Vanessa Marcia is a musician and singer from the Netherlands, with Surinamese roots.
Growing up she got influenced by a lot of music styles like soul, R&B, hiphop, reggae, dancehall, Latin, African and Caribbean music styles, like her traditional music called kaseko kawina. At a young age she started to sing in the youth choir in church and learned to play the piano.
Vanessa got music lessons for years and after high school she wanted to become a music
teacher herself. She auditioned and could start at the prior education of the Conservatory, but she decided to study social work and after graduation she worked many years in that work field. During her social work career Vanessa met lots of vulnerable people with talents who asked for help and support, which inspired her to start the VVFLEX foundation together with her best friend, the late Marlon Hoefdraad. VVFLEX is working on talent-development and
empowerment of different groups and there have also been international and exchange
projects.
In 2010 Vanessa started her own multi-ethnical all women band Ladiesjam, which was a goal she dreamt of since she was a little girl.
In 2011 Vanessa got the opportunity to start teaching music and through the years she
developed skills to teach different kind of people, of all ages, levels, backgrounds and also to
special and vulnerable groups such as handicapped people, which she does at the Artloca
foundation, a daycare centre for people with a mental disability. Working with young talents and upcoming artists, Vanessa got inspired to work on her own
talents again and through the years she attended many gospelchoirs, bands, and groups and
learned to play other different instruments. She also paid attention to her love for acting and
joined a theatre group, played in a semi-professional musical, and she did a study as a
training-actor.
The last years
For many years Vanessa has been active as a harmony backing vocalist for several local and
international artists and bands, especially reggae artists, such as Luciano the Messenjah
(Jamaica), Lutan Fyah (Jamaica), Triston Palma (Jamaica), Ras Midas (USA/Jam), Harry Mo
(Virgin Islands), Black Prophet (Ghana), Donovan Kingjay (UK), Verse iTal (Trinidad).
Vanessa started to create solo work in 2018 and released a few singles like "Own me forever"
featuring Gambian dancehall artist Sensi Q and "Soldier" ft Symon Jason. During that time her greatest life-wish became true and in 2019 she and her lifepartner Richard Imoh were
blessed to become parents of a beautiful daughter, called Finally. When their 2 nd daughter
called Harmony was born in 2021, Vanessa chose to focus mostly on motherhood and work.
She worked hard to grow her music classes and started to teach music fulltime.
Nevertheless she kept performing as a backing vocalist now and then, but she wasn’t able to
release new music anymore.
Fortunately Vanessa has some amazing producers and musicians around her, which made that
she could stay active in the studio. The last years she has been working on new productions,
together with David Oron, Symon Jason and Minstrel Production and in 2025 she’s finally
about to release new songs soon. Because she is influenced by so many different genres, she creates a diversity of styles and fusions. In her music she loves to combine different influences and ingredients which she embodies and which are all identifying her as well.
