Two-time Emmy Award winner Kenan Kamwana Holley grew up in Houston, Texas. A 1998 Duke graduate, and four-year letterman on the Duke football team, Holley began his filmmaking career at NFL Films. The first African-American man hired by the company as a producer, Holley flourished under the tutelage of sports documentarian Steve Sabol.
Holley moved on to NASCAR Productions, where he directed and edited "Wendell Scott: A Race Story." He would land on ESPN Films' radar shortly thereafter and was hired in 2014 as a director/producer for ESPN Films' "30 for 30" series. Holley's first movie at ESPN was "40 Minutes of Hell," a look at Nolan Richardson's oft-tumultuous but widely successful coaching tenure at the University of Arkansas. Holley's work at ESPN includes the hit series "Snoop & Son", 30 for 30 films "I Hate Christian Laettner", "Nature Boy", "The Book of Manning", and "Dominique Belongs to Us". Holley also directed "Redemption Song", for ESPN and executive producer Spike Lee. The film presents the 1974 Howard University soccer team, the only HBCU squad to ever win a Division One NCAA National Championship.
For his next production, Holley is the Director and an Executive Producer on the 2024 Amazon Studios film, Soul Power, a comprehensive look at the American Basketball Association (ABA) of the 1970s. Additional Executive Producers on the film include Julius Erving, George Karl, and Common.
