About Us

Founded in 2012 as a support for an urban planning and design firm to copyright intellectual properties and present projects to clients in a more illustrative manner, the firm has evolved to be so much more.

Over the years, the company has published books, created documentaries, scored music and created short films.  All of these experiences has led the company to its’ current endeavors in a variety of areas of traditional genres and are on the eve of launching a new interactive experience.  But first let us give you a more about us.

The Early Years

As stated, the company started as a support for an urban planning and design firm run by Akinya Khalfani in 2012.  At the time, Khalfani had completed the planning of urban projects and noticed there were far greater barriers and impediments to expanding and growing in the field of urban planning that permeated throughout the cities and areas in which African-Americans were populated.  Living in America, Khalfani was not naive to believe the tradition of racism would not be in the field of urban planning, to the contrary, he had come from a Pan-African background and understood racism clearly, but what he was experiencing was not the traditional racism.  It was something totally different.  Whether it was the midwest or the south.  The east coast or the west coast, it was the same.  The barriers to opportunities within the various areas within the African-American population was coming primarily from other African-Americans.  He was not finding it difficult to get funding for projects in African-American areas, it was difficult getting the leadership in these areas to believe he was capable of doing so.  In essence, he was faced with the perception that he and his efforts were not real.  He was told of several occasions that he was “working for white people” or he was a front for “white interests”.  This put him in a strange situation, because on the one hand he fought racism in an industry that was dominated by non-Black people.  On the other hand, in those battles he found allies around the globe who witnessed his actions from a far. As a result of this actions, around 2012, Stranded Island Entertainment was founded with the launch of the first product, a book called, “The Split: An Assessment of the African-American Group Identity”.

This book highlighted the differences within the group and how these differences function to create a permanent stagnation within the population that leads to socio-political-economic paralysis that has created a mass psychosis in which many will never survive.  Utilizing great examples of those that had proceeded him (Nat Turner, Malcolm X, John Henrick Clarke, Francis Cress-Welsing, Amos Wilson, Steven Biko, Thomas Sankara, Dedan Kimathy, Christophe of Haiti, Winnie Mandela, Cheihk Anta Diop and thousands of others to name a few), he wrote the book in a style that everyone who wanted to read it, could read it.  Upon launching the book, he ran into the same group that were barriers in urban planning were present in the fields of entertainment/education.  In fact, they were more entrenched because they saw themselves as gatekeepers to maintain the former way of subservient life that evolved out of slavery/colonialism/apartheid/caste systems.  Many saw themselves as useful to suppress anything remotely symbolizing “Black” progress and for a certain type of non-Black person, they still believe these realities should continue to be the perceptions of Black people globally.  This is the foundation of Stranded Island Entertainment.

Stranded Island Entertainment is a group created to give new images of Black people from around the world for the sake of igniting the minds of Africans globally who are experiencing the same barriers to progress wherever they are.  This journey is not a popular one, but one that has to be traveled.  Khalfani is often asked why he chose the name “Stranded Island” and he always responds the same way.  “If you were actually stuck in a remote place with nothing around you but barriers and you knew your food and other necessities would run out quickly, you’d be able to focus on what was real and what was not real.  The comforts of oppression would seem silly in comparison to certain death.  There would be not place or time for self-delusion.  The only thing that matters in this type of scenario is to live.  Life or Death.  Essentially, that’s where conscious Black people are all the time.  They are on a stranded island always trying to create a place of their own making.  This is why we are Stranded Island, because we have to create the new images that will change the perception within ourselves to give us the strength to psychologically swim from these places of isolation to form new realities with like minds and efforts; globally.  This current phase of this longstanding process encompasses the creation and utilization of the technology accessible around the world to teach and build new realities”.  

This is a brief synopsis of who we are.  We hope that you will join our journey and contribute. Either way we hope you will find us a valuable part of your life.

Welcome to Stranded Island.