Jalyn Baity is a Producer, Director, and Photographer from Detroit, MI.

Early on, Jalyn knew he had a love for art and storytelling. These notions that you could pause or revisit time, make art to share ideas that would live on after we’re gone, reimagine the world around you, or wield a medium to change minds, soften hearts and start important conversations, felt worth exploring further.

Jalyn has dedicated the last several years to sharpening his craft, building a brand and business, and mentoring youth in the Metro-Detroit area through the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance (a mentoring program founded by the Obama Foundation) and Capturing Belief (a visual storytelling & mentoring program).

In 2019, he was invited to the Obama Foundation Summit in Chicago, IL to speak about his relationship with storytelling. He spoke on what it’s taught him about being a leader, about how true connections are made, and how some impacts are often still felt years later, like the influence of his fifth-grade teacher, who’d expressed years ago how she knew he was destined to tell stories.

That experience has since ignited a passion for sharing stories intent on giving a voice to those whose stories remain untold and whose perspectives have been overlooked. As an aspiring narrative film director, his dream is to accurately portray stories that may often mirror his own, stories that are seldom discussed or explored through a careful and responsible lens. In that, he hopes to challenge certain ideas about the black experience and to continue re-writing his own narrative in the process.

So far, his aim has been to amplify what he’s learned about the influence of film & digital media and the power of owning one’s narrative to share stories that could inspire young people of color to shoot for the stars, despite where their stories began.