Debelah Morgan
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| Debelah Morgan | |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Debelah Morgan |
| Born | September 29, 1977 |
| Origin | Detroit, Michigan |
| Genre(s) | Pop / R&B |
| Occupation(s) | Singer-songwriter |
| Years active | 1994–present |
| Label(s) | Atlantic (1994–1995) VAZ / Motown (1998–1999) The DAS Label / Atlantic (2000–2003) |
| Website | http://www.debelah.co.uk |
Debelah Morgan (born September 29, 1977, Detroit, Michigan) is an American R&B singer and songwriter. Her stage name was simply Debelah at the beginning of her music career, but changed to her full name after her first music label dropped her. Morgan has enjoyed sporadic success, peaking with her song "Dance with Me."
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[edit] Biography
Debelah was born to an African-American father and an Indian mother, and is conversational in Hindi. She also has learned to sing in several languages, including French, Italian, German, Hindi, and Portuguese. She started taking piano lessons at the age of 3. Her family moved from Detroit to Arizona, where she won beauty pageants at the age of fifteen and organized a gospel choir in her high school. She majored in Vocal Performance.
At the age of seventeen, she signed to Atlantic Records and released her debut album Debelah. This is her rarest album, having been released only in the US and Japan and poorly promoted. She was dropped from her label not long after its release.
She then signed with Motown and in 1998 released her second album It's Not Over. She co-wrote half of the tracks, and her brother Giloh was a co-writer on several songs as well. It's Not Over was released only in Europe and Asia, where the singles "I Love You" and "Yesterday" were merely modest hits. After Motown was bought by Universal Music Group, the label wanted Debelah to record an urban contemporary album. She left Universal because she wanted to do a pop-R&B album that appealed to a wider audience; she saw the label as attempting to turn her into just another young black female hip-hop-style singer.
In 1998 and 1999, Debelah was featured on three soundtrack albums: Fame L.A., Our Friend, Martin and Stuart Little. Her contribution to the Stuart Little soundtrack was a cover of the 1992 Exposé song "As Long As I Can Dream," written by legendary pop songwriter Diane Warren. The other two soundtracks featured her songs from It's Not Over.
Debelah filed for bankruptcy after leaving Universal, but she refused to give up her singing career and began working on a new album. She co-wrote all of the tracks with her brother. When she presented the material to Atlantic, they quickly signed her, not remembering that they had signed her before. Her album Dance with Me was released in 2000. The title track, based on "Hernando's Hideaway," a popular tango song, became a hit, peaking at No. 8 on the Billboard Singles chart and gaining popularity all over the world. In Spain, a Spanish version, "Baila Conmigo" was also released. Debelah went on the media circuit for "Dance with Me," finally getting the heavy promotion she hadn't received from Atlantic on her debut album.
One of the songs from Dance With Me was featured on the soundtrack to the MTV series Spyder Games, while a new Diane Warren ballad, "Why Did You Have To Be?", appeared on the soundtrack for Osmosis Jones.
In August 2001, Morgan released a second single called "I Remember," which was not a chart success. No more singles from the album were released and Morgan dropped completely off the radar. In 2003, her management company said she was working on a new album, due for release in late 2003, but no album was ever released and Atlantic closed her official website without an explanation.
She recorded two songs for the soundtrack of the movie Road Kings: "Fly Free" and "I'll Take You There." It has been rumored that she is recording a new album and will soon release a comeback single, but that has not been confirmed.
[edit] Voice
Debelah Morgan possesses a 5 octave vocal range and is able to sing in whistle register. When asked about singing using an ability that most "only associate with Mariah Carey" during an interview for hiponline.com, Debelah weighed in, explaining, "I started classical training, and it’s amazing because you listen to something like The Magic Flute by Mozart and I really got into it. I also realized that the same vocal cords that it takes to sing pop and R&B are the same as it takes to sing classical. So I stretched my vocal cords so I could sing up there, and I think it’s truly a gift from God, but I did put in a lot of practice."
An August 11, 2000 interview with Barnes and Noble also reviewed her CD and voice positively saying that her record "showcases her Mariah-esque, five-octave range and her love for sweet, uplifting songs."
[edit] Discography
[edit] Albums
| Album information |
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Debelah
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It's Not Over
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Dance With Me
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[edit] Singles
| Year | Title | Album | US Pop | US R&B | US Dance | UK Top 75 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1994 | "Take It Easy" | Debelah | - | 56 | - | - |
| 1994 | "Free" | Debelah | - | 96 | - | - |
| 1998 | "Yesterday" | It's Not Over | 56 | 28 | 45 | - |
| 1998 | "I Love You" | It's Not Over | - | - | - | - |
| 2000 | "Dance With Me" | Dance With Me | 8 | 27 | 4 | 10 |
| 2001 | "I Remember" | Dance With Me | - | - | - | - |
[edit] See also
[edit] External links/References
- References for information on her voice
