When we see someone performing their respective craft at an exceptionally high level we always want to quantify their greatness by comparing them to someone of equal status. We’ll call the leader of a music group “The Beyoncé” of the crew. Or call Drake the LeBron of hip hop, the comparisons go on. Witnessing someone becoming the new standard of excellence is very rare because, there’s only room for one number 1. When I think of Jada Imani M, a photographer/Creative Director based in Prince Georges county MD, no comparisons come to mind. Every elite athlete and entertainer has their breakout game/moment where they put everyone on notice that there’s a new sheriff in town. For Jada, I believe that moment was the cover she did for FootsXColes EP ‘Jade’. At first glance, the EP’s cover appears to be a picture of the duo (Foots & Cole) photo shopped into a jade mine from a sci-fi movie. Even if that had been the case, the EP cover still grabbed your attention because it was a nice clean image to look at. Then came the day Jada shared the behind the scenes of her designing the set from scratch in her living room. That post took the cover art to a different level, because the set looked like something you would need a label budget for. This freelance photographer had managed create a sci-fi jade mine in her living room. That was just the beginning, she came back with another creative director hit on Cheakaity’s debut album “Grown Man”. You have to go to her Instagram page @JadaImaniM, click the IGTV tab and watch “The Making of the Grown Man”. The time lapsed video shows the high level of attention to detail, creativity, and graphic design talent that went into creating the ‘Grown Man’ album cover. At the album release party, everyone was shocked when they saw the creative process it took to create the album artwork because we all thought it was a painting that had been photo shopped. Instead we found out she created the most notable elements from the album cover by hand with some help from YouTube university. When Jada isn’t creating amazing album covers, she’s probably behind her camera capturing amazing images. Pyer Moss took notice of a photoshoot she did featuring a dress made by them, and posted it on their Instagram story. On MEFeater’s list of ’25 Black Women photographers you should know’ at number 20, right above a photograph she took that looks like an oil based painting, you’ll see Jada’s name. Words can only do so much to describe Jada’s talent, you have to see it. She’s not the Beyoncé of creative directors, or the LeBron of photographers, she’s simply the Jada Imani M.
