Meet Damani Respass | damanithesun (music artist) & business owner of Tanka Services

We had the good fortune of connecting with Damani Respass and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Damani, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
The most defining thing that made me start my own company was being misrepresented and under appreciated. I’ve been in construction since I left college, and I’ve always kind of been self taught with things and mastered them a certain way. I’m hands on with everything. My company, my actual projects, how I learned my crafts, and even into my music career. Over the course of time I’m watching, analyzing, and asking questions about things I don’t know because in my mind I’m mapping out things so that my brain can grasp the bigger picture. I started my company after failing to get paid my overtime for a month or two, and specifically because my old boss said I couldn’t do it. Go figure

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
My music artist name is damanithesun, and I only started making music in November of 2021! Honestly I been through a lot in life and carried myself highly so I never really learned to express myself when I felt sad or frustrated, depressed, hurt, or unsure. Ultimately I ended up finding a Christmas note my sister Jaquia wrote me before she passed away telling me to chase music and I ended up booking my first studio session that week. My brand is pretty simple, absolute, unapologetically, me. I’ve overcame a lot in life, grew up quicker than everyone my age, lost my sister, almost lost my brother, came home from college to get my head straight and help out my brother and mom and just be there for my family and hindsight I needed them too. I fought mental health problems like anxiety, panic attacks, depression, and those things made me stronger and braver. A few years later I was a part of the 2016 No Dakota Access Pipeline protests in Standing Rock, North Dakota. This movement started with the youth, my generation, the 7th generation, and I felt compelled to drop everything and go and participate. Ended up being the most defining moment personally, my grandparents on my dads side were Panthers in Harlem NYC during the 1960s, and my nana is where I get my Native American/African American side from. I protested peacefully, but saw the destruction, chaos, and money that was put into taking us out of treaty land and our treaty rights. Those experiences made me fearless, sometimes I had no choice, other times me and others directly put ourselves in the crossfire to make certain things happen, protect others, and even to inspire and motivate a camp that was losing its right to stand on the Pipeline path by running a buffalo herd into the construction zone and keeping drilling from happening for weeks. My music is unapologetic, and honestly every song takes you into a introspective view of my mind, emotions, thoughts, and experiences! I think I have a unique way of telling stories and I embrace the things that a lot of people would be scared of and never share. Being mixed and having such differences in my life I really tap into all aspects of music and culture each of the 3 races I am were drawn too. That’s my secret weapon I would say, diversity within myself and my bloodline, creates the very diversity and uniqueness of my music compositions and nothing sounds the same or repetitive and some of the styles I’ve harnessed haven’t really been seen anywhere else before too

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
If I had someone visiting me here in Denver. I would take them to Granby, Colorado up on Stillwater pass. There’s a old, old, Indian trail on the Rabbits Ear Range I found 4 years ago bow hunting for the first time ever. Ironically the East Troublesome fire literally scorched 200k acres just S of that very road and entrance to the old trail way and I believe there’s some holy sites there from markers and history I’ve learned back in South/North Dakota and that it’s a honey hole of wildlife, nature, and nature itself that has been held sacred for thousands of years. I would also take them to a nuggets game, I grew up playing ball and even went to the Final 4 in HS and led my Mountain Vista Eagles to 18-0 start senior year as the starting PG, ending up at the coliseum for the final 4! Some other little local spots would be Biker Jim’s, legendary food and culture I’ve really connected with. And Daniels Park down south near the Tall Bull Memorial Grounds, that’s where my sisters ashes were spread in a private fenced in section and what we always loved doing growing up even when she was 4 years older than me and heading off to college

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I want to give a definite shoutout to my siblings, Sherown, and Ajanae, and to my sister Jaquia who passed away in 2013. They all chiseled me into the person I am, my brother was my role model and my character as a man, my little sister was my wild and free and pure of heart influence and she’s become a success playing soccer for the Oregon Ducks, and my sister Jaquia is the one who taught me to write and do math when she was in 1st grade, taught me how to make music and dance, how to be my absolute self and to live life to the fullest. She even made me pinky promise what man I would be when I grew up after she got her heart broke in HS and I was like 12 or something. No matter what, my siblings and I were always there thru thick and thin, heaven and hell, and all the way back! My brother Sherown suffered a spinal injury and was paralyzed in 2014, today he’s walking, moving, lifting, and inspiring more people than I think he will ever know and I think each of my siblings really are warriors. The legendary kind.

Website: My company- https://www.thumbtack.com/co/littleton/fences/tanka-services-llc/service/313726307971817669

Instagram: https://instagram.com/damanithesun1?r=nametag

Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/103265212414509/

Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/tanka-services-parker

Youtube: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCG9hQDD8rFy-CoFigwo5nZg

Other: Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/artist/3bxfoVnARXp1QOgyAoKsc3?si=MyqsBTfvSNOCuhPGKbaqDg