Keri Hilson

Keri Hilson

Keri Lynn Hilson (born October, 24 1982) is an American R&B singer and songwriter signed to Zone 4/Mosley Music Group/Interscope Records. She is part of a collective of writers and producers known as The Clutch.

History

Hilson grew up near Atlanta, Georgia, to Christine and Gamaliel Hilson, where she graduated from Tucker High School. She was an active participant in extracurricular activities such as swimming and basketball. At the age of fourteen, she joined a band called D'Sign, who dropped from their label before recording an album

Starting career

Hilson has been writing music for other artists since 2001, including Britney Spears, Ciara, [[Dude:Usher|Usher]], and [[Dude:Ludacris|Ludacris]]. Despite having made a name for herself as an arranger and background vocalist, lending her vocal talents to many of the songs she wrote on, Hilson remained behind the scenes for the most part until 2004, when she was featured on Xzibit's single, "Hey Now (Mean Muggin)" and made her performing debut singing the track live at the 2004 MTV Europe Awards.

In 2006, Hilson reappeared on the music scene in the video for Nelly Furtado's single "Promiscuous". Meanwhile, she signed as an artist with [[Dude:Timbaland|Timbaland]]'s newly formed Interscope associated label Mosley Music Group and the pair started work on her debut album '"In A Perfect World...". The same year, she was featured on "After Love" from [[Dude:P. Diddy|P. Diddy]]'s album Press Play as well as "Help", the second single from [[Dude:Lloyd Banks|Lloyd Banks]]' Rotten Apple.

In 2007, Hilson made several appearances on [[Dude:Timbaland|Timbaland]]'s solo effort, Shock Value where she featured heavily on the singles "The Way I Are" and "Scream" and the tracks "Miscommunication" and "Hello". Furthermore, she was featured on the track "Lost Girls" on Rich Boy's debut album and its second single "Good Things" and was credited as a writer and backing vocalist on Britney Spears' album Blackout. She also worked on Spears' follow-up "Circus", but the tracks didn't appear on the album.

A promotional video for her song "Where Did He Go" was released in 2008 and she went on to further promote herself as a solo artist on "Get It Girl", a track produced by [[Dude:Timbaland|Timbaland]] & Danja and recorded for a Verizon ringtone promotion and available also through iTunes.

She also played the lead role in [[Dude:Usher|Usher]]'s music video for "Love in This Club", (as well as co-writing its "Pt. II" remix) appeared as one of the "independent women" in [[Dude:Ne-Yo|Ne-Yo]]'s music video for "Miss Independent" and appeared briefly on [[Dude:Nelly|Nelly]]'s "Party People" music video wearing a T-Shirt with the slogan 'Hip Hop aint dead'. She soon after featured on Nas' debut single from his controversial album Untitled, "Hero".

In A Perfect World...

After many pushbacks, Hilson's debut solo album In a Perfect World... has now been set for an early 2009 release. The album's first single was "Energy" and its music video was released July 14, 2008. So far, "Energy" has peaked at #78 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The second single "Return The Favor" features [[Dude:Timbaland|Timbaland]] was released officially as a digital download on October 7, 2008 and the video, directed by Melina, premiered on October 23, 2008. In the meantime, she also featured on [[Dude:Chris Brown|Chris Brown]]'s singles "Superhuman" and "Forever", and [[Dude:Kardinal Offishall|Kardinal Offishall]]'s second single "Numba 1 (Tide Is High)", which was originally supposed to feature Rihanna.

The track "Turnin' Me On" features rapper [[Dude:Lil Wayne|Lil' Wayne]] and was released as the third digital single on November 25. The video, which was directed by Erik White after he and Hilson met on the set of the "Superhuman" video, premiered on November 20, 2008. "Turnin' Me On" has so far peaked at #24 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, becoming Hilson's most successful single as well as her first Top 50 single in the U.S.. It's believed that the next single will be "Do It" as she performs a snippet on every live.

Reception

Hilson's music has been favorably received, appearing on list of "Top Year Singles" with the songs, "Energy" and "Turnin' Me On". The first was on Blender magazine list of the "The Top 144 Songs of 2008", at #61, and the latter was on Vibe magazine's "The 80 Best Songs of '08" at #67. Vibe also praised her voice and called her "ridiculously hot".

[[User:Thoughtfulmind|Ravi]] 11:24, 5 February 2009 (PST)