Vanessa Daou is an American singer, songwriter, poet, visual artist
and dancer. Most notably a musician, her work is known among
electronica, nu jazz and trip hop circles for her trademark spoken
word and aspirated singing style as well as its erotic and literary subtexts.
Daou was born and spent her early childhood in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands,
relocating in 1984 to attend boarding school in Massachusetts. As a young adult, she attended
Vassar College for two years and spent several years in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen area
before earning a scholarship to study dance at Columbia University. There, she would train
with choreographer Eric Hawkins and explore visual art with Barry Moser and poetry with
Kenneth Koch, whom she cites as having sparked her interest in spoken word. Daou ultimately
graduated cum laude with a visual arts and art history degree from Barnard College/Columbia
and frequently appeared in her senior year at Postcrypt Coffeehouse, the
university’s on-campus poetry lounge.
While still a student, Daou began her career recording for NuGroove Records, one of New
York’s seminal underground electronica labels. Demos Daou had recorded with new
husband/producer/musical collaborator Peter Daou caught the attention of two NuGroove
DJs, and they invited her to provide guest vocals on a developing track. The experiment
led to the label’s top-selling single “It Could Not Happen,” which later was released on
Network Records in the United Kingdom. The Daous also performed as “Vandal” at Los
Angeles’ Stranger Than Fiction rave at the Shrine Auditorium in 1990.
