Today we’d like to introduce you to Hulia Damatta.
Hi Hulia, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I was born in Wilmington, North Carolina—a small beach town with not much to do. Looking back, I always felt a sense of suffocation there: the people, the predictability, the lack of adventure. By the age of 20, I felt I had already outgrown the place. Fortunately, I met someone who felt the same, and together we decided to leave. We packed up and drove across the country in March 2020—right when COVID hit. While the world was locking down, we chose to unlock something new. Alongside a small group of friends, we drove to LA, determined to create an adventure.
After seven months of living out of our car, traveling to every corner of the West Coast and looking for the next adventure, we decided it was time to shift the trajectory. That decision started with a quick trip back to Wilmington and, shortly after returning to LA, stumbling upon a ziplock bag full of mushrooms that cracked everything open. What followed were three years of attempting to build a startup and global community, many songs written, many countries and cities traveled—but ultimately, the end of a transformative relationship.
In the winter of 2023, that chapter came to a close in Edinburgh, Scotland, at the end of a five-month journey across Europe. The breakup marked a rupture that unraveled everything we had built together. From that grief came pain, confusion, and fear—but also fertile ground for something new to take root.
I returned to Austin, Texas, to complete our final SXSW event as an organization but everything reminded me of the life I had just left behind. I felt misplaced again. A friend, sensing my heaviness, invited me on a spontaneous road trip back to LA. I hadn’t been in years and said yes without hesitation. We stopped at breathtaking forests and desert landscapes along the way—the deep orange of the desert, the ancient presence of the redwoods, the lush green of the coast. Nature revived me.
On that trip, I opened the Worldpackers app—a platform I had used in Europe to exchange work for stays—and, by chance, found two listings on the west coast One of them was a nonprofit in San Diego called As We Wake. I applied on impulse and forgot about it. Two weeks later, I got a message from the founder, thrilled to hear from me. Two weeks after that, I packed up my things and headed west.
I arrived in San Diego in September 2024 with no friends, no family, just a feeling that I needed to be here. The early months were lonely. I felt the contrast of liberation and fear—of possibility and uncertainty. But underneath it all was a quiet confidence that I was exactly where I needed to be.
After two months working with As We Wake, I traveled to Asia—first to Bali for a month-long artist residency where I crafted an original sound design for an exhibition, then to Japan to visit my brother. Distance gave me clarity. While I was away, I kept asking myself: Is San Diego really where I’m supposed to be? The answer came gently but clearly—yes.
No other place had offered me the sense of community and creative alignment I found here. As an artist and world-builder, my job is to see the bigger picture—and from this lens, I realized San Diego was not just a stopover, but a foundation.
Traveling will always be part of my path. It’s the clearest mirror I’ve found. It allows me to zoom out, recalibrate, and see what’s really unfolding. Returning to San Diego, I knew my next chapter was about deepening—into community, into collaboration, and into the fuller expression of myself as a musician and changemaker.
Someone once told me: if you stand right next to an elephant’s leg, it’s all you’ll see. You might think the leg is the whole elephant. But when you step back, you see the entire animal—and the majesty of what you were standing beside all along.
That’s what my journey has been. A dance between zooming in and stepping back. Between contraction and expansion. I’ve learned that even when I can only see the leg, it’s worth studying. Smelling it. Hugging it. Eventually, the full picture reveals itself—but the magic is in the noticing.
Until then, I’ll keep walking the path—one step at a time—with awe, gratitude, and curiosity for what’s just beyond the frame.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
My first startup was a crash course in entrepreneurship. We raised $15,000 total and never became profitable. There were a lot of mistakes, unmet expectations, and leftover debt I’m still paying off. But it taught me one of the most important lessons: if you’re not enjoying the process, there’s no point. Business is uncertain by nature—profitability, team dynamics, timing—none of it is guaranteed. What I’ve learned is to focus less on controlling outcomes and more on building the skills and inner resilience to navigate uncertainty with presence.
One of my greatest emotional challenges came after a major life transition—ending a four-year relationship while traveling through Europe. It felt like everything I had built was dissolving at once. But I had witnessed strength like this before—watching my mother survive devastating heartbreak. In many ways, I drew from her well. She had already walked through the fire, and I remembered I didn’t have to be consumed by it. Instead, I chose to feel everything fully and alchemize it into growth. Her strength gave me permission to find my own.
Another challenge was moving to San Diego with no support system—no family or friends, just a calling. At first, I didn’t realize how hard it would be to build community from scratch. After years of nomadic living, I craved real connection, but it took time. It still does. Patience has been one of my greatest teachers. Community, I’ve learned, grows slowly and with care. Every person I meet holds a mirror to my own evolution—sometimes reflecting light, sometimes shadow. But both are beautiful and necessary.
These challenges have revealed my capacity to rebuild, to shift, and to keep going even when the path is unclear. It’s not always graceful, but it’s always real.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I call myself a sound shifter, change maker, and world builder. My work lives at the intersection of music, movement, storytelling, and transformation. I’ve never fit into one lane—I’m an artist, a creative director, a space holder, and a regenerative world-builder. Whether I’m recording songs, composing soundscapes, curating immersive experiences, facilitating group journeys, or helping others reconnect to their creative fire, everything I do is about guiding people back to their natural rhythm.
One of the core threads in my work is sound design—creating emotional and energetic landscapes through audio. I’ve recently collaborated with @b.ellers on a 5-part meditation series focused on womb healing and feminine restoration, supporting women in reconnecting with the intelligence of their bodies through sound and breath. I was also commissioned by Unbound Fighters, a wellness-based video game that rewards real-life growth, to produce a meditation series for their in-game healing ecosystem—bridging the spiritual and digital realms in a fresh and embodied way.
I’m the founder of Rooted Rhythm, a seasonal gathering series rooted in feminine embodiment, movement, and creative awakening. We just held our fourth event on July 11th at Sojourn Studios in San Diego. These gatherings are ritual-based spaces for deep reconnection—through sound, sisterhood, and embodied presence. Each one is its own living portal, shaped by the cycles of nature and the collective energy of those present.
Alongside this, I work in the sacred medicine space, specifically with Kambo, a powerful detoxifying medicine from the secretion of the Amazonian frog Phyllomedusa bicolor. I currently support in facilitating ceremonies and am in training to begin serving the medicine myself. It’s a deep path of purification, clarity, and physical-spiritual alignment—one that’s helped me release layers and come home to my body in a profound way.
I’m also helping to steward a regenerative vision in Panama, where I’m supporting the restoration of my family’s cacao farm. It’s part of a long-term dream to build creative, land-based ecosystems that bridge ancestral wisdom, art, and healing.
What I’m most proud of is how I’ve let my path evolve in real-time. I’ve made pivots, taken risks, and stayed devoted to the deeper why underneath it all. My art, my gatherings, my collaborations—they’re all rooted in the same intention: to help people return to what’s real.
What sets me apart is that I don’t just create—I create containers. Whether it’s a sonic experience, a ceremonial space, a gathering, or a regenerative project, I’m here to build worlds that invite healing, truth, and imagination to coexist.
What were you like growing up?
Growing up, I was really close with my family—especially my brothers. My mom didn’t love the idea of me going to other people’s houses, so most of my time was spent at home, creating imaginary worlds, doing wild things in the neighborhood, or just figuring life out with my brothers. I also spent a lot of time around their friends, which made it harder for me to connect easily with women later in life—something I’ve become more aware of and am still learning how to navigate.
I was always outside, hands in the dirt, making “stews” out of whatever I could find in the backyard. Nature was my playground and my sanctuary. My connection to it was instinctual and soul-nourishing. My grandma used to call me bruja (witch)—usually when I was messy, barefoot, or rebelliously wild, which in hindsight was more of a compliment than anything else.
Creativity lived in me early. I was constantly drawing, humming, dreaming up scenes inspired by the music my mom played around the house. I loved making videos with my brothers—sometimes convincing them to dress up and perform in little shows with me. When I had an idea, I had to make it real. I once made figurines out of trash, just because the inspiration struck. I also loved planning parties. My birthday was my favorite time of year—not just because it was about me, but because I could bring everyone together, curate the vibe, the food, the music. Our family loved gathering, whether it was karaoke or just sitting around laughing and sharing a meal. That’s where our bond was strengthened.
By high school, I knew I couldn’t be one thing. I loved both the arts and the sciences, and I saw how they weren’t opposites—they were part of the same story. I was passionate about mathematics, public speaking, psychology, and art. But I struggled to see a “clear” path. Eventually I realized I wasn’t meant to follow one—I was meant to make my own.
Underneath it all, a big part of my drive came from feeling like I never fully fit in. Whether by circumstance or by being different, I often felt isolated in my own world. Especially during my teen years, I noticed how much I had to shapeshift to feel accepted. And even then, that acceptance often felt conditional. Those early feelings of abandonment and rejection stayed with me—they’ve been deep themes I’ve worked through as an adult.
But that healing has also opened something powerful. It’s helped me see how much of what I carry didn’t start with me—it lives in the lineage. And it’s given me the chance to not just rewrite my story, but to soften the ones that came before me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.hulia.co/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brenna_inc/
- Twitter: https://x.com/Brenna_inc
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2rS3IsSpySxtJOTX79lxQq?si=wWfwKKhDS3evmOZztOhJCQ
