CultureShare Roots
CultureShare Studios is a digital media platform dedicated to preserving cultural memory and sharing stories that connect generations and communities. Formerly known as GBTV CultureShare, it was founded by brothers Gentle and Roland Benjamin and has grown from approximately 40 years of documenting performances, conversations, festivals, people, and cultural moments into a rich visual archive and a YouTube community of nearly 72,000 subscribers. Now part of Razzle Dazzle Entertainment, CultureShare Studios is entering a new era of original documentary, music, cultural, community, and entertainment content. The archives and cultural DNA of GBTV CultureShare remain at its heart, connecting the stories already captured with those still to come.
Gentle Benjamin
Gentle Benjamin is a Grenadian-born television producer, videographer, editor, cultural archivist, and co-founder of CultureShare Studios, formerly GBTV CultureShare. Before building the platform with his late brother, Roland Benjamin, Gentle served 14 years in the United States Army, where he became a top recruiter in New York State and was contracted to produce a basic training video for the Empire State Military Academy.
A self-taught video producer who purchased his own equipment and learned the craft through hands-on experience, Gentle attended New York City’s Center for Media Arts in 1988 to earn his diploma in Video and Television Production. His experience was already so advanced that he assisted the instructor while completing the program.
The CultureShare television show began airing in the United States in May 1990 and expanded to the United Kingdom two years later through Identity Television, an early Black cable network that later became BET International. Gentle also brought CultureShare to the Caribbean Satellite Network and produced pay-per-view programming during the format’s early years. His work has taken him across the Caribbean, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Ghana, where he produced three years of programming and documented cultural landmarks including the Elmina and Cape Coast slave castles.
From 2000 to 2010, Gentle worked at NBC in Rockefeller Center as a news video editor and Master Control operator. He helped oversee programming feeds for NBC stations across the East Coast and Chicago and participated in the network’s transition from standard-definition to high-definition broadcasting. His broader production experience includes quality-control work for A&E, the History Channel, and other cable networks, as well as commercials that aired on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, BET, Time Warner, and Cablevision.
Through CultureShare, Gentle has documented generations of artists, entertainers, festivals, and community life. His archive includes more than 10,000 YouTube videos, work with artists such as Herbie Hancock, Common, Wynton Marsalis, MC Lyte, Doug E. Fresh, Wyclef Jean, and the Mighty Sparrow, and footage preserved by the Musical Instrument Museum in Arizona. Portions of the archive have also been licensed by Live Nation and BET’s American Gangster: Trap Queens.
As the father of Kevin and Casey Benjamin, Gentle filmed Casey throughout his life, creating an intimate record of his growth as a person and artist. His contributions have earned congressional recognition, two New York State proclamations, a New York City citation, a 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award from Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, and a 2024 National Hero Award presented by the Prime Minister of Grenada. Now, as CultureShare enters a new chapter under Razzle Dazzle Entertainment, Gentle is passing a remarkable cultural and family legacy to the next generation.
