Tessanne Chin

Tessanne Amanda Chin (born 20 September 1985; Kingston, Jamaica) is a Jamaican recording artist, songwriter and vocal coach, best known internationally for winning Season 5 of NBC's reality singing competition The Voice as part of Adam Levine's team.

She has opened for artists including Patti LaBelle, Peabo Bryson and Gladys Knight, toured for three years as a backing vocalist with Jimmy Cliff, and remains, to date, the only foreign-born contestant to have won The Voice USA.

Early Life

Chin was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and attended Mavisville Preparatory School. Her father, Richard Chin, is of Jamaican Chinese descent, and her mother, Christine Chin, also Jamaican, is of English and African descent; the couple performed together in a band called the Carnations, with her father on drums and her mother on trumpet and vocals, and the family kept a recording studio in their home. Chin's older sister, Tami Chynn, is also a professional singer, and her cousin Jay Hall performs as a vocalist and guitarist with the UK band Grassroutes, having previously played with the Royal Players; Jay's brother Leon sings with the ska-fusion act Electrik Custard.

Introduced to music from infancy by her parents, Chin began performing at the age of six with Cathy Levy's Little People and Teen Players Club, one of Jamaica's leading performing arts schools, receiving much of her early vocal coaching from her mother and from noted coach Lecie Wright. At twelve, she moved to England, an experience that exposed her early to cultural differences and which she navigated in part by devoting herself to songwriting.

Career

On her return to Jamaica, Chin joined the rock-reggae band Mile High, performing at venues and festivals including Jazzfest, Rockfest and RETV Unplugged, before spending three years touring internationally as a backing vocalist for Jimmy Cliff. She then left Mile High to pursue a solo career, releasing the single "Hideaway" in 2006, which received heavy rotation on Caribbean radio and was later included on VP Records' Reggae Gold 2007 compilation, followed by the singles "Messenger" and "Black Books".

She released her independent debut album, In Between Words, in December 2010, produced by guitarist Rudy Valentino and drummer Paul "GrooveGalore" Kastick, and performed at events including the Air Jamaica Jazz and Blues Festival, Reggae Sumfest, the Port Royal Music Festival and her own show, "Arabian Night". She collaborated with fellow Jamaican artists Shaggy on "Never Let Go" and Protoje on "Someone Like You", with the Trinidadian soca band Kes on "Loving You", and appeared on Third World's "By My Side", joining the band as a special guest at New York's Highline Ballroom in April 2011; "By My Side" was later used on the soundtrack of Robert Townsend's television series Diary of a Single Mom.

In September 2013, encouraged by family friend Shaggy, Chin competed in Season 5 of The Voice, earning chair turns from all four coaches with a blind audition performance of Pink's "Try" before choosing to join Adam Levine's team. Her semi-final rendition of Simon & Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" topped the iTunes chart and gave her a first US chart appearance at number 64 on the Hot 100, while her cover of Whitney Houston's "I Have Nothing" also reached number one on iTunes, making her the first contestant that season to top the chart twice; her duet with Levine, a cover of the Beatles' "Let It Be", also charted. Chin won the season finale with the highest vote total in the show's history at that point, and her victory was publicly celebrated across Jamaica, including by then prime minister Portia Simpson Miller. Her post-victory debut single, "Tumbling Down", was written by Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic, and her major label debut album, Count On My Love, followed on Republic Records on 1 July 2014.

That April, she performed Donna Summer's "Last Dance" at the White House as part of First Lady Michelle Obama's "Women of Soul: In Performance at the White House" concert, sharing the bill with Aretha Franklin, Patti LaBelle, Janelle Monáe, Ariana Grande, Jill Scott and Melissa Etheridge. She went on to release the singles "Fire" (2015) and "Love Suicide" (2016.

Personal Life

Chin married broadcaster Michael Anthony Cuffe Jr in 2011; the couple divorced in 2015. She later married Brandon Crooks, with whom she welcomed a daughter, Zaia, on 1 February 2020. Her sister, Tami Chynn, is married to reggae artist Wayne Marshall, making Chin an aunt to the couple's children.

In 2018, after completing a course in voice pedagogy at Westminster College, Chin founded Voice Box, a vocal training and performance programme for young Jamaican singers aged six to sixteen, which she has described as an extension of the safe, confidence-building space she experienced as a child performer; her students have included the young daughter of reggae artist Jah Cure, and the programme has staged its own public showcases, including a 2023 Christmas concert alongside established artists such as Romain Virgo and Alaine.

Chin was named Caribbean Journal's Artist of the Year for 2013, and her Voice win was widely regarded in Jamaica as a significant moment of national pride and international representation.

Current Activities

Chin continues to perform in Jamaica and internationally, including an appearance at the Lost in Time Festival in Jamaica in March 2026, while continuing to run her Voice Box vocal training programme for young singers. She is at work on her third studio album, the follow-up to Count On My Love, with production by Natural High Music.