The daughter of a sex worker and pentecostal evangelist. Their love - wrought in the entangled pursuit of stardom, stability and self-acceptance. Tanika grew in a world shaped by contrasting belief systems, lived realities and paradox.

Her work inhabits the threshold between the sacred and the profane, the everyday and the obscene, the reliable and the chaotic — traipsing the edges of socially constructed boundaries — and returning again and again to the question:

“What does it mean to be free?”

Tanika pursued the answer to this question through a diverse array of career paths beginning first with medicine, she worked as a paramedic for six years, attempting to save herself through the dramas of others, having left the road, she began writing about experiences which lead gave her a skillset that landed her in a further subsection of paths - business, technology, design, journalism. Initially deciding to niche in geopolitics, she spent a number of years traveling around Subsaharan Africa attempting to writing about the dynamics influencing the content in a nuanced and detailed way. Got depressed and then luck had her assigned to write a feature on the confluence of politics, culture and performance art in Reunion Island. Drawing her away from heavy intellectual debate and into the sensations of the body in relation to others. Her career a reflection of her deep inner need to search.

Amidst the search, her question changed to, “what do we need to heal?”

The people said, “we want to remember why it is that 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 brought all her skills under one roof. Sharing, teaching, facilitating, building. And felt that this would be enough for her.

Until a chance encounter with a well-known jazz artist gifted her a guitar and the understanding that all her life, it wasn’t that she couldn’t sing but rather that she’d been singing in wrong key. Suddenly the Alto worlds of Etta James, Nina Simon, Tracey Chapman and Norah Jones opened up to her and she felt herself welcomed into a world in which her depth had place, her searching had purpose, and music opened up a type of multi-modal communication expanse that felt true to the truth of the story she held within her.

Her work now comprises, the creative direction of Hatua Kali as studio, school and social impact incubator, the teaching of creative writing courses and performance artist bridging storytelling and music directed towards attending to the needs of her community. Every month holds a new story and a new set of collaborations.