Jay Smooth is a New York-based hip-hop scholar and cultural commentator best known for his award-winning Ill Doctrine web video series. Born and raised in New York with a love for hip-hop and passion for social justice, Smooth started his career at WBAI radio, where in 1991 he founded New York’s longest running hip-hop radio show, the Underground Railroad. Mixing the latest independent music with political commentary through a hip-hop lens, the Railroad helped break artists including the Wu Tang Clan, Naughty by Nature, Jean Grae and Natural Elements, and was recently cited by Chuck D as home of “the best hip-hop conversations.”

In 1997 Jay founded one of the first hip-hop websites at hiphopmusic.com, where he pioneered the form now known as hip-hop blogging. The site became best known for spearheading a massive public protest against New York's Hot 97, which forced the radio station to fire several staffers and donate $1,000,000 to disaster relief after they repeatedly aired racist content mocking victims of 2004's tsunami.

Most recently Jay Smooth has won widespread acclaim for his commentaries on politics and culture at Illdoctrine.com. The site’s unique mix of humor and incisive analysis has garnered millions of views and been frequently featured by NPR, Current TV and MSNBC, where Rachel Maddow hailed him as a “genius.” Ill Doctrine videos including “How to Tell Someone They Sound Racist” have become part of the curriculum in many schools and universities, and Smooth’s recent TEDx talk at Hampshire College has already become one of the most widely viewed talks on the TEDx website.