Dionne Farris (born December 4, 1969) is an American singer and songwriter whose work connects R&B, soul, rock, hip-hop, jazz, and gospel. She first gained national attention in the early 1990s as a featured vocalist associated with the Atlanta hip-hop group Arrested Development, then established herself as a solo artist with the Columbia Records album Wild Seed - Wild Flower.
Farris was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, and raised in Bordentown. She began performing as a child and sang in her high school choir before moving into local club work. In 1990, she relocated to Atlanta, where she became part of the creative circle surrounding Arrested Development. Although she contributed vocals to the group's music and performed with them, Farris was never presented as an official permanent member. Her clear, soulful voice became one of the defining elements of "Tennessee," the group's breakthrough 1992 single, and she also appeared on other material connected with the group's debut period.
Farris left the group in the early 1990s and pursued a solo career. She worked with musicians David Harris and Milton Davis, developing a sound that combined contemporary R&B with rock, funk, and singer-songwriter influences. The resulting album, Wild Seed - Wild Flower, was released in 1994. Rather than presenting Farris as a conventional pop or urban vocalist, the record emphasized her wide-ranging musical personality, expressive phrasing, and ability to move between intimacy and force.
The album's most successful single, "I Know," became Farris' signature recording. Released in 1995, it reached the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Its music video, directed by Zack Snyder and Nico Soultanakis, helped establish Farris as a distinctive visual presence, combining performance footage with a kinetic, stylized presentation. The song's success made her a prominent figure in mid-1990s pop and R&B, even though she would not follow it with a conventional run of major-label albums.
Farris continued contributing to film soundtracks and related projects. Her recording of "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free" appeared on the soundtrack to The Promised Land, while "Hopeless" became associated with the 1997 film Love Jones. She also contributed vocals to the soundtrack of Ghosts of Mississippi and appeared on other artists' recordings.
A second album, For Truth If Not Love, was delayed for several years following creative and contractual disagreements with Columbia. It was eventually released independently in 2007. Farris then expanded her work through her own Free & Clear label, issuing Signs of Life in 2011 and the live jazz project Dionne Get Your Gunn, recorded with the Russell Gunn Quartet.
Her later career has highlighted her interest in stripped-down arrangements and cross-genre collaboration. In 2014, she joined guitarist Charlie Hunter for DionneDionne, a concise tribute to Dionne Warwick built around songs associated with Burt Bacharach and Hal David, including "Walk on By," "Don't Make Me Over," and "Always Something There to Remind Me." The album reduced the songs to voice and guitar, revealing the conversational quality of Farris' singing. Across her career, she has remained known less for a large discography than for the individuality of her voice and the stylistic range of her recordings.