margin for error — sustained across more than a hundred consecutive episodes for one of A&E's flagship series.

Essence Festival — Four consecutive editions Executive Content Producer/Director Rehired across four consecutive years to lead content production for one of the largest live cultural events in the country — the kind of repeat trust that only comes from consistent delivery under real public pressure.

Free Meek — Amazon / Roc Nation Executive Producer A documentary series distributed globally through Amazon Prime Video, built around Meek Mill's criminal justice case and the systemic issues it exposed.

Exposing Parchman — A&E / ITV / Roc Nation Executive Producer An investigative documentary into Mississippi's Parchman prison system, produced in partnership with two international broadcasters and a major cultural brand.

VH1 Hip Hop Honors — VH1 Producer, three consecutive years Repeat engagement on a flagship annual broadcast celebrating hip-hop's biggest names — three years running on one of VH1's signature cultural properties.

The Field: Philadelphia — Starz / Mass Appeal Showrunner / Executive Producer Full creative and operational ownership from development through delivery — the entire arc of building a show from concept to broadcast.

DOWNLOAD CV + CREDIT LIST

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WORK

SELECTED MEDIA CLIPS

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ABOUT

Thirty years translating culture into stories that reach millions — from network television to digital to independent documentary.

I started in this industry the summer of 1993 at MTV, interning on Yo! MTV Raps, between semesters attending Syracuse University.

Since then formats, platforms, production-related technologies and audiences have evolved and changed more times than I can count

— from network to cable, cable to streaming, broadcast to social, domestically-focused to globally conscious, Gen x to Gen Z, and now to whatever comes after AI reshapes it again.

What hasn't changed is the instinct underneath it: find the true thing in a story, and don't flinch from telling it.

Over the course of my career, I've produced live broadcast, documentary, unscripted series, and branded content for BET, MTV, A&E, Amazon, and Roc Nation, among others.

I've also built a company of my own — PopStar Media — and helped steer a company to new growth and business opportunities - Red Summer TV - because at a certain point, the work I most wanted to make needed a home I had a meaningful hand in shaping.

Origin Story:

Seventh of Twelve

I'm the seventh of twelve children, born and raised in Paterson, New Jersey.

My mother, Jeanette Bugg, raised us largely on her own — she earned her nurse practitioner certificate while doing it, and she used to take me around to churches in Paterson, fundraising for money for me to have books, clothes and other necessities for college to supplement my school loans and nominal scholarships.

I think about that a lot.

Everything I've built since started with someone believing in me along with my community trusting that my story was worth investing in before I'd proven anything.

I'm also, for what it's worth, a lifelong Trekkie — and "Seven of Twelve" has always meant something specific to me: someone who emerged from a collective with their individual identity fully intact.

That's the throughline of most of what I make.

#LiveLongAndProsper

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TEACHING AND SPEAKING

Bringing the industry into the classroom.

I teach and speak from inside the industry, not from a distance — thirty years of decisions, mistakes, and adaptations that don't usually make it into a textbook.

Below are the topics I return to most, whether I'm in front of a graduate seminar or a room of high schoolers just starting to imagine a career in media.

Core Topics list:

From Broadcast to AI: Thirty years of adapting to every new format in media

— and what that teaches about resilience as a practiced skill, not a personality trait.

Hip-Hop as Business: The Culture behind the culture industry

— how hip-hop built an economy, and what that means for anyone trying to build a career inside it today.

Producing Truth Ethics, Access, and Responsibility in documentary storytelling

— what it actually costs to tell someone else's story well.

Seven of Twelve Building an individual identity inside a collective

— a personal talk on family, community, and self-definition.

The Entrepreneurial Producer

— What it actually takes to found and run an independent production company, told through Red Summer TV's real numbers and real setbacks.

Mentorship as Method Developing: The next generation of media talent

— why I think mentorship is a discipline, not a favor.

"I want to teach that resilience is a skill, not a personality trait — and that critical thinking in uncertain environments is something you build through repetition, not something you're born with."

Available for guest lectures, semester courses, and keynote/panel speaking — in person or remote.

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SUPPORT THE WORK

PATRON THE ONGOING WORK &
PROJECTS STILL IN PROGRESS

Independent documentary work doesn't fund itself, and neither does showing up for free at a school that can't cover a flight. This page exists so the people who believe in this work can help carry it — not as a general donation, but toward something specific and named.

Tier 1: One-Time Gift — Any amount. A single contribution toward whatever's most active right now.

Tier 2: Monthly Patron — $10–25/month Recurring support, cancel anytime. The most direct way to help sustain ongoing work.

Tier 3: Project sponsor — $100+ Support earmarked for one specific project below.

Active Projects:

My Mother's Garden: A feature documentary/series rooted in my family's story — currently in development.

Untitled NY Music Documentary: - a feature documentary/series bringing the untold story of once vibrant music and dance scene that began in the 1980’s, dwindling in the early 2000’s, whose icons still perform, create and inspire through today. — currently in development.

Speaking travel fund: Covers travel and lodging for free talks at schools, nonprofits, and youth organizations — where the honorarium was never the barrier, the flight was.

Pro bono consulting practice: Funds mentorship and consulting for emerging creatives who can't yet afford standard PopStar Media rates.

What patrons get: Early updates on My Mother's Garden, a name in project credits where applicable, and first invitations to any Brooklyn screenings or events.

Red Summer TV and PopStar Media/BuggInc are independent production companies, not registered nonprofits — contributions here are not tax-deductible unless otherwise noted for a specific fiscally sponsored project.