Dr. Queen Shamala Bessie Davis Fayemi Smith has lived in Los Angeles since the 60’s, migrating from North Carolina. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from the University of Southern California, a Master of Arts degree in Psychology from California State University, Los Angeles, and a Doctor of Theology degree from Christ the Answer University in Florida. Queen Shamala is completing a PhD in AfRaKan Science from the University of Creative Life Initiation System (UCLIS) in) in Los Angeles. The research is being published as a book, Re-Imagining the Ancestors, Community and Self.

Touching the lives of many young people, Queen Shamala worked as a secondary high school teacher/ counselor/principal for over thirty years with the Los Angeles Unified School District. A versatile writer also, she has been published in professional journals, metaphysical and spiritual magazines. A heartful writer, she has been writing all her life. At the same time during her teaching career, spirit proclaimed her an artist and a visionary. Reverend Shamala is also an ordained minister, a metaphysical practitioner, a spiritual counselor, an anger management facilitator, an ancestral seer, and an Ifa aborisha (studies nature and life in the tradition of the Yoruba people of West Africa).