Deborah Cox

ENTERTAINMENT

By the age of 12, Scarborough native Deborah Cox was already performing professionally. Having won a local TV talent contest, she started singing jingles for commercials, then hooked up with local live bands. With her high school friend Lascelles Stephens, she began writing songs and making demos, and eventually landed a position as a backup singer to Celine Dion. Then Clive Davis spotted her for his Arista label, and her education shifted into a higher gear. Her first album, DEBORAH COX was released in 1995, and achieved platinum status, yielding R&B/pop hits like “Who Do U Love?,” “Sentimental” and “Where Do We Go From Here,” and in 1997 she scored her first big dance hit with “Things Just Ain’t the Same” from the “Money Talks” soundtrack. That first dance hit has lead Deborah to becoming one of the most popular dance artists in the world and she has scored an impressive nine #1 hits on Billboard’sHot Dance Club Play chart. Her second release, ONE WISH (1998) also achieved platinum sales, garnering the two smash hits, “We Can’t Be Friends” and “Nobody’s Supposed To Be Here,” which holds the record for being the longest running #1 R&B single for 14 consecutive weeks. 2002 saw the release of THE MORNING AFTER and later an album compiling all of her best dance remixes entitled DEBORAH COX: REMIXED. As an actress, Deborah played the role of a singer in the film “Love Come Down,” and was later featured in “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” as well as an episode of “Nash Bridges.” In 2007, she paid effusive tribute to her childhood idol, Dinah Washington, with her album, DESTINATION MOON, which garnered Deborah a Grammy Award nomination in 2008. On Nov. 11 of this year, her latest labour of love, The Promise, will be released, an album that takes her back to her R&B roots.