Today we’d like to introduce you to Jatiana Smith.
Jatiana, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I’m originally from Los Angeles Ca (Inglewood), Child hood was very tough growing up where I’m from but I worked hard in school and put myself through college because I wanted to escape that life and make something better for myself. After college I moved, did the family thing worked a normal 9-5 for years until Covid happened. When that happened I found myself working from home and then eventually I was laid off, I was able to sit back and collect unemployment which meant I had more time on my hands. I saw an old friend on ig filming skits and I jokingly reached out and asked to be in a skit. And he was like yea tomorrow here’s the address lol. I grew on on Martin, Jamie Fox show, Mad TV and In Living Color re-runs so sketch comedy has always been a dream of mine, I just never took a chance on it. But anyways I go this set the next day and he’s filming an independent film, “Juice” and on set is where I met Bigg Jah and the rest was history after that. I started regularly collabing with him, from there I branched out and began to travel to collaborate with other creators. I saw my following go up pretty quick and it dawned on me, okay I must have an actual talent here, then I started making my own sketches. One of the places I traveled to often was here in ATL, and to switch it up a bit I decided to take my talents here full time (lol) to take my comedic acting more seriously.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has not been smooth at all. I deal with real emotions from just life in general and sometimes you wake up and you don’t want to create. You don’t feel funny, not motivated.
I’ve dealt with being demonitized on 1 or multiple platforms at a time or all at once.
One of my biggest struggles was getting help filming myself so I had to buy a camera and teach myself how to use it, mostly from YouTube and a couple of my friends. I got Final Cut Pro and taught myself how to edit my own videos, to save money and time.
In this creative entrepreneurial journey you have to wear many hats. Writing, executing, filming then editing your own stuff can be a lot at times. But the key is to not stop and remain consistent.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I mostly do Sketch Comedy, I’m known for being a tall pretty bully lol I’m 6ft tall.
I’m most proud of never changing and remaining myself. My relationships with everyone is so good that if someone were to say something bad about me it’s a very small chance that it would be believed. What sets me apart is my ease of being able to take direction and my genuine character.
In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
There’s going to always be a new trend every week, I’m seeing attention spands get shorter and shorter. My hope is that being content creators the apps that we’re posting our monetized content on is that they become more stable on the payment side of things. I’m not sure if that will ever happen so in the future I can definitely see more individual streaming networks created to give ourselves our own monetized platforms to post our content on.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsjati
- Facebook: https://Facebook.com/itsjati
- Twitter: https://x.com/itsjati
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@itsjatii
