Early life
Cantrell was born into a family of jazz enthusiasts from Providence, Rhode Island. She and her five siblings were born to an Italian American mother who is a jazz singer and an African American father who was an NBA basketball player. She was raised by her mother, in Atlanta, Georgia.
Music career
After several demo recordings Cantrell was discovered by Red Zone Entertainment heads Tab and Laney Stewart in early 2000. The producers promptly placed her to Antonio "L.A." Reid who offered the singer a contract with his label Arista Records after a successful audition. Afterwards Cantrell went straight into recording sessions with Dallas Austin, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, while - for a start - singing backup for artists such as Puff Daddy, Truth Hurts and Faith Evans.
In 2001, the singer released her debut album, So Blu, which eventually was certified platinum. The longplayer saw major success when it peaked at #8 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, eventually selling over 800,000 copies in the United States. The album featured the hit single "Hit 'Em Up Style (Oops!)", which peaked at #2 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and earned Cantrell a Grammy nomination for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance, as well as an American Music Awards nomination. The album also showcases her ability to go into the whistle register with the song "Waste My Time."[citation needed] In 2003, Cantrell released her second album, Bittersweet. The record failed to reprise the success of her debut album but did earn Cantrell a Grammy nomination for Best R&B Album and managed to enter the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart at #8. The album spawned 2 hit singles, these being "Breathe" and "Make Me Wanna Scream", of which the first is a collaboration with Sean Paul. Though breathe"" failed to reach the top 50 in the U.S., it later peaked at number one for four weeks in the UK. It eventually became one of the most successful singles of the year in both Europe and Australia.
In the summer of 2005, a music video for the previously unreleased song, "The Cha Cha" was produced, but never released because Cantrell ended up dissatisfied with the final result. Also in 2005, Hit 'em Up Style: Chart and Club Hits was released without any promotion in the U.S. It was a compilation/remix album containing Cantrell's two biggest hits, some other tracks from the former two albums and some remixes of tracks featured on the first albums.
However, Cantrell has since continued working on her yet-to-be-titled third album, scheduled for a 2007 release.[citation needed]
Magazine controversy
Blu Cantrell on the cover of Black Tail magazine in 2002.
Cantrell was the subject of controversy when photos of her aged 19 came to light from a brief period of work as a nude model for Black Tail magazine in 1995. The singer has said to the press:[citation needed]
“
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 porn.
