Career

Yaya is an award-winning actress, birth worker, entrepreneur, public speaker, model and wayshower.

She is best known for her roles as cut-throat prosecutor Andrea Freeman on Netflix’s The Lincoln Lawyer, Whitney Houston in Lifetime’s biopic Whitney, April Sexton on Chicago Med, Angela Vaughn on Fox’s Our Kind of People, Monique Smith in Lifetime’s Not My Family: The Monique Smith Story, which she also executive produced, and Simone Harper in Hulu’s “Group Chat”, alongside LaLa Anthony and Kim Kardashian.

She is the creator of the innovative line of head wraps, “Wraps N’ Raps”, and the founder of The Institute of Divine Secrets.

Training

As an artist, she reflects the human story back to itself through creative expression. As a multidisciplinary student of conscious evolution and a graduate of an Ivy League institution (Brown University), she has spent decades studying a range of transformational modalities, including Ifá, Reiki, Kundalini Yoga, The Akashic Records, Vipassana insight meditation, dance and somatic embodiment, and the UPLVL communication methodology, for which she is a certified coach. A full-spectrum “doula” since, 2010, her apprenticeship in birth work initiated her into the profound intelligence of the body and the spiritual dimensions of creation.

Intention

DaCosta’s journey — from Hollywood soundstages to maternal health advocacy stages, from red carpets to meditation halls— informs the offerings she now shares through The Institute of Divine Secrets. Here, she integrates ancient wisdom, modern psychology, and lived experience to guide others toward self-healing, empowerment, and awakening. Through this work, Yaya aims to join the planetary movement to reverse centuries of silencing of women and femmes by restoring their voices, amplifying their power, and activating of the Divine Feminine, bringing us into balance with the masculine— within our own bodies first, and then in the world we build together.