Veeby (born Vanessa Kanga) moved to Montreal from Doula, Cameroon in 2001. She is “one of the emerging artists of the increasingly contagious Afro-soul trend” (La Presse, 2016), with a sweet voice – ever fluid, energetic and flamboyant – that soars to the summits and then plunges, only to soar again, tirelessly. As tirelessly as the artist herself, who passionately advocates for diversity and inclusion through a thrilling combination of jazz, hip hop and soul with strong African overtones. As a teenager, Veeby became interested in Cameroonian music – Manu Dibango, Henri Dikongué, and Sally Nyolo – but she also bathed in her father’s love of American soul and R&B.
More than ever, Veeby strives to tell her own story as well as the story of her African ancestors, and to connect the two as they resonate with the powerful struggles against oppression. In particular, she reminds us of the Zandi, the Bantu community in Mesopotamia (Iraq), who had been kidnapped, and later rebelled, during the first trans-Saharan slave trade.