Amerie
American singer known for the 2005 hit "1 Thing."
Amerie Mi Marie Rogers Nicholson, born January 12, 1980, is an American performer and author. Her four studio albums are All I Have, Touch, Because I Love It, and In Love & War. The 2005 track "1 Thing" remains her most recognized work.
Quick Facts
- Birth name
- Amerie Mi Marie Rogers
- Born
- 12 January 1980
- Birthplace
- Fitchburg, Massachusetts, U.S.
- Origin
- Washington, D.C., U.S.
- Discography
- Amerie discography
- Genre
- R&B
- pop
- hip hop
- soul
- go-go
- Occupation
- Singer
- songwriter
- actress
- writer
- Years active
- 2001–present
Facts from the source article.
Early life and education
Amerie was born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, to a Korean mother, Mi Suk, and a Black American father, Charles Rogers. Months after her birth, the family moved to South Korea, where she lived for three years. Her father, a chief warrant officer in the U.S. military, relocated the family frequently, including to Alaska, Texas, Virginia, and Germany. She has a younger sister, Angela Rogers, who later became her lawyer. Amerie has described her parents as conservative, protective, traditional Christians; she and her sister were forbidden to leave the house or use the phone on school days. She enrolled at Georgetown University to study literature and joined Navy ROTC to afford her education, quitting after her sophomore year. She graduated with a B.A. in English and a Fine Arts minor in design. While at Georgetown, she befriended a Washington, D.C., club promoter who connected her with producer Rich Harrison. They met in a McDonald's parking lot, where Harrison played tracks and Amerie sang along. Harrison, who had worked on Mary J. Blige's albums Mary and No More Drama, began recording demos with Amerie, leading to her first record deal with Columbia Records.
Career
Amerie first appeared on the scene by singing the chorus for Nas's 2001 track "Rule," which landed at number 67 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart. She also teamed up with Detroit rapper Royce da 5'9" for the song "Life," which served as the third and final single from his album Rock City (Version 2.0). Her own debut single, "Why Don't We Fall in Love," dropped in 2002 and climbed to number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100, while cracking the top ten on both the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and Hot Dance Club Play charts. It also became an urban top-20 hit in Australia and reached the UK top 40. Her first album, All I Have, was entirely produced and co-written by Rich Harrison and came out in 2002 to generally positive reviews. It debuted at number nine on the U.S. Billboard 200, selling 89,000 copies in its first week, and later earned a gold certification from the RIAA, with 657,000 copies sold by 2009. To support the album, she hit the road with Usher and Nas on the Evolution 8701 Tour, as well as with rapper Nelly. The second and final single from All I Have, "Talkin' to Me," made it into the top 20 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart but stalled outside the top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100. In 2003, Amerie won the Soul Train Music Award for Best New Artist and picked up nominations for Best R&B/Soul Album and Best R&B Soul Single – Female. She also received a BET Award nomination for Best Female R&B Artist and an Image Award nomination for Outstanding New Artist. She contributed vocals to LL Cool J's "Paradise," which hit number 14 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and became her second top-40 entry on the Hot 100. Additional collaborations included a feature on DJ Kayslay's "Too Much for Me" from The Streetsweeper Vol. 1, singing the hook on Bow Wow's "To My Mama" from his album Unleashed, and appearing on the Rodney Jerkins-produced track "When I Think of You" from the Honey soundtrack.
Artistry
Amerie has been hands-on with her music from the very beginning, earning credits for writing, production, and instrumentation. Her voice is classified as a soprano. In an early interview, she described a homemade recording method: she would sing a full song onto one tape, then play it back while recording harmonies onto a second tape, bouncing between the two until she had a finished track with layered vocals. Her musical influences, shared in a 2014 interview, are wide-ranging and include the musical Grease, Motown soul, late 1960s rock and roll, heavy metal, 1980s pop and new wave, German music, Korean traditional music, R&B, and hip hop. She also drew inspiration from film scores, calling them an immersive, surround-sound experience, and credited the late Aaliyah for shaping her vocals and dancing. Additionally, she noted that Carl Thomas’s 2000 album Emotional directly influenced her debut, All I Have. Though she mostly releases songs in English, Amerie has collaborated with Korean artists, including 4minute on the track “Heard ‘em All,” which was performed on KBS and Mnet.
Other projects
Amerie helped develop and hosted the BET teen lifestyle show The Center in 2003. The following year, she made her acting debut as Mia Thompson, a college student sharing a dorm with the president's daughter, in the film First Daughter opposite Katie Holmes. In 2014, she started a YouTube vlog called "Books Beauty Amerie" and mentioned she was working on a young adult novel and a fantasy novel. By 2017, she had released an anthology, Because You Love to Hate Me, through Bloomsbury Publishing, along with a sci-fi trilogy. In 2019, she launched her own book club, Amerie's Book Club, to spotlight diverse voices, and also toured with Ashanti, Keri Hilson, and Monica as part of the Femme It Forward movement.
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