Tulani Kinard’s music poignantly tells stories of love, peace, transformation, activism and spiritual awakenings. A believer in the fact that “a song can save your life”, Tulani has taken the power of that statement and woven it’s profundity into every note of the music experienced in her live and recorded performances.

While growing up in Boston, Tulani began singing at the age of three in her grandfather’s Pentecostal church. As a fifth grader enrolled in a busing program, Tulani learned how to use her gifted voice in activism. The legendary Boston educator, Jonathan Kozol had just been fired for reading a Langston Hughes poem to his students in a Boston Public School. He invited Tulani to Washington DC to testify before a Senate Hearing about the racism in the Boston School System. Inspired by that experience, Tulani added socially conscious songs to her gospel repertoire.

Tulani’s musical career began with the Grammy award winning A ccapella group Sweet Honey in The Rock. Tulani’s experience as a member of the group is chronicled in her autobiographical chapter in the book,We Who Believe in Freedom: Sweet Honey in the Rock...Still on the Journey.

Over the years the impact of Tulani’s creative expression has lead to composing 14 original songs for her CD’s, scoring a musical for urban young audiences entitled The African Wiz and a spoken word and music collaboration with bestselling author Iyanla Vanzant on her CD In the Meantime. Tulani served as the musical director for Iyanla’s In the Meantime 32 city US tour. The musical experience with Iyanla led to a performance on the Oprah show where Tulani’s life and music were profiled on the In The Spirit segment.

Tulani’s desire to deepen her understanding of diverse spiritual traditions and religions led her to enroll in a interfaith ministerial program at the NY based, New Seminary. As an initiated priest in the Orisa/Ifa tradition and as a ordained Interfaith minister, Tulani’s has created music that is appreciated by diverse religious and spiritual audiences.

The first CD’s "expressions of my MIND”, and “Faith Love and Power” (available on iTunes.com/CD Baby.com) are songs that reflect life’s opportunities for growth and celebrate transformations. "A beautiful voice of conscience," Tulani's gift of composing in the musical genres of jazz, rhythm and blues, hip hop, African chants and traditional gospel music has produced inspirational messages that have been used for leadership conferences, choir repertoire, radio shows, a theme song for a network television show and great dance music. She has provided opening performances for keynote speakers such as Maya Angelou, Carolyn Myss, Debbie Ford and Dr. Christiane Northrup. Her corporate clients have included, Crowe Chizek, Linkage Inc, and SoL’s Sustainability Consortium, just to name a few. Tulani was the first conference weaver for the first Women & Power conference at the Omega Institute and served on the faculty there for several years.

Standing in the belief of utilizing her gifts to uplift the quality of life in her community Tulani opened the first natural hair care salon in Brooklyn, NY. Committed to organizing a cottage industry, Tulani wrote the language for legislation which created the first natural hair care license in the United States. As an author, her book No Lye –The African American Woman’s Guide to Natural Hair Care became a best- selling “how to” book for the natural hair care industry. Tulani is a recipient of the Fannie Lou Hammer Award from Medgar Evers College. Her passion became the impetus for the first practitioner /scholar event entitled the Aesthetics of Braiding produced by the Smithsonian Center for Folk Life and Cultural Heritage.

Encouraged by friends, community residents and her family, Tulani entered into the 2009 New York City Council race in the 41st district in Brooklyn. Tulani is recognized as a leader with a vision of education, art and culture as a means to engage, educate and empower the residents.

Realizing her vision of creating a culture of peace in urban communities, Tulani recently founded The Ase of Peace Fellowship, a non- profit organization. The mission of AOPF is to create a culture of peace for inter-generational residents in the New York metropolitan area with educational workshops, cultural artistic performances and civic based activities. Tulani is a renaissance woman. Her music, “good news” is the voice of love, truth and the power of the spirit of peace.

---

Join Our Mailing List:

Name:    Email:

---