“I’m a writer, first and foremost,” Petula Caesar, “Tula” to her friends and fans, explains. “But being creative in general comes naturally to me. I grew up in an ‘artsy’ house. My dad was a painter and graphic designer, and he wrote as a hobby. He also recited poetry to me from the time I was a baby. And there was always music and dance in our house too, so I grew up hearing every type of sound, and moving to most of it. That’s why it’s been easy for me to transition from writing to music to recording and performing – it’s all creative energy, just different ways of being expressive.” As a result of her versatility, Tula is a successful writer, a reporter, a journalist, an editor, a recording artist and a performance poet.
Though she was named after British singer Petula Clark, Tula was born in the U.S. in Paterson, New Jersey, and moved to Baltimore, Maryland as a teenager. She always wrote as a hobby during her ten years in public relations. An essay she wrote on a whim was published in Baltimore’s daily paper The Sun. Encouraged by that success, Tula continued submitting her work, and within a year she became a regular contributing writer for Baltimore’s City Paper, and for The Afro American Newspapers in Baltimore and Washington, DC.
Tula’s favorite genres have always been poetry and erotica, and Tula published her first erotica anthology, Lipstick and Other Stories in 2005, and went on to become a contributing writer for New York Times Bestselling Author Zane’s erotica anthology Caramel Flava. Her erotic work and poetry has also been published in other print and online publications and in various literary magazines. Why erotica? “Because I am always intrigued by the things people try to hide, and often people try to hide how they feel about sexuality and sensuality and everything related to sex. So I like examining and exposing those things. Plus sometimes it’s been difficult for me to find the balance between being a very sensual person, a very spiritual person and a very intellectual person. And the poetry helps because I find women who struggle with the same thing – with wanting to have their sexy side and all their other sides too. I want everyone, especially women to celebrate all their dimensions, and for the world to not give them a hard time as they do.”
Her erotic poetry led to several appearances on local radio and at various events. Tula began moving her work from the page to the stage -- including appearances in a few shows with The Punany Poets, a nationally touring erotic poetry performance troupe that has been featured on HBO’s late night series Real Sex. She then touring the country as a solo performer, offering a sexy, playful, thought provoking presentation of all her written erotic work. That tour eventually led her to the recording studio and into a musical partnership with Mo-Rece and Stinkiface Music. A house music lover for years, Tula knew house music would be an integral part of her project, and with Mo-Rece’s production help they created her first CD entitled “The Eargasm. Tula calls it a collection of “love and lust poetry”. Mo-Rece and Tula’s collaboration also created Tula’s uniquely sexy, sensual, in your face spoken vocal style that matched the high powered sound of the first single from the CD, Sex Shoes. The track generated significant buzz as a declaration of a woman’s right to sexual expression right down to her toes. Sex Shoes became an underground poetry, dance club and Internet radio favorite. Stinkiface Music partnered with Cyberjamz Records to release Sex Shoes as a single nationally on Traxsource. U.K. deejay DJ Thaddeus began playing it during his sets, and seeing the crowd’s response, immediately contacted Stinkiface Music to create remixes of the track that were released in the U.K. in December 2009 on Junodownload and Beatport. To date over 23 "official" remixes of Sex Shoes exist throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia.
These days Tula continues to write, record and tour. Her live show features traditional spoken word acapella performances and high energy musical performances with her band LuvStruck, combining her erotic performance poetry and music. She also performs the occasional cover song. Tula is also preparing to release her second solo short story anthology called “Unusual Positions”, which will be released in four volumes as an audiobook/electronic book. Volume 1, which will include 3 stories read by Tula, voice acted and scored with original music will be released in early 2012. Tula is also recording an EP that is tentatively entitled "The Truth".
