Tammaka Staley is a performance poet, activist, and teaching artist. A resident of Columbia, South Carolina, she has been writing and performing poetry for 10 years. Tammaka actively works in the community with poetry and youth organizations like OneWord Columbia, the University of South Carolina Upward Bound Program, and Girls Rock Columbia. She was also a sponsor for the SC Community Uplift Foundation Science Rocks benefit concert in 2015. She won the title “Queen of the South” at the 2015 Queen of the South Poetry Slam in April 2015. She has also performed as a featured artist at the Kennedy Center in the 2016 American College Dance Festival in Washington, DC. Tammaka strives to empower black communities and uses poetry as a tool to give people everywhere something to believe in.