Ciara Biography

Ciara's debut single, Goodies, became a hit, reaching the top of the United States pop, hip-hop and R&B charts, and also charting in the United Kingdom (in January 2005, also reaching number one), Australia, Germany, Sweden, and New Zealand. With help from Jazze Pha, Sean Garrett, and Lil Jon, Ciara released her debut album, Goodies on September 28, 2004. It entered the Billboard 200 chart at #3, and sold over three million copies in the USA alone. The second single, "1, 2 Step", featuring Missy Elliott, reached the top five in the U.S., peaking at #2 in early 2005. The single was released in the U.K. on April 11 the same year, and reached #3, benefiting from the fact that it was the first week that downloads were incorporated into the singles chart. Ciara charted one place higher than she would have done if downloads had not been included in the chart formula; she would have instead swapped places with Elvis Presley's re-issue of "The Wonder of You". In May 2005, Ciara's third single, "Oh" featuring Ludacris, reached #2 on the Hot 100 and #4 on the U.K. charts. In July of 2005 she released her DVD of all three of her music videos, the makings of two of them, commentaries of two of them, behind the scenes footage of her rehearsals for the Soul Train Awards, and multi-angle shots of Goodies, entitled Goodies: The Videos & More. Ciara was featured on Missy Elliott's #3 hit "Lose Control", taken from the rapper's sixth album, The Cookbook. Because of this collaboration she can be considered a two-way artist, meaning she can both rap and sing equally well. In the fall of 2005, she was featured singing alongside Bow Wow, on the second single from his third album Wanted entitled "Like You". The duet also reached a peak of #3. In the meantime her fourth single, "And I", was released and peaked at #96 which was relatively poor compared to the first three singles. In the December of 2005 Ciara joined Gwen Stefani on her "Harajuku Lovers Tour", before going on tour with Bow Wow and Chris Brown for the "Holladay Jam" which stopped at cities like New York and Atlanta. On February 8, 2006 Ciara won her first Grammy for Best Short Form Music Video along with Missy Elliott. She also performed a duet with Maroon 5's Adam Levine during the show in tribute to the legendary R&B musician Sly Stone, a cover of Sly & the Family Stone's 1968 classic "Everyday People". Afterwards Ciara finished a MTV coming-of-age film, entitled All You've Got.