Name: Kiran Gandhi

Age: 28

Hometown: Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan

Now Lives: In a 800-square-foot loft in the Arts District in Downtown Los Angeles, with a small stage for performances.

Claim to Fame: Once best known as the drummer for M.I.A., Ms. Gandhi made headlines in 2015 when she ran the London Marathon without a tampon, in a defiant act known as free-bleeding. She has since emerged as an activist and TED Talk speaker, who has fused her passion for music, technology and feminism into a solo music project, which she calls Madame Gandhi. Her five-song EP, “Voices,” which explores feminist values through spoken word, rap and electronica, was released last year.

Big Break: Ms. Gandhi was at the start line of the 2015 London Marathon when she realized she was about to get her period. “With the radicalness in that moment, I connected the dots and chose to bleed freely,” she said. News articles about her decision were widely read. “When I was running, I knew it was a choice of privilege: I knew that there was something radical in doing that. But I also wanted to acknowledge the billions of women and girls in the world who don’t have the same choices that I had in that moment.”