Cyril Smith was born in Chicago, IL and was raised in Matteson, IL, about 15 minutes south of Chicago with his family: (father) Joseph Smith Jr., a training executive and banker, (mother) Cecellia, an elementary school teacher and later a principal, (brothers) Joseph and Omar. After graduating high school in Richton Park, Illinois, Cyril graduated from Illinois State University with a Bachelor's Degree in Education. Encouraged by a friend, he worked with the late Kirk Johnson Sr. to record a voice over demo. He soon after booked voice over work for various radio and TV commercials including: McDonalds, AT&T, Insure One, and US Army. In 2008, Cyril was offered the lead role in a play. That play lead to multiple on-stage performances and he then moved into on-camera work.

His first co-starring role for television was on an episode of the Starz series Boss (2011). He would then go on to land roles on Showtime's Shameless (2014), Fox's Empire (2015), USA's Sirens (2015), and NBC's Chicago Fire (2015). His film credits include: Wendy Roderiess' Stage Three (2014), the Jordan Liebowitz directed Bingo Night (2014), and Leo Gilbert's Journeyman (2014). His upcoming projects include director Maurice Dortch's Our Vows (2017) and writer - director N Laquis Harkins' short film Kayla's Light (2018).

More recently he voiced the Character of Shield in Ubisoft's The Division 2 (2019) and had a pivotal role in the critically acclaimed Brian Banks (2019) from Director Tom Shadyac, alongside Greg Kinear, Aldis Hodge and Morgan Freeman.