Vanessa Mdee

Singer, songwriter, and television personality Vanessa Mdee fuses tender R&B grooves with hip-hop beats, lively Afro-pop textures, and the signature Bongo Flava pulses rooted in her Tanzanian homeland. After becoming the first Tanzanian VJ hired by MTV and serving as host for programs such as Epiq Bongo Star Search, she stepped into music in 2012. A string of early joint releases paved the way for her standalone bow with the 2013 track “Closer,” followed in 2018 by her debut long-player, Money Mondays, issued through Universal.

Vanessa Hau Mdee entered the world in Arusha, Tanzania, and divided her early years among Arusha, Nairobi, Paris, and New York before enrolling at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa in Nairobi, Kenya. At nineteen she auditioned for an MTV VJ role in Dar es Salaam in 2007, after which her on-screen credits expanded across additional African networks. She emceed the red-carpet portion of the MTV Africa Music Awards for three consecutive editions and, while fronting the early-2010s radio program The Hitlist, spoke with Kelly Rowland, Mac Miller, and Ludacris. In 2012 she also presided over the Kili Music Awards, also known as the Tanzania Music Awards, and the television competition Epiq Bongo Star Search. That same year she inked a deal with B’Hits Music Group, which yielded pairings with Ommy Dimpoz on “Me and You” and rapper A.Y. on “Money”; the former was later named Song of the Year at the 2013 Kili Music Awards.

Mdee issued her first solo single, “Closer,” in 2013 and earned R&B Song of the Year honors for it at the 2014 Kili Awards. She maintained her television presence by conducting interviews with Miguel and Trey Songz for MTV South Africa while performing at festivals across Tanzania and farther afield. In 2015 she collected several Kili Awards, among them Female Artist of the Year. Extensive touring and album preparation occupied the next two years, culminating in the January 2018 release of Money Mondays on Universal. The project, which included the hit “Kisela” featuring Mr. P, ranked as East Africa’s top-selling album of that year. She opened 2019 with the successful single “That’s for Me” alongside Distruction Boyz, DJ Tira, and Prince Bulo, then took a seat on the judging panel for the first season of the televised contest East Africa’s Got Talent.