Tanya Stephens
Artist. Dancehall
- Active
- 1993-present
- Also known as
- Vivienne Stephenson
Tanya Stephens is a singjay and songwriter whose assertive, rough-edged approach first drew comparisons with the deejay Lady Saw, and whose fifth album, Gangsta Blues (2004), won wide critical praise.
Born Vivienne Stephenson, one of seven children, she grew up in a house full of her parents' music, from Smokey Robinson to the calypso of Kitchener and Sparrow, which taught her to put wit into a lyric. She learned her craft in local dancehalls and cut her first record, "Is This for Real," in 1993; her first album, Big Tings a Gwan (1994), was produced by Barry O'Hare, and Dave Kelly produced "Yuh Nuh Ready fi Dis Yet." She voiced Kelly's "Joy Ride" rhythm, one of the versions that dominated the dancehalls at the close of 1996, and Ruff Rider (1998) presents her as the "Big Bad Girl" of her boast, with "Handle the Ride" over Bobby Digital's reworking of "The Lecture" and "Cry and Bawl" with Bounty Killer.
After some years in Sweden she returned with Gangsta Blues (2004), her fifth album, made with producers including Flabba Malcolm, Barry O'Hare and Fatis Burrell and carried by "It's a Pity." It was a critical success, and Rebelution (2006) followed; Matt Cibula heard "a nasal Jamaican avenging angel." The manager Clyde McKenzie said of her writing, "I don't think [the word] brilliant does sufficient justice," and she has written for Etana and Sanne Salomonsen. "It was more of a bid to define and separate myself from everything around me than a commercial product," she said of Gangsta Blues twenty years on, when a live anniversary recording, with Spragga Benz among the guests, was released.
Last updated November 5, 2026
Connections
- Fatis Burrell (producer)
- Bobby Digital (producer)
- Dave Kelly (producer)
- Bounty Killer (collaborator)
- Spragga Benz (collaborator)
Notes
- Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 325. On Gangsta Blues, see note 4.
- "Tanya Stephens Biography," Go-Jamaica (Gleaner Company), accessed October 22, 2026, https://go-jamaica.com/chat/biography-tanya.html.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 316, 327. "Tanya Stephens Biography" dates Ruff Rider to 1998.
- Kevin Jackson, "Tanya Stephens Remembers Gangsta Blues, 20 Years Later," Jamaica Observer, August 2, 2024, https://jamaicaobserver.com/2024/08/02/tanya-stephens-remembers-gangsta-blues-20-years-later. "Tanya Stephens Biography," on Sweden (1998 to 2001) and Rebelution. Matt Cibula, "Tanya Stephens: Rebelution," PopMatters, August 28, 2006, https://popmatters.com/tanya-stephens-rebelution-2495695798.html.
- "Tanya Stephens: The Songwriter Extraordinaire," Jamaica Observer, February 21, 2022, https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2022/02/21/tanya-stephens-the-songwriter-extraordinaire/.
- Jackson, "Tanya Stephens Remembers Gangsta Blues."
