T the Phoenixx does not believe a soft voice has to carry less weight. For the Jamaican American broadcaster, warmth and authority belong in the same conversation, just as ambition and vulnerability can belong in the same woman. That conviction informs her work behind the microphone and the media company she is building, where Caribbean identity is not a limitation on the stories she can tell but a foundation for telling them fully.
Born in Brooklyn to Jamaican parents, she draws from two cultures she has never experienced as competing identities. Jamaica gave her a connection to music, spirituality, family, humor and oral tradition, along with an ability to find joy through adversity. New York cultivated her ambition, adaptability and appreciation for the many perspectives that can coexist within a community or a person.
They are different frequencies within the same voice, she says, and together they shape the perspective I bring to broadcasting, storytelling and cultural programming.
That voice now reaches listeners on “The Morning Grind,” which she co-hosts with Ian “The Goose” Eligon across Roadblock Radio and 108 Soul. The show brings together music, humor, interviews, current events and conversations about Caribbean and diaspora life. For T the Phoenixx, it is also a chance to broaden the subjects through which Caribbean people are seen and heard.
She is also ranked No. 1 in her group in the Top Host competition.
Our experiences are relevant to conversations about business, politics, health, relationships, education, identity and culture, she says. “We should not be visible only when the topic is carnival, food or music, although those traditions remain valuable parts of who we are.
Her recurring segments reflect that range. “Tea & Tonic” explores culture, current events and the conversations already circulating among listeners. “Phoenixx Frequency” makes room for wellness, self-awareness, emotional regulation and intentional living. Together, they connect public conversation with the quieter work of understanding oneself.
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For Caribbean women in particular, she wants that space to accommodate more than familiar expectations of resilience.
Caribbean women are often expected to be strong without being given enough room to discuss what that strength has cost us, she says.
She describes women balancing responsibilities as caretakers, professionals, mothers, partners, creatives and community builders, often while navigating expectations across generations, countries and workplaces. Her approach makes room for the contradictions: A woman can be nurturing and ambitious, honor her traditions and question inherited patterns, or remain culturally grounded while continuing to evolve.
I want to create conversations in which softness and authority can coexist, she says.
Her own career offers a practical example of that coexistence. She began in the performing arts as a child before moving through entertainment marketing, music publishing, executive support and live production. At VP Records, she worked in marketing. At EMI Music Publishing, she served as a creative assistant and coordinator and worked in artists and repertoire. Her experience also includes executive support at ASCAP and more than two decades of involvement with Jammins Events, where her responsibilities grew from grassroots marketing and box office operations into production, partnerships and cultural programming.
Radio brings those experiences together. Executive operations taught her to research, prepare, listen and solve problems. Entertainment sharpened her sense of timing, audience awareness and cultural authenticity. Behind an engaging conversation, she understands, there is work that listeners may never hear.
That attention to what happens behind the scenes also shapes her understanding of cultural representation. As an executive liaison connected to Arts in the Park, an initiative developed through Jamaica’s tourism, entertainment and creative-sector institutions, she saw how artists benefit when visibility is supported by preparation, professional relationships and access to new markets.
Representing culture requires more than presenting talented people on a stage, she says. It requires building the infrastructure around the talent.
She carries that lesson into Phoenixx Frequency Media, the company she is building to unite broadcasting, storytelling, cultural programming, partnerships and education. Her vision includes original programming, interviews, branded content, live experiences and educational initiatives, with intellectual property that can grow across platforms.
A longer-term ambition addresses a challenge she recognizes in multidisciplinary careers: Substantial experience does not always translate neatly into recognized qualifications. A creative professional may spend years performing, producing, writing or coordinating events yet struggle to demonstrate the full value of that work when moving into teaching, talent management or another professional role.
Through qualified educational and credentialing partnerships, she hopes eventually to help develop a system that evaluates portfolios, prior learning and demonstrated skills, identifies further training needs and connects creatives with respected certificates, diplomas or academic pathways. It is a vision for making experience more transferable, rather than allowing it to lose value when someone changes direction.
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Her developing school-based programming approaches that same question earlier in life. Having attended Professional Performing Arts School and later returned to Harlem School of the Arts in administrative and program coordination roles, she understands both the possibilities arts education can open and the career guidance young creatives may still need.
She wants students to see beyond entertainment’s most visible jobs and discover production, research, audio engineering, editing, marketing, sponsorship, artist management and creative entrepreneurship. Having passed the Praxis Music: Content and Instruction examination, she is continuing to connect her professional experience with educator development.
The goal is not simply to encourage expression. It is to help young people create tangible work, identify transferable skills and understand the educational and business choices available to them.
For T the Phoenixx, building those pathways is deeply personal. Both of her parents were adopted and brought from Jamaica to America. Her mother became a parent as a teenager, and her biological father was murdered before he could help guide her through childhood. By her teenage years, she says, she was largely navigating life on her own, learning to build community and find her way through unfamiliar institutions.
Adaptability began as a necessity. The more difficult transition came later: learning to take risks for her own vision after years of helping advance the work of artists, executives and organizations.
Stepping forward required me to give my own gifts the same discipline, advocacy and protection I had given to the work of others, she says.
Now, she wants her legacy to center on access, ownership and transformation. Her advice to a young Caribbean woman is grounded in both creativity and preparation: Develop the craft, learn the business, understand contracts and intellectual property, and build a portfolio before a title arrives.
You may carry several gifts because your life requires several strengths, she says. You do not have to abandon that range.
It is a belief she is putting into practice, connecting the microphone to the classroom and cultural visibility to professional opportunity. Rather than choosing one part of herself to make legible to others, T the Phoenixx is building a platform capable of holding the whole voice.
