Iya Shantrelle P. Lewis is a multi-hyphen creative and scholar who accesses multiple disciplines to help elucidate African Diasporic history, aesthetics, culture and spirituality. After premiering at BlackStar Film Festival, her critically acclaimed directorial debut, IN OUR MOTHERS' GARDENS, was released on Netflix via Ava Duvernay's ARRAY. Her book, Dandy Lion: The Black Dandy and Street Style, was published by Aperture in 2017. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, LA Times, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, NPR, BBC, Washington Post, Slate, The New Yorker and the Philadelphia Inquirer. She co-founded SHOPPE BLACK with her husband and fellow Howard alum, Tony Oluwatoyin Lawson.

Shantrelle can trace her family lineage back to her GGGG-Grandmother, Agatha Lewis, a free Black woman who migrated to Philadelphia from Ayiti, who was born in Africa in 1762. Her GGG Grandfather Stansilas Goutier, one of the first US diplomats to Haiti. As an initiated Lucumi Sango Priest, Hoodooist and New Orleans native, Shantrelle can be found waxing poetics about all things African spirituality online and in person at BEAUCOUP HOODOO in Philadelphia, the annual BEAUCOUP HOODOO FEST in New Orleans and within her community, ATRS BOOK CLUB.