Born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, Smith’s passion for music blossomed at a young age. Some of his earliest influences came from CDs that were played in his childhood home, everything from Tony Bennett to George Benson, Stevie Wonder, Simple Minds, the Police, Seal and much more. He immediately gravitated to the drums and began receiving his first drum lessons at age 5. By his preteens, he joined his school music program where he also took up the violin and the trumpet. While the drums remained his primary instrument, he gained extensive exposure to classical music and played various instruments in concert settings during this time. He continued to perform in high school and played snare drum in the school marching band. He was a 3-time recipient of the Louis Armstrong jazz award and was the 1st chair drummer for the VBODA All-Virginia Jazz Ensemble for 3 consecutive years. Also during his high school years, he was the lead drummer in the National Jazz Workshop's All-Star Jazz Orchestra, a prestigious audition-only youth ensemble in the greater Washington D.C area under the direction of then leaders Alan Baylock and Matt Neiss. Over the course of his development, he studied extensively with big-band drummer Joe McCarthy, Turkish percussionist Emre Kartari, Billy Hart, and Nasheet Waits.
Smith attended Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia where he was awarded the Diehn Honors Scholarship by the university’s Diehn School of Music. He continued his studies of jazz, percussion, music theory and also gained experience in audio-engineering. He started gigging locally in his hometown when he was 15, and became a regular sideman throughout his late teens and college years, playing professionally with local jazz combos, rock bands, singer/songwriters, and praise bands. He then began his career as a pit musician in musical theaters, and has since performed in venues across the United States and on multiple cruise ships where he has travelled internationally in the Caribbean, South America, and Canada working with critically acclaimed entertainers such as Ric Steel, and 2019 Latin Grammy winner and 2024 nominee Herbert Castro.
He is well regarded for his versatility and fluency in a wide array of music genres ranging from jazz to r&b, disco-funk, cajun rock, latin percussion, reggae, pop and much more. Smith has performed at music festivals in the U.S. that featured headliners such as Matthew Whitaker, Kim Scott, and many of the artists he has collaborated with have worked with modern legends like Pharrell Williams, such as American record producer Chad Hugo. He is currently active in musical theater and as a freelance sideman both regionally in the Baltimore-Washington metro area as well as nationally and internationally. As a session drummer, he has been featured on numerous published recordings that include some of his own projects as a producer. Among his most notable sessions was a 2023 album for Callye Burke (BMI) titled Cali VJazz, a former vocalist and studio singer for the late Sylvia Moy who toured throughout the U.K. and appeared on the 2000s British Broadcasting Network (BBC) show "the Unforgettable."