Blu Cantrell



Blu Cantrell (born Tiffany Cobb; March 16, 1976) is an American R&B and soul singer-songwriter.



Contents
[hide]  *1 Early life  ==Early life[edit] == Tiffany Lee was born in Providence, Rhode Island. Her father was of Narragansett, Cape Verdean ancestry, and African-American.[citation needed]  Susi Franco, her mother, was a former Mrs Rhode Island, actress, and jazz vocalist.[1]  She also has French, Scottish, English, and German ancestry.[2]  Cantrell's parents split when she was a child, and she and her five siblings—Adam, Tino, Nick, Kelli, and Summer—were raised by her mother.[3]  At the age of 19 she posed as a nude model for Black Tail. She has defended this by saying: "I have posed nude in the past and I will in the future, I'm not making porn, porn is when you do a video of sex. Posing nude is not making porn."[citation needed]
 * 2 Music career
 * 2.1 Debut album: So Blu (2001–2002)
 * 2.2 Bittersweet (2003–2004)
 * 2.3 Most recent projects
 * 3 Discography
 * 4 Awards and nominations
 * 5 References

Her stage name came from the fact that her mother used to make her blue birthday cakes because it was her favorite color; Cantrell is her grandmother's surname.[citation needed] ==Music career[edit] == ===Debut album: So Blu (2001–2002)[edit] === After several demos, recordings, and singing backup for artists such as Puff Daddy, Cantrell was discovered by Red Zone Entertainment heads Tricky, Tab and Laney Stewart in early 2001. She also did collaborations with Babyface, Usher, Dionne Warwick, will.i.am, Fat Joe, Lil' Kim, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, and jazz legend Herbie Hancock. The producers promptly placed her with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.A._Reid Antonio "L.A." Reid] who offered the singer a contract with his label Arista Records after hearing one song she wrote and sung in front of him and his staff. After a bidding war with five different labels, Arista's bid was the highest. It was said of Cantrell, "Since she was a little girl she always dreamed of being on Arista Records."[citation needed]  Afterwards, Cantrell went straight into recording sessions with Dallas Austin and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. In 2001, her debut album, So Blu, was released. The record saw major success when it peaked at number eight on the Billboard 200 chart, eventually going gold in the United States. The album's hit single "Hit 'Em Up Style (Oops!)", which peaked at number two on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, became the number one most added record to radio in the country, breaking Elvis Presley's record for most played on all genres of radio. The song earned Cantrell Grammy Award nominations for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance and for Best R&B Song, as well as an American Music Award nomination for Favorite Soul/R&B New Artist, both in 2002.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.399999618530273px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">During this era, Cantrell helped write and compose, along with several other writers, the song "It's Killing Me (In My Mind)" for the soundtrack of the 2002 film Bad Company. Cantrell also featured in a small cameo role in the 2002 film Drumline, where she could be seen singing the American National Anthem. The film starred Nick Cannon and Orlando Jones. ===Bittersweet (2003–2004)<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;padding-right:0.25em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[edit] === Blu Cantrell in 2008<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:22.399999618530273px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">In 2003, Cantrell released her second album, Bittersweet, which peaked at #37 on the Billboard 200. The success of 'Bittersweet' was much greater worldwide than in the U.S. due to the number one single 'Breathe' which climbed to the top of the charts. The song became number one without the support of any major radio syndication and eventually was added to major rotation after it had already become independently worldwide. The record earned Cantrell a Grammy Award nomination for Best R&B Album and entered theBillboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart at number eight. The album produced two hit singles, these being "Breathe" and "Make Me Wanna Scream", the former being a collaboration with Sean Paul. "Breathe" was hugely successful in the United Kingdom, where it spent four weeks at the top of the UK Singles Chart in August 2003 and broke Madonna's song "Lucky Star" single for most played on radio .<sup class="Template-Fact" style="line-height:1;white-space:nowrap;">[citation needed]  It eventually became one of the most successful singles of the year in Europe, Australia, South Africa, and several other countries worldwide. That same year, Cantrell was to appear in Playboy magazine (and would have been only the fourth African American woman to appear on the cover), but decided against it at the last minute because "I felt it was going to make me more of a sex symbol and I didn't want anything to take away from the fact that I can sing".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-4" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[4] ===Most recent projects<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;padding-right:0.25em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[edit] === <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:22.399999618530273px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">In 2007, Cantrell starred alongside LisaRaye and Kenya Moore in the musical stage play Gossip, Lies and Secrets. Tour dates ran from September 27, until November 25, 2007.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:22.399999618530273px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">In 2008, Cantrell appeared in NBC's Celebrity Circus. The first episode aired with a ninety-minute kick-off special on June 11, but Cantrell was eliminated in the second week, June 18, 2008. This made her the first Celebrity to be eliminated from the show. However, she returned for the final episode to perform her single "Hit 'Em Up Style (Oops!)". ==Discography<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;padding-right:0.25em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;">[edit] == Main article: Blu Cantrell discography*So Blu (2001) ==Awards and nominations<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;padding-right:0.25em;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;">[edit] ==
 * Bittersweet (2003)
 * American Music Awards
 * Favorite Soul/R&B New Artist (Nominated)
 * Grammy Awards
 * Best R&B Song: "Hit 'Em Up Style (Oops!)" (Nominated)
 * Best Female R&B Vocal Performance: "Hit 'Em Up Style (Oops!)" (Nominated)
 * Best R&B Album: Bittersweet (Nominated)