RIP Renaissance Man: For Curtis Nichouls
By C Liegh McInnis
I had the joy and honor of knowing Curtis Nichouls for twenty-nine years as a visual artist, poet, and filmmaker, who remained a model of innovative excellence and community dedication. Curtis was one of those young geniuses that I met when I was co-hosting a weekly open mic, Mississippi Vibes, across the street from Tougaloo College at Highlites with David Brian Williams and Dr. Jolivette Anderson, Ken Stiggers, and community activist Derrick Johnson, who is now the CEO and President of the NAACP.
When Curtis walked into Highlites, he was brash, extremely confident in his abilities, ready for the revolution to pop off at any moment, and we loved him immediately. He, along with his young peers, embodied what Mississippi Vibes was designed to be—a vessel through which art could be used to make immediate and wide-ranging sociopolitical change. We all embraced W.E.B. Du Bois’ notion that “all art is propaganda,” and Curtis embodied that as much as anyone, as his art became the primary way that he worked to make a better world.
Moreover, he’s one of the few people that, when I learned of his death, I had a similar reaction to learning of Prince’s death. While his life was much too short, Curtis is a wonderful example of pursuing one’s dreams and living each day as if it’s the last, which is shown by the great amount of art created and left. He’s a published poet, a painter who has murals in multiple cities, including Jackson, Mississippi, and Chicago, IL, and he produced films with some of the biggest names in the business.
That’s time well spent, in which the legacy of his art shows the best of what humanity can be while refuting the lies of white supremacy. The dash between his birth date and death date is a bit longer and more engraved than others because he got the most from his life.
A native of Chicago, he first came to artistic prominence at thirteen when he was selected by the Mayor’s Office to paint a mural in the municipal park. He later graduated from Langston University in Oklahoma with a B.S. in Business Management while pursuing his painting interest.
In 1997, Curtis became Jackson, Mississippi’s Artist-In-Residence, teaching animation, painting, drawing, and creative writing. While in Jackson, he blossomed as a poet, participating in events hosted by Mississippi Vibes, The Living Room Coffee House, and Seven All Arts Café, of which he was one of the seven founding members. Curtis wasn’t content to be an artist for hire. He understood that the real power was in those who create spaces for artists. Through his organizing and administrative work with Seven All Arts Café, Curtis mastered fundraising and networking, in which he had an uncanny ability to connect people of various backgrounds to weave a beautiful mosaic of human creativity.
Most importantly, he believed and acted upon his notion that black folks have all we need to construct the world we want to see exist, and he constantly called upon his friends and the wider community to use their talents in our progress.
As a filmmaker, he proved to be skillful on all levels—writing, directing, and producing, which includes securing and managing million-dollar budgets. Therefore, Curtis is the personification of making a way from no way, as he has spent the past ten years producing award-winning films with internationally noted actors, such as Bruce Willis, Leon, Frank Grillo, Kevin Dillon, Taye Diggs, John Cusack, George Lopez, and others, right here in Mississippi.
Furthermore, these works have earned several awards, including Best Drama – Downtown LA Film Festival, Best Action Film – Spain Int’l Action Fest, and BestDocumentary – Pan African Film Festival. Yet, rather than using his accomplishments merely to line his own pockets, he used his experience to propose a program at Jackson State University that would enable him to enhance students’ artistic and economic understanding of making films.
But, even that was nothing new for him, as Curtis was an educator in every aspect possible, developing a visual arts curriculum for Washington Irvin High School, developing a multi-track creative curriculum that includes acting, voiceover, editing, cinematography, marketing, and documentary production, which focuses on STEAM integration, for Piney Woods Academy and Jim Hill High School, and conducting weekly workshops for local church and youth groups, including the YMCA.
Most recently, in July, Curtis—through his production company, Sweet Unknown South—launched an open mic space every Tuesday night at The Patton House in downtown Jackson, Mississippi, that featured improv, monologues, spoken word, poetry, comedy, and more. Along with having a space to perform and try new material, artists had the opportunity to receive feedback from the audience, and videos and pictures of their performance would be made available to them.
Curtis was never about the fame, but the work. This was an undercover workshop in which he crafted another way to contribute to the city that he loved. This is also evident in his purchasing space in the old Jackson Metro Center Mall for his film production company to create another avenue for arts production in Mississippi.
Selfishly, I’ll remember Curtis as the cocky young poet who believed that words could accomplish the mission that Frantz Fanon demanded of creatives, which is to produce work that can destroy the oppressor of our minds. As such, I had the pleasure of publishing my two favorite poems of his, “M.I.S.S.I.S.S.I.P.P.I” and “Ghetto Supa Star,” in Black Magnolias Literary Journal (vol. 1, no 2).
Please visit —- for the full tribute in the
August 28, 2026, issue of Psychedelic Literature Newsletter
