Since babyhood, Tena Clark had a habit of tapping out rhythms with whatever was at hand — pencils, her fingers, eating utensils, you name it. “Drumming felt like music, and the music felt like it was coming straight out of me,” she wrote in her autobiography Southern Discomfort. But good Southern girls growing up in Waynesboro, Mississippi in the 1950s and 1960s didn’t play the drums or pursue careers in music. To chase her dream, Tena had to travel a long, uphill road—not only against the norms of her family, which frowned on her doing anything except marrying a nice boy, settling down, and raising children, but also against the “concrete ceiling” of the L.A. music industry, which said women could write and perform music but not produce it. The business side of the business was only for men.

In the face of these challenges and more, Tena has nevertheless composed and produced music for some of the biggest names in entertainment. She’s also won a Grammy, contributed to the soundtracks for Hollywood films, wrote the theme for NASA’s centennial, and composed the anthem for the National Women’s History Museum in Washington, D.C. Her piece “Break the Chain” about ending violence against women is the most globally performed song in history.

Tena’s journey has been one of leaving home in order to find where she truly belongs and discovering along the way that “I was stronger than I thought.” Click here to learn more about this remarkable woman.