Artist Spotlight: Vana

From TikTok star to your new favourite divine feminine red-headed metal artist, meet Vana. The American-born New Zealand artist began her career making TikToks in mid-2021, known for meme content that often played on TikTok fetish content, where she ‘Pavlov'd’ her audience with a bell, now featured in all her songs. Some may know her on TikTok from her viral “are you from Mississippi?” joke (please search Vana Mississippi on TikTok; I will not be quoting it here).

Vana went from being a niche TikToker who eventually tried their hand in music to opening for Linkin Park in Auckland in March of this year. She is completely self-taught, and when she first tried her hand in music, she leaned more towards pop, but soon realised she was making music she didn’t like and decided to learn how to scream. And scream she did.

She sometimes describes her music as ‘spicy metal ’ or ‘whorecore’, with her lyrics being very empowering and sex positive, as well as often featuring LGBT+  themes. Her early music videos often feature elements from the BDSM scene, as well as religious imagery, like in her song Serpentine, where she takes the story of Eve eating the apple in the Garden of Eden and turns the story into a sensual, lustful song, where Vana herself is the snake, seducing Eve. Vana grew up Mexican Catholic, a religion, like most, that shuns sensuality and femininity, and the complex feelings from her upbringing are a big inspiration for these themes in her music.

In a world where women are often boiled down to their looks, Vana’s music serves as a reminder that we do not have to hide, but can instead take charge of our sexuality and feel empowered by it.

She takes a lot of inspiration from bands like Pierce the Veil and Sleeping with Sirens, while adding her own elements of Hyperpop and R&B into her music. She’s also a fan of collecting strange guitars, with her SpongeBob guitar making many appearances on TikTok recently.

Vana’s rise to fame, starting on TikTok, brings a different level of intimacy between fans and the artist; we saw her goofy online personality before we got to see her as the powerful femme musician with an even more powerful voice. We often put celebrities on a pedestal, where it’s sometimes hard to see them as regular people, but with Vana it’s different, making every achievement and song feel more personal.

Vana creates music in a genre that is still heavily male-dominated, where many fans will still not accept a woman (just look at the hate Linkin Park got when they introduced Emily Armstrong as their new lead singer), and she’s showing that femininity should not be played down for the sake of making it in the genre, inspiring future generations of female metal artists.

As an artist, Vana is a huge advocate for women, the LGBTQ+ community and mental health, which can definitely be seen in both her music and her online presence.

Despite releasing songs in 2024, Vana’s debut album is set to release later this year, with 3 singles already available on all platforms. Her standout song, Pray, features themes like exorcism, marriage and confessionals, and her soft voice to her screams packs a punch. Vana has also said in an interview with Clash that Pray was a song she sat on for a while before finally releasing it in November of last year.

So if you are looking for a powerful, sensual feminine voice, Vana is the artist to check out.

Written by, Nat Synak