Charlie DrapeMississippi Clarion Ledger

Sept. 23, 2026, 4:55 a.m. CT

Anissa Hampton likes to sleep. She likes quiet. Before a show, she would prefer that nobody ask much of her at all.

“I’m getting my mind right. I’m getting my attitude together. I’m getting my voice together,” Hampton said in a recent interview with the Clarion Ledger. Then she steps onstage as “Bigg Sexyy,” and suddenly she has plenty to say. “I love to mess with folk.”

The Jackson singer spent years backing other artists before taking the microphone for herself. Now she leads shows that move through Southern soul, blues and R&B, mixing her own songs with familiar favorites and conversation with the crowd. Some songs can get "a little raunchy here or there."

Behind it all is a singer with an opera background, a childhood filled with gospel and country, a day job in graduate admissions at Jackson State University, and a performance schedule that keeps her touring and singing multiple genres. Hampton seamlessly makes room for all of it, a reality that heavily shapes her upcoming EP, “Variations of Me.”

From the Addition to Carnegie Hall

Hampton was born in Chicago and moved to Jackson with her family when she was about 5 or 6. She attended Raines Elementary, Hardy Middle School and Provine High School before enrolling at Tougaloo College in 1990.

Her parents listened to gospel and country. Her father loved country singers, and she recalled hearing Randy Travis and Dolly Parton alongside the gospel choirs her parents played. And outside the house, particularly around her grandmother’s home in Washington Addition, there was blues.

Hampton said her parents remembered her singing as a toddler. She stood in front of the mirror, making up songs and imitating singers. She still does it.

Formal lessons were another matter. At Tougaloo, she began formal voice lessons with Larry Robinson, her vocal instructor who passed away earlier this year. Hampton could pick up songs by listening and imitate other singers. She wasn’t convinced she needed the classes.

Robinson, she joked, would have called her his worst vocal student.

“I think I may have went to one or two classes a semester,” she said.

That presented a problem when students were expected to perform a song Robinson had taught them. Hampton hadn’t been showing up, but other students helped her learn an aria, a solo piece typically sung in an opera.

After hearing her sing, she recalled, Robinson offered her a full scholarship.

A larger opportunity followed when Grace Bumbry, a pioneering Black opera singer celebrated internationally, auditioned students from Tougaloo and Jackson State for an ensemble she founded to bring Black spirituals and gospel music to concert audiences.

Hampton recalled being one of roughly five or six selected from each school, joining an ensemble of about 45 singers from around the world. The opportunity took her to Spain and Germany to sing spirituals and arias, along with performances around the United States. It was her first experience performing overseas, and she wants to do it again.

One place, especially, left a mark: Carnegie Hall.

“Any little small note, anything that you sing or play is just enormous in there,” she said. “I loved it.”

Back in Jackson, Hampton began singing background for local performers, including blues singers Keeshea Pratt and Larry Johnson. Over the years, she also backed soul-blues singer Willie Clayton and R&B singer Calvin Richardson.

She was working and raising her son. Background singing suited her. She enjoyed supporting someone else’s performance and wasn’t in a hurry to lead her own.

Pratt kept giving her a reason to reconsider.

During shows, Pratt would have Hampton step forward to sing Patti LaBelle’s “If Only You Knew.” Hampton corrected herself while describing it: Pratt didn’t just let her sing the song. She made her.

The audience responded. Pratt told her this was what she was supposed to be doing. Hampton said she would think about it. And she did, for years.

“I think I was pushed out there,” Hampton said. "And the first time that I sang it, she (Pratt) just looked at me, she said, 'this is what you're supposed to be doing.'"

Finally, in 2018, she assembled her own band — the H-Funk Band — and gave the solo thing a try. One of her early songs was “Big Sexy,” a name borrowed from her uncle.

To family, she was Niecy, short for Anissa. Her uncle added his own nickname. Hampton turned it into an alter ego, stylized as “Bigg Sexyy.”

Offstage, Hampton describes herself as a mother, grandmother and a “plain old gal.” She likes calm, sleep, silence and staying out of the mess.

But Bigg Sexyy? Bigg Sexxy wants to know who in the audience is ready to get down.

“Bigg Sexyy is full of life. She loves people,” Hampton said. "When I'm out performing, that is Bigg Sexyy."

But the change to solo singing required some adjustment. At one of her early bookings at Harlow’s Casino in Greenville, Hampton thought a 20- or 30-minute show sounded reasonable. She learned she had four hours to fill.

With breaks, that meant singing for roughly 45 minutes of each hour. On top of that, she was booked for two nights. After the first, she slept until sound check. But eventually, Hampton and the band ironed it all out.

"The first day, that was hard. I slept all the way up until it was sound check," Hampton recalled. "But the next night after that, we got a little rhythm going on and everything after that was just smooth sailing from there. So casino gigs, I'll try it anytime."

Hampton builds her shows around the audience. If a venue wants blues, she prepares blues. If it wants R&B, she has that, too. Bigg Sexyy has a few ways to work a room.

Casinos get a little of everything, including gospel and older R&B. She might sing some of her solo stuff, but she can also sing the classics, such as Gladys Knight’s “Midnight Train to Georgia,” one of her favorites to perform.

Long shows call for medleys and instrumental solos. The guitar player gets plenty of work. So do the other musicians, while Hampton gives her voice a break.

Her own material includes “Watch Yourself,” “Do You Really Want to Leave Me” and “Holding On.”She described another song, “Talk to Me,” as leaning toward neo-soul. She is also working on “Daddy’s Love,” a song for her father that draws on his love of country.

The Southern soul songs can get raunchy, in true Bigg Sexyy fashion, but Hampton said she wants listeners to pay attention to the words. Her performances also depend on the people in front of her. She likes talking to them, teasing them and making them part of the evening. When the last note ends, she hopes they want another song.

“I hope they leave with feeling love and excitement,” Hampton said. “Like that last note being played, they’ll say encore.”

Hampton is working toward finishing “Variations of Me” by December. The title nods to the genres she moves between and the different sides of herself she brings to the microphone. Three songs are already out, with others in the works for the EP.

Hampton writes the songs, pays for studio time and figures out how to get her music heard. No record label. No manager. When asked who was handling it all, her answer was short.

“It’s just me,” she said, adding she hopes to go on tour after the EP is released.

That means learning the business along with making the music. Copyright, publishing and licensing all require attention. So does figuring out how to arrange a tour.

Clayton, the soul-blues singer Hampton backed for years, has been a source of advice. Hampton said she listened closely when he shared lessons from his decades in music. She and her father also watch documentaries about artists, looking at decisions that helped or hurt their careers.

Asked whether building a career in Mississippi had been difficult, she pointed to money as the bigger obstacle: paying for studio time and finding producers and engineers who can help her make the recordings she wants.

“Not hard from here. I think our biggest thing for most artists is monetary,” Hampton said. "Finding a way to get in that studio and make more music and getting acquainted with more producers and engineers that can work with you and give you what you need so you can excel for the future.”

The obstacles have made her consider quitting. Other artists she talks with have felt the same way. But she keeps coming back to the work, with ambitions that reach beyond Mississippi.

“Success to me will be a household name,” Hampton said.

Asked whether she meant in Jackson or Mississippi, Hampton aimed higher.

“I would like it to be international," she said.

The hustle hasn’t stopped her from bringing Bigg Sexyy directly to the people. Fans can catch her on the road throughout the year as she brings her high-energy show to casinos, blues festivals, and other shows across Mississippi, Arkansas, Illinois, and Tennessee. Her full schedule can be found at her website: https://anissahampton.live/

She may have needed a push to step out of the background, but Hampton now realizes that Bigg Sexyy is a part of herself just as much as the peaceful life she leads when she steps off the stage.

“Singing has helped me realize who I am,” she said. “I’m just a little quiet.”

Charlie Drape covers Jackson and considers telling you what to listen to a public service. Send recommendations, disagreements and invitations to a good show to cdrape@gannett.com.

This story is part of the Clarion Ledger’s series on four Mississippi musical acts worth getting to know as America celebrates its 250th birthday. Alongside Annie and The Caldwells, the series features Dorothy Moore, Anissa Hampton and Maya Kyles — artists giving the birthplace of America’s music more to brag about.