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Amerie, (born Amerie Rogers, January 12, 1980), is a North American singer. She is the daughter of a Korean mother and an African-American father who was a career military member. She grew up on bases from Alaska to Germany, meanwhile gaining an appreciation of the classical arts from her mother and of R&B music from her father. She studied dance from an early age and performed in talent contests throughout her youth. After her high school graduation, her family finally settled down in Virginia, while she began to attend Georgetown University, from which she later graduated with a degree in English and Fine Arts. While living in Washington, D.C., she met producer Rich Harrison, who worked with such performers as Mary J. Blige, and began developing demos with him. They led to a deal with Rise Entertainment and, in turn, with Columbia Records. In the spring of 2002, Rise/Columbia released Amerie's debut single, Why Don't We Fall in Love. By the time her first album, All I Have, appeared that July, the single had reached the Top 10 of the R&B/hip-hop charts and the Top 40 of the pop charts.
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Throughout that spring and summer, the song received heavy urban radio play, its music video was spun in heavy rotation on the American music video stations MTV2 and BET, and Amerie was toted as the next big thing in hip-hop music. Amerie's debut album was released amid the success of Why Don't We Fall In Love, and the media immediately began to judge her successes against those of other recent female R&B upstarts, Tweet and Ashanti.
The album's next single, Talkin' To Me, did not hit as big at urban radio as her first single, but it's video still enjoyed strong support from MTV2. VH1 Soul has been known to spin both Amerie's videos with regularity since their debuts, and MTV Jams still occasionally spins Why Don't We Fall In Love. Late 2003 she won a Soul Train Award for Best R&B/Soul or Rap New Artist, she was also nominated for Album Of The Year (Female) and Single Of The Year (Female), she also performed the Top 20 hit 'Talkin' To Me" with a live band at the show.
Amerie returned to the music scene briefly in 2003 as a featured vocalist, first on LL Cool J's top 40 smash, Paradise single and later on DJ Kay Slay's "Too Much For Me". which didn't perform as well as Paradise, although their videos received a lot of attention from the digital music video channels. She also earned a BET Award nomination for Favorite Female Artist. Amerie has delved into acting since, hosting the BET televison series, The Center, and showing up in the film, First Daughter, with Katie Holmes.
Albums
- July 30, 2002 All I Have #2 R&B #9 Pop
Singles
- October 7, 2002 Why Don't We Fall In Love
- April 21, 2003 I'm Coming Out [UK]
- July 8, 2003 Talkin' To Me
External links
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