Official Biography (courtesy of Tessanne Chin)
At the White House on a bill with Aretha Franklin; singing duets with Adam Levine and Celine Dion; showcased on a float at the Rose Bowl Parade and headlining massive festivals worldwide: Tessanne Chin’s supple, soulful voice and impressive inventory of credits are equally stellar.
Still, her greatest ambitions are all future tense. As she launches the next phase of a storied career she is writing and recording songs for her latest project, partnering in new businesses and product endorsements, and most of all, delivering her remarkable voice and charismatic star power to loyal audiences worldwide. “Every day I’m reminded that I am doing the right thing,” she notes “It’s a wonderful thing to travel the world doing what you love, and most of all to share the music.
This music flowed from multi-cultural ancestral bloodlines in Kingston, Jamaica as Tessanne grew up with two accomplished musicians in a home equipped with a recording studio. “I am blessed that they encouraged me,” Tessanne says. “It’s a hard business. They knew, and always showed support.” Leaving home at age 12, Tessanne lived in England, and channeled the emotions of separation into songs.
Returning to Jamaica, she fronted the rock-reggae band Mile High and her musical education was uplifted when she joined Jimmy Cliff as a backup singer and toured the world with the reggae legend. “I learned so much,” she says of this experience. “He is such an incredible personality. No matter how big or how small the audience, I learned the importance of treating every performance the same. I learned to leave it all on the stage.”
Recording solo, Tessanne released a series of popular singles that gained attention both at home and with Caribbean audiences in the U.S. Her full-length debut, In Between Words was an introduction to a global audience.
With her televised triumph as the winner of Season 5 of the hit NBC show The Voice, the promise of Tessanne Chin was fulfilled. Live, onstage for millions of viewers worldwide, performing classic songs, becoming the first contestant to hit #1 on the iTunes chart not once but twice, and reaching #4 on the Billboard Heatseekers album charts, she enraptured an enormous audience and delivered her inaugural Republic Records release, Count On My Love.
Her last single, “Fire” embodied what she described as “woman power…a modern anthem.” Now working on with a select studio of first call producers, Tessanne is prepping a new project. The sultry “Love Suicide” reveals new sonic dimensions. “’Love Suicide’ represents a soulful, sexy but edgy side to me,” says Tessanne. “I love the concept of giving your being completely over to love and surrendering yourself to
this emotion. I feel that everything from the production to the lyrics to the melody supports that feeling
and paints that picture perfectly.”
In this phase of her evolution, songwriting is an essential element. “I have to be completely real with myself; more honest than with a diary. It’s therapy,” she says of the creative process. And in her lyrics, she delivers what she describes as, “My point of view, my interpretation and the message that captures the emotion.”
In tandem with her two sisters, Tessanne has opened Blow by Blow, a full-service beauty salon in Jamaica, and with its success, envisions expanding to additional locations. “It’s a wonderful thing to see people walk in and then to leave feeling beautiful,” she says. She has also partnered with Bellami Hair Extensions. “In this age you have to be multi-faceted, to put yourself out there in any way you can. Just as in performing: you have to feel good and you have to look good. The message is embrace who and everything that you are, with or without makeup.”
For audiences who know Tessanne Chin through her live shows and her rich catalog of songs; who follow her on social media or who witnessed her remarkable ascension on a top-rated television show, she offers this message. “A lot has happened since The Voice. There is so much more to me than that. I want to reintroduce myself and say, ‘Hi – how are you doing?’ I want listeners to come on this journey with me.”