Jasmyne

Unapologetically Black, Jasmyne Cannick is known for addressing the issues that others can’t or simply won’t. At 30, Jasmyne Cannick is a critic and commentator based in Los Angeles who writes about the intersection of pop culture, race, class, and politics as played out in the African-American community. An award-winning journalist, Jasmyne was selected as one of ESSENCE Magazine’s 25 Women Shaping the World and is a regular contributor to National Public Radio’s “News and Notes.”
Jasmyne’s thought provoking commentaries have been featured in the Chicago Sun-Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, and Los Angeles Daily News to name a few.
As a member of the National Association of Black Journalists, she’s a strong advocate for the Black press. Her columns have appeared in Black newspapers from coast to coast including the Los Angeles Sentinel, Los Angeles Wave, L.A. Watts-Times, Our Weekly, the New York Amsterdam, Washington Afro, Chicago Defender , Sacramento Observer, Michigan Citizen, Oakland Post, and Atlanta Daily World.
Online, she’s a regular contributor to the Electronic Urban Report, Blackcommentator.com, BlackAmericaWeb.com, The Daily Voice, and the BlackAgendaReport.com. Her writings have also been featured on AllHipHop.com, AOL’s BlackVoices.com, and Blackplanet.com.
On air, you can usually hear her on the American Urban Radio Network’s award-winning talk show “The Bev Smith Show,” National Public Radio’s “News & Notes,” and “Tell Me More,” and locally in L.A. on KJLH 102.3 FM’s “The Front Page.”
As a trusted source by reporters, she’s been quoted in the New York Post and Los Angeles Times and has appeared on CNN, Fox News, BET, Access Hollywood, NBC’s Dateline, and more.
Jasmyne continues to be a popular speaker at colleges, universities, conferences, and events discussing culture, race, sexuality, and politics.
She co-founded the National Black Justice Coalition, the nation’s Black gay civil rights group and continues to work on behalf on Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender men and women in bringing awareness and insight into the racism and class issues that exists in gay community and the homophobia in Black America.
She’s assisted with several film and television projects including “Noah’s Arc,” “Jumping the Broom,” and “Don’t Go.”
In 2007, she wrote, directed, and produced her first documentary film “The Incredibly True Adventures of Sistas of the Canyon,” a candid take on the ties that bind a group of African-American and women in Los Angeles. Voices of mothers, sisters, daughters, girlfriends, and lesbian women spanning different generations, shapes, and sizes redefine unity and sisterhood by testing their physical and emotional boundaries that begin at the mountaintop.
The film was inspired after a long battle with depression where Jasmyne lost 75 pounds and gained a whole lease and outlook on life. She currently leads a weekly hike for women of color in the Hollywood Hills in the hopes of inspiring more women to take control of their health and lives.
Jasmyne is the eldest of four children. She was raised in Hermosa Beach, California before moving to Compton and eventually to Los Angeles. She is also a former foster child.
Currently Jasmyne is completing her first novel.
She works in the worlds of media and politics and runs her popular blog JasmyneCannick.com.

How I Lost 75 Pounds in 2007