Blu Cantrell biography
Blu Cantrell (born Tiffany Cobb on March 16, 1976) is an American R&B and soul singer-songwriter. She has recently been amongst the controversy of Jay-Z and Beyonce naming their daughter after her.
Biography
Tiffany Cobb was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1976. Her father was a Narragansett Native American and Cape Verdean, and played in the National Basketball Association. Susi Franco, her mother, was a former Miss Rhode Island, actress, and jazz vocalist. 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. 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."
Her mother used to call her Blu; Cantrell is her grandmother's surname.
Music career
Debut album: So Blu (2001-2002)
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 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." 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.
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)
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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 the
Billboard 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" peaked at number one for four weeks in the United Kingdom and broke Madonna's song "Lucky Star" single for most played on radio . 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".
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