Listening as leadership, and curation as cultural power
SheShe Slam 2026 is proud to welcome Crystal Tettey as a member of its Selection Jury, strengthening the platform’s commitment to thoughtful curation, cultural depth, and global perspective.
Crystal Tettey is a Malagasy Ghanaian polyglot whose creative life moves naturally across poetry, music, performance, advocacy, and activism. Her presence in the SheShe Slam jury process is important for one reason many people overlook: selection is not only about talent, it is about values. It is about discernment. It is about recognizing voices that hold truth with care.
A life built across worlds
Crystal’s identity carries a rare cultural layering. Ghana and Madagascar meet in her work, and that meeting creates a kind of artistic language that is both intimate and international. Her multilingual capacity has long been part of her artistic signature, with profiles noting fluency across English, French, Russian, Ga, and Twi, a range that reflects both study and lived experience.
This is not just an impressive detail. It explains why her work often feels like bridge building. When you speak in many languages, you learn quickly that meaning is not only vocabulary, meaning is context, history, tone, and the courage to listen.
Artist, yes, but also archivist of the moment
Crystal’s creative practice is rooted not only in expression, but also in documentation and dialogue. That philosophy is most visible in her podcast, CURATING DREAMS | A Creative’s Podcast, which hosts conversations with artists and human rights advocates from Africa and the Black Diaspora.
The podcast functions as a living archive. Not the kind that only preserves accomplishments, but the kind that preserves thinking. It asks what is happening beneath the headlines, beneath the art, beneath the activism. It makes space for the long conversation, the one that allows a person to be fully human rather than reduced to a bio.
Creativity with responsibility
Crystal’s work has also been shaped by peacebuilding and community oriented initiatives. A Salzburg Global profile notes her involvement with the Women Peacemakers Program at the Africa desk, hosted at the time by WANEP, and her contribution to an editorial team that published a book amplifying experiences of African women peacebuilders from conflict affected contexts.
This matters for SheShe Slam.
Because SheShe Slam is not simply a competition. It is a platform built around dignity, safety, and intentional storytelling. It creates room for women’s voices to land without being punished for truth. A jury member who understands both art and social responsibility adds a necessary kind of integrity to the process.
A long arc of artistry
Crystal’s creative journey has been public and consistent for years. Earlier coverage around her debut album project describes her as a spoken word artist and singer, and notes a project that blended spoken word with soul and folk influences across languages and geographies, recorded between Ghana and Madagascar.
Over time, the mediums may expand, but the through line remains clear: voice, meaning, and the inner life of communities.
The wellness lens, the human lens
What makes Crystal’s presence especially relevant today is her commitment to whole human creativity. Writers Project of Ghana notes that she runs a year long wellness series called yello, offering conversations and community, live soul filled music, and wellness gifts, with events free to attend.
In a creative industry that often celebrates exhaustion as proof of seriousness, this is quietly radical. It signals a belief that art should not cost a person their health, and that community care is part of cultural work.
Why her jury seat matters
A selection jury is not just a gatekeeper, it is a guardian of the platform’s standards and spirit. Crystal’s background brings three strengths to this role.
First, a curator’s ear for depth, not just delivery.
Second, a human rights informed understanding of what it means for women to speak publicly.
Third, a diaspora conscious perspective that recognises African voices as global voices, without dilution.
By joining the SheShe Slam 2026 Selection Jury, Crystal contributes to a process that honours women’s voices as complex, powerful, and essential to social reflection and change.
We are honoured to have her on this journey.
SheShe Slam 2026
Her Voice Is Not a Crime
