Artist Profile
INTRODUCING BENEDICT HADLEY
LITERARY INTERPRETATION – FROM CINDIA
CHARACTER AND THEME: TO BE REVEALED IN BOOK TWO
“Supreme Messages From An Unknown Source #53” is tragic and hopeful all in one bite. It represents a very real story about a boy Khalif who contributed to creative works in challenged urban settings. He also created Trap Cakes, something sweet in a hard spot. The idea of using food to bring positivity and connection is a powerful and inspiring one. His young life was tragically taken by gunshot, as is all too common in the United States. How can we all remember young Khalif in his generous gesture to bring something sweet to a hard spot? Book two of The Spice Temple will bring in this very hard and real story to inspire to keep the magic of his spirit alive.
CHECK OUT THE INSPIRING FILM HERE: TRAP CAKES
ARTIST’S INTERPRETATION OF SUPREME MESSAGES FROM AN UNKNOWN SOURCE #53
“Supreme Messages From An Unknown Source #53” represents the star of the film “Trap Cakes” the late Khalif Harrington in a marred silhouette etched in a digital canvas of gauche, pastel and digital photographs. The word TRAP hangs over his face as a sort of superhero mask as he holds space for the voiceless. And the words CAKES are scrawled below, casually but ultimately with great meaning. A play off the obscure, mysterious and compelling movie posters that secure space in our long-term memory but in the most urgent of Street Style.
Featured here as an NFT and part of the upcoming film “Supreme Messages from an Unknown Source” is “Supreme Messages from an Unknown Source #53” a digital artifact/painting/premonition created for the film “TrapCakes” in 2018 “TrapCakes” a 27 Minute Avant Garde Hood Deamscape” created as part of the Artist’s Hadley Broadcasting Company’s Youth Recidivism Cinematography Program at The Urban Leauge of Essex County, a Century old Human Rights organization in NJ.
There he worked with with about 20 teenagers with juvenile criminal records in the Summer of 2018 to produce the film, from inception to completion, in exchange for a stipend and equity in the project.
The film shows the dream scape that follows 3 characters entrepreneurial endeavors. In Khalif’s role, it’s the dream of opening a cup cake business, aptly titled, Trap Cakes. His moment of light in this dark place offered a truly sweet bit of community, commerce, culture and quality for all to taste and see.
Sadly Khalif, a brilliant, entertaining and enthusiastic young man was shot and killed on a desolate, blighted street moments after he left West Side High School in Newark, NJ on Monday August 29th 2021.
In this digital painting his memory lives on in silhouette. Towering along an imaginary skyline with the words TRAP at his crown etched atop the canvas and colored in digital gauche and charcoal.
The words CAKES are scrawled beneath.
In memory of Khalif, A portion of the sale of this NFT will be used to establish The Khalif Harrington Foundation to address the safety, transformation and advocacy of at risk youth through equity producing commercial art like “Trap Cakes” it’s upcoming sequel and this work of art, in particular.
Trap Cakes, The Artist and the memory of Khalif are proud to be a part of The Spice Journey and look forward to the collaborative magic created when art, technology, storytelling and culinary moments align to transform The World.
BIOGRAPHY OF BENEDICT HADLEY
Trap Cakes is a “Avant-Garde Hood Dream Scape “, A 27 minute film created with, for and in the community. Working with the century old Urban League of Essex County Benedict designed a film making program that trained community youth with juvenille records in the production aspects of film making. These students now own equity in a film that was designed to serve as the groundwork for a log running intellectual property created specifically for the Hadley Broadcasting Companies startup outdoor distribution via street projection method.
Highly visual and kinetic in nature Trap Cakes is intented to be a culture creator. A visually arresting motion picture that features community members juxtaposed with cutting edge distribution based in the underserved location that the film was created in.
Benedict Hadley is a prolific polymath, film maker, artist, risk taker and founder of the Hadley Broadcasting Company. a NYC based corporation that focuses on utilizing storytelling, cinema and technology to redefine broadcasting and address endemic problems worldwide. For over 20 years his work has focused on humanity, the creator and how that relationship or lack thereof has manifested in todays most urgent issues in our built and natural environment as well as our social structure. He is an accomplished & respected film maker, editor and polymath whose work has been screened worldwide at the Cannes film festival, New York fashion week, NFT.NYC, BDNY, VON: Evolution and many others. His commercial art and films includes work for Jay Z, Francis Ford Coppola, PBS, June Ambrose, John Ziesel, Aliya Leekong and the National Urban League. He is a 3x Harvard Loeb Fellowship nominee for his work in the built and natural environment and his first feature film “Supreme Messages From an Unknown source” will be released in theaters everywhere in the fall of 2023.
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