Tanya Stephens
Vivienne Tanya Stephenson, born 2 July 1973 in St.Mary, Jamaica is a dancehall and reggae artist. Tanya’s career srang off in the mid to late 90s with her debut album Big Things a Gwaan in 1994 and followed by the single that brought much attention to her as a recording artist in 1996, titled ‘Yuh Nuh Ready Fi Dis Yet,’ and more singles like ‘Cry and Bawl,’ ‘Freaky Type’ and ‘Draw fi Mi Finger.’ Too Hype was her 2nd album in 1997. In 1998 Tanya’s likened her dancehall style to Lady Saw’s in the Washington Post because she was one of her early influencers. In 2001, she recorded an album titled Sintoxicated that was released in Sweden after she had signed a record deal with Warner Music Sweden. In 2004 Tanya co-founded Tarantula Records with her business partner Andrew Henton and the same year saw the popular album Gangsta Blues which made great waves and Rebelution was right after in August 2006. Most of her releases were basically done on this record label. Resource Development International gave Tanya a scholarship to study Business Management degree online with the University of Sunderland. Tanya played Nurse Tracey in Royal Palm Estate and that was her acting debut in 2009. Infallible was then released the year after, in 2010. 2011, Tanya held a talk at the University of West Indies and stated her opinion on how women are treated as objects in the dancehall industry amongst other inhumane lyrics that are allowed to project into society yet they are completely wrong. 7 September 2018, Queens of Reggae was released where she featured with other female recording artists. Recently on 1 May and 14 May 2020, If Whiskey Can’t Fix Me and One Man Band were more albums that she released. Tanya has managed to remain relevant and still keep her fan base.
