Vanessa
Parish
Crooks

Word healer.
Life enthusiast.

Vanessa Parish Crooks is a singer, rapper, and poet from Lisbon, Portugal, with roots that reach across the Atlantic to the island of Brava, Cape Verde. Her artistry lives where neo-soul, R&B, hip-hop, morna, and kizomba converge — a space where the personal becomes political, the lyrical becomes liturgical, and Black Lusophone experience finds a sound entirely its own.

She began writing before she began performing. Spoken word was her entry point — a way of making sense of belonging, diaspora, and the particular longing that comes with moving between languages and cultures. By 2020 she had taken that voice into music, releasing debut single Gentle Reminder and beginning a practice that has since grown into something soulful, sharp, and unmistakably hers.

Her works move fluidly between English, Portuguese, and Cape Verdean Creole. She cites Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Lauryn Hill, Mayra Andrade, and Sara Tavares as spiritual kin — a lineage of Black women artists who built whole worlds from their voices. A winner of She Raps 2024 and semi-finalist on Got Talent Portugal 2025, her debut EP 3 Walls & A Call was released in 2023 to quiet, lasting recognition.