Syreeta Gates didn’t find the archive—she became the archive.
Raised in South Jamaica, Queens, with a camera in one hand and a Source magazine in the other, she’s been preserving the stories we live since before she knew it could be a career. She doesn't follow blueprints — she builds them.
She earned a degree in Urban Youth Culture from Hunter College (because she invented the major) and went on to NYU for her Master’s in Moving Image Archiving and Preservation. Then? She wrote her own ticket. Gates is the founder of The Gates Preserve, a company devoted to protecting the creative record and making sure the worlds we shape outlast us.
Her work lives across mediums. She’s led archival research and produced award-winning docs including Netflix’s Ladies First, Peacock's Black Pop, The Remix: Hip Hop X Fashion, and A Ballerina’s Tale. Currently, she’s producing her first feature, Shaping the Culture—a definitive excavation of hip-hop journalism from Xerox to Twitter.
Syreeta was the first Black woman on LEGO® Masters (U.S. Season 2). Where she didn’t just build with bricks, she builtMost Incredible Studio. This creative house crafts cultural compositions and collectible artifacts, transforming memories into experiences and intellectual property (IP) into tangible form.
She also foundedYo Stay Hungry—a live culinary competition where rap meets recipes and food becomes freestyle. Because when the format doesn’t exist, she invents it.
Gates has been featured in and has been recognized by The New York Times, Vogue, Forbes, Black Enterprise, Refinery29, Red Bull, and more. Her work lives on the page in books such as Fresh Fly Fabulous, BLK MKT Vintage, Stand Up!, The Quarter-Life Breakthrough and Creating Innovators.
Whether it’s a kit, a keynote, a documentary, or a dinner, Syreeta is a visionary, archival thinker, and cultural conductor. Her north star is always the same: How do we make memory visible? How do we create what’s missing? And how do we build a future worth remembering?
