Felicia Lynn Dobson was born on February 28, 1985, in the Toronto, Ontario district of Scarborough. She is biracial; her mother being of Irish, Dutch and English ancestry, while her father is of Jamaican heritage.

Fefe has three siblings: two younger brothers and an older sister. Often at school she and her older sister, Tanya, were picked on because of her skin color.

Her father left the family when she was young, only seeing him periodically. She eventually stopped seeing and talking to him when she turned 13. Her anger towards her father is expressed in her song "Unforgiven".

Fefe Dobson went to a performing arts community center when she was young. In the fifth grade, she played "Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz" at her school.

"After that, I felt a spiritual connection with Judy Garland," she said.

She has also said that her biggest musical inspiration growing up was Michael Jackson, "I swore I was Michael Jackson. Then I found out I wasn't Michael Jackson and it broke my heart."

When she was 11, her mother had given her a karaoke machine for her birthday. After learning how to use the machine, she made a demo tape of 24 songs by such artists as Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey, Selena, and Madonna. She began sending the demo tape to record labels, but with little success. By this time Dobson had also begun writing her own songs.

She went to Wexford Collegiate Institute, a high school in Scarborough known for its performing arts program. Fefe Dobson still kept looking for a record company that would make a record deal with her.

Before signing with Universal Music Canada and Island Records, Fefe Dobson considered signing to her first record deal years earlier.

In the year 2000 she was discovered by Jive Records and they signed her immediately. The record label wanted to give her a traditional pop star image. Dobson, however, wanted more guitar and to include some of her own written songs. Jive rejected the idea, so she left the record company.

She found herself singing in a Toronto bar at 8:30 in the morning. It turned out a CEO at The Island Def Jam Music Group was in the bar that very morning. He wanted to sign her. They signed her up on the wrong lyrics. She sang her song "Stupid Little Love Song" and what the people thought she sang was "Stupid Little Buzz Saw" which they thought was "genius". She met producer Jay Levine through Island Records and they began working on her music. "He just really let me be free. He found something in me that he really thought was special, it was just fate". When in the recording studio, she hung up inspirational pictures of Kurt Cobain, Judy Garland, Coldplay, Jeff Buckley and the Vines, to help motivate her sound and to commemorate the artists who influenced her.

In 2006, Fefe was dropped from Island Records, and to this day, she is working independently.