Sharifa Jamila Smith [TESTED]

: Spent several months performing in Stockholm and Helsinki. Television & Film Worked on filming "Amantes" in 2022.

Her community impact is most visible in the a small, grassroots initiative that provides micro-grants to Black trans artists in the South. The fund prioritizes artists who are currently unhoused or estranged from their families due to religious rejection. To date, the fund has distributed over $200,000, funded entirely through the sale of Smith’s small-scale prayer beads ( tasbih ) and digital poetry downloads. sharifa jamila smith

In the world of indie folk, Sharifa Jamila Smith is recognized for her haunting contralto voice and sparse, evocative songwriting. Her music often explores deep emotional landscapes, blending "mournful distance" with a controlled, intense power. : Spent several months performing in Stockholm and Helsinki

Her third album, High Water Line (2022), was a meditation on climate displacement in the Gullah Geechee corridor. It was recorded in a single week, with Smith refusing to punch in or correct minor vocal imperfections. “The crack in the voice is the truth,” she says. The album’s centerpiece, “Saltwater Testament,” is a seven-minute epic that uses the metaphor of rising tides to explore gentrification, erasure, and resilience. When she performed it at the Kennedy Center, the audience sat in absolute, unnerving silence for thirty seconds after the final chord faded. The fund prioritizes artists who are currently unhoused

Smith is renowned for her mixed-media quilts. Unlike traditional quilts that follow geometric precision, Smith’s quilts are chaotic, intentional, and visceral. She incorporates kente cloth, repurposed vintage linens from white Southern households, and handwritten letters from her own family archives. In her series “The Wounds Are Where the Light Enters,” one quilt features a patch of a childhood Easter dress next to a news clipping about police brutality, stitched together with red thread that mimics both blood vessels and the "red string of fate" from Sufi lore.

Smith does not claim to be a scholar, but rather a witness . She argues that the act of staying in the room—continuing to show up to Jummah, continuing to wear hijab on her own terms, continuing to write—is a Sacred Uprising against theological violence.

Author Jamila D. Smith creates fictional stories and holds degrees in social work, using her writing to craft thrilling plots inspired by her life in Massachusetts and Indiana. Summary of Social Media and Public Profiles