Vanessa Tha Finessa

BIOGRAPHY

Vanessa Tha Finessa is not your typical rapper. Born and raised in Accra, Ghana, Vanessa had a unique and eye opening upbringing jam-packed with art, culture, cuisine and family. As early as she can remember, hiplife (pre-contemporary Afrobeat) music was played in the home. Her uncle regularly listened to dancehall and reggae music, and she was exposed early to American pop music through TV and regular pop culture discourse. This amalgamation of sounds and genres heavily influenced her ear and later helped inform her own personal artistry.

When she was 10 years old, her family moved to Mount Vernon, NY and later to Pittsburgh, before eventually returning to New York. It was during this time in her life that she became exposed to a wider range of American hip hop and rap, specifically the burgeoning indie rap mixtape scene that included greats like Mac Miller and Wiz Khalifa.

After attending college in the states, she began a young adult stint in modeling, after being discovered by the influential casting director Sarah Benjamin. Throughout her time as a model, she covered numerous magazines including 10 Mag & WWD, and was featured in campaigns with Nike, Coach and Milk, amongst others.

Her time as a model exposed her to a number of creative and like-minded people, and she quickly built a large network of fellow models, stylists, creative directors, dancers and make-up artists, many of whom she still regularly collaborates with.

This period in Vanessa’s life was deeply challenging but also greatly rewarding, and allowed her to pick up her bags to move across the country to Los Angeles, where she is currently based. Once she arrived in Los Angeles, she began to expand her network beyond art and fashion, and became a regular in the close knit indie rap/electronic music scene in Los Angeles. It was in LA where she met her closest and most consistent collaborator, the DJ/producer Smiles Davis. It was Smiles Davis that encouraged Vanessa to bring her witty personality and dynamic style to music, and in 2019 they recorded her first ever song “Run it” (which was later released in 2022). The video was shot at a later date, and featured a number of friends and collaborators in bright, runway ready, fashion forward apparel.

Vanessa is all hands on deck when it comes to her creative vision and artist brand; her years in the fashion industry, and later working at Nike, taught her how to cross collaborate with stylists, makeup artists, videographers, photographers and fellow creatives. It wouldn’t be a photoshoot or a music video without her full creative involvement, all the way from creating the moodboard and treatment, to casting the models in the video.

After “Run it” was recorded, Vanessa felt newly inspired and began recording a number of songs that span genre, and speak to the earlier musical exposures of her youth. There’s the bollywood-influenced electro rap track “Talk tha Talk” (produced by Falcons) and the runway rap ready “Counterfeit” (also produced by Smiles).

But it doesn’t stop there — “Top Notch” and “It’s You” are both an ode to her African roots. Her debut EP CURRENT is titled such because it represents many aspects of Vanessa’s fast paced life; movement, elasticity and the now. It also speaks to her experience as an African adjusting to life as a Black woman in America.

Whether her music is being shared by friend Hunter Schafer or played at the party with Aluna, Vanessa has fans in high places and her music is engineered to make a person feel like a bad bitch. It’s truly “for the femme and thems, and anyone else that can relate,” as she says often.

Already having made a bold and explosive impact on the Los Angeles music scene, Vanessa is ready to take her career to global heights and reach new audiences, just like the artists that were able to reach the speakers in her childhood home in Accra.

Her debut EP CURRENT will be released later this year via Foundation Media.