About Culture Queen

Biography

Jessica “Culture Queen” Smith loves young people, and they love her back. Founder of Culture Kingdom Kids, LLC, she is an educator, author, and creative producer dedicated to creating magical, meaningful, and memorable experiences that help young people celebrate their own cultures and appreciate the cultures around them.

Since 2010, Culture Queen has been on the scene making magic in museums, leading learning in libraries, sparking smiles in schools, bringing fun to festivals, rocking radio waves, popping up on screens, and globetrotting to Ghana as a cultural ambassador. She has performed at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Wolf Trap, National Great Blacks In Wax Museum, National Children’s Museum, and venues across the country.

Her creative works include the beloved children’s album and book I Like the Me I See!, the TED-Ed film Mansa Musa: One of the Wealthiest People Who Ever Lived with more than 8 million views, I Am the Future of Black History, featured on the Grammy-nominated One Tribe Collective album, the nationally produced musical Bone Soup: A Kwanzaa Story, and the viral dance The Kwanzaa Slide.

Smith’s career also includes significant nonprofit arts leadership as Chief Arts Officer at Arts for Learning Maryland and Executive Director of the Prince George’s African American Museum and Cultural Center, leading initiatives that reached more than 50,000 students and educators annually.

After sixteen years, she made a glorious return to the classroom as an English teacher at Forest Park High School and professor at Coppin State University. She holds a BFA in Theatre Education and African American Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University and a Master’s in Communications from Morgan State University.

She is also A proud cat mom to Nubia Alexis and Onyx Octavia, a volunteer baby cuddler at Mt. Washington Pediatric Hospital, dedicated UNO player, and thrift store treasure hunter.

Culture Queen wants you to remember: every hour, on the hour, you are a tower of royal power.