Tanika first pursued this question through medicine. She worked as a paramedic for six years, attempting — in some way — to save herself vicariously through the crises of others. Leaving that life then, she began writing about her experiences, a practice that revealed an unexpected skill set and carried her into adjacent worlds: business, technology, design, and journalism.

Initially drawn to geopolitics, she spent several years travelling across Sub-Saharan Africa, attempting to write about the forces shaping the continent with nuance and care. The weight of this work took its toll. Depression followed. Then, by chance, she was assigned a feature on the confluence of politics, culture, and performance art in Réunion Island — a pivot that pulled her away from heavy intellectual debate and into the sensations of the body in relation to others. Her career, at every turn, a reflection of a deep inner need to search.

In the midst of that search, the question shifted:

What do we need to heal?

The people answered: We want to remember why we are alive. We need to sing. We need to dance. We need to play.

So she founded Hatua Kali — one part storytelling studio, one part storytelling school, and one part design-business incubation hub. Through Hatua Kali, she gathered all her skills under one roof: sharing, teaching, facilitating, building. For a time, this felt like enough.

Until a chance encounter with a well-known jazz artist gifted her a guitar — and with it, the realisation that all her life, it wasn’t that she couldn’t sing, but that she had been singing in the wrong key.

Suddenly, the alto worlds of Etta James, Nina Simone, Tracy Chapman, and Norah Jones opened themselves to her. She found a place where her depth belonged, her searching had purpose, and music revealed itself as a multi-modal language capable of holding the truth of the story she carried within her.

Her work now spans the creative direction of Hatua Kali as studio, school, and social-impact incubator; the teaching of creative writing; performance art that bridges storytelling and music in service of community care; and, the design and build of products and services that shifts communities away from just talking into action, reflection and change.

Her sound is 90s Mazzy Star–esque interweaving slow jazz with indie folk grounded in a strong foundation of writing and composition. Her mood is summer rain on a dark night, the moon flashing star-pierced clouds into a silky, ghost-like atmosphere. Her stories are layered with meaning and symbolism — leaving the intellect satisfied and the body held.

Her impact, thus, quiet but potent.

What does it mean to be free?