Cepeda wrote/director “Bling: A Planet Rock,” an 87 minute documentary about American hip-hop culture’s obsession with diamonds—“blinging”—and all its social trappings, and how this infatuation correlated with the ten-year conflict in Sierra Leone, West Africa. She co-produced the documentary with a19, VH1, and the United Nations Development Programme. A modified version for television of “Bling…” premiered under the title “Bling’d: Blood, Diamonds and Hip-Hop” on VH1 on February 22, 2007 (3.3 million viewers).

Distributed by Image, “Bling…” is available at Walmart, FYE, Circuit City, and Amazon.

Currently, Cepeda is in production on “BLOW US UP!,” a wartime concert documentary starring platinum selling rapper Paul Wall and TV Johnny who will journey into the past to see the future—in Iraq and Johnny’s homeland, Vietnam.

Raquel Cepeda is an award-winning editor, multi-media journalist, and filmmaker.

Cepeda wrote/director “Bling: A Planet Rock,” an 87 minute documentary about American hip-hop culture’s obsession with diamonds—“blinging”—and all its social trappings, and how this infatuation correlated with the ten-year conflict in Sierra Leone, West Africa. She co-produced the documentary with a19, VH1, and the United Nations Development Programme. A modified version for television of “Bling…” premiered under the title “Bling’d: Blood, Diamonds and Hip-Hop” on VH1 on February 22, 2007 (3.3 million viewers).

Distributed by Image, “Bling…” is available at Walmart, FYE, Circuit City, and Amazon.

Currently, Cepeda is in production on “BLOW US UP!,” a wartime concert documentary starring platinum selling rapper Paul Wall and TV Johnny who will journey into the past to see the future—in Iraq and Johnny’s homeland, Vietnam.

Following in the tradition of the highly acclaimed “Bling: A Planet Rock,” “BLOW US UP!” uses the medium of hip-hop to engage a new audience in the history of two American wars, a generation and musical genre apart from each other.

http://clutchmagonline.com/lifeculture/feature/raquel-cepeda/

Q: You started out as a journalist, what attracted you to this career?

I always loved to read and write stories since I was a kid, and the idea of being able to communicate with others through this medium really appealed to my Gemini self. I also saw early on, especially combing through issues of The Village Voice and reading the work of Greg Tate, Nelson George, Joan Morgan and Lisa Jones circa ’89–‘91 and thereabouts that maybe I could follow in their footsteps . . . that is, if a career being MC Lyte’s ghost-writer didn’t pan out. I grew up in Washington Heights where many of my friends were starting families in high school so I was dreaming big!

Q: You are also former Editor-in-Chief of Russell Simmons’ One World Magazine. How did that experience influence the direction of your career now?

The experience I gained there was invaluable, and I enjoyed my part in giving the magazine it’s global edge. The things I’ve done since—successes and failures, alike—have been an extension of my desire to explore the hip-hop and youth culture abroad. Both of my parents are Dominican, so I think this is why I’ve always been interested in how and why other people see us the way they do; and hip-hop allows me to package the information in a way that is palatable to people here Stateside.

Q: What inspired you to create the documentary, Bling: A Planet Rock?

I’ve been asked that question about a hundred times now, and the answers always vary because there are so many reasons I wanted to make this film, most of them driven by my love of our funky planet. The shortest answer is that I wanted to show how American hip-hop culture has become such a force around the world that it’s even intersected a decade long diamond-fueled conflict.