Hey, I'm Kadi Yao Tay. I was born Jason Kpodo-Tay. Kadi means "light" in Ewe — I coined it myself, partly inspired by the detective L in Death Note, which is the kind of thing I'm willing to admit on my own website.

I'm Ewe. Both my parents come from the Trans-Volta Togoland region — that long stretch of coast and country that runs through eastern Ghana, southern Togo, and Benin. Family ties to the Anyako coastal area. I grew up in Accra, read General Arts at the University of Ghana, Legon (graduated 2015), and did my National Service in Tamale.

I started my career at Meqasa, the Zillow of Africa, where I went from intern to marketing executive — the work that eventually seeded Noanyi, the consumer-protective real estate media platform I'm building now. Today I'm a Digital Accounts Director at dentsu international Ghana, leading programmatic, paid search, and paid social campaigns for clients across West Africa, with a current focus on enterprise IT and B2B technology.

Outside the day job, I've spent the last decade quietly building infrastructure for African creative culture under an umbrella called Dark Lantern Media. I co-founded Akolabone, a comics and illustration collective, with Kobina "Kobe" Taylor at Chale Wote Street Art Festival in 2013. I founded Squid Mag, the leading publication on African comics, animation, and games. I run AAFFia, the Accra Animation Film Festival. I'm working on Toli Studios, By The Fireside Anthology, and a few other things at varying stages of "live" and "loading."

I was recruited via Squid Mail (the newsletter) to research and brainstorm for Triggerfish Studios' Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire on Disney+. I've spoken or moderated at New York Comic-Con, Angoulême International Comics Festival, Annecy International Animated Film Festival, Encounters Film Festival in Bristol, Reading Africa Week, and Pa Gya! Literary Festival. Geoff Ryman, profiling me in Strange Horizons, called me "probably Africa's greatest expert on its huge comics industry," which I've been quietly putting on every bio since.

My fiction has appeared in Tampered Press, Awam, and Vortex Comics. My non-fiction — comics, animation, ad tech, music, Accra cultural life — is scattered across Squid Mag, LitNet, Tech Labari, Music In Africa, cpm.africa, and Medium.

I read. I write. I used to make beats. I answer email.