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AboutShe has had hits all over the world including America and now Des'ree returns with an outstanding new collection of songs, written over the last four years. Des'ree's songs resonate with the ordinary made extraordinary. Her gift is to take experiences from daily lives and mundane happenings and elevate them to magical status and combine them with beautiful melodies and that lush, caramel voice to build something special. Des'ree is a Sagittarius, born in London on November 30th. Her parents had arrived from the Caribbean in the early 60s and it was after a 3-year spell in Barbados when Des'ree was 14 that she decided to devote her life to music. Through her parents' record collection, the young Des'ree had become familiar with jazz, reggae, calypso and gospel but as a teenager she began to write her own poetry and set it to melody. At the age of 23, Des'ree made a demo tape which found its way onto the right desk at Sony. The tape contained a song called 'Feel So High' which very quickly became Des'ree's first hit single - in fact 'Feel So High' still holds the Sony record for the shortest time between a demo tape landing on a desk and a debut single being in shops: twelve weeks!
The success of 'Feel So High' and the accompanying album 'Mind Adventures' launched Des'ree as an international star, but it was the lead single from her second album 'I Ain't Movin' which pushed her career stratospheric. 'You Gotta Be' became an anthem for positivity, not just in the UK and Europe but across the world. In America the song stayed on the Billboard recurrent airplay chart for 80 weeks and became the highest rotation video on VH1. At home, 'You Gotta Be' was chosen to appear on the tribute album to Diana, Princess of Wales in autumn 1997. 'You Gotta Be' has been remixed and re-released twice and each time has become a Top 20 hit single - the only song in the 1990s to have charted three times inside the 20.
A 1995 US Tour with Seal cemented Des'ree's position as an international superstar. It was the hottest ticket in town, and as Seal's support, Des'ree got a standing ovation every night. In the same year, she performed at the first ever secular concert in the Vatican and received a blessing from Pope John Paul II. Between 'I Ain't Movin' and her third album 'Supernatural', Des'ree dabbled in the world of movie soundtracks, with considerable success. She provided songs for Spike Lee's 'Clockers', 'Set It Off', and most notably Baz Luhrmann's 'Romeo & Juliet'. Des'ree sang 'Kissing You (Love Theme from Romeo & Juliet)' which accompanied the first meeting on screen between Leonardo di Caprio's 'Romeo' and Claire Danes' 'Juliet' and which, for many, was the highlight of the soundtrack. 'Supernatural', released in 1998, became Des'ree's most successful album to date - the first single from 'Supernatural' was 'Life' which became a Top 10 smash in June and the follow-up 'What's Your Sign' became a Top 20 hit in November. A world tour took in America, Europe and the Far East and it was here in late 1998 and early 1999 that the first songs for the new Des'ree album began to take shape. In The Phillippines, while she was relaxing in her hotel pool, Des'ree began to develop the lyric and melody for 'Cool Morning', a very clean, very pure vocal. Around the same time she co-wrote 'Why' with Prince Sampson a guitarist / composer. "The way I write songs does vary," says Des'ree, "but usually I get a snippet of a lyric and then a bit of melody and then I develop it from there. I might sing it around the house for a few hours until it becomes a song. Or I'll take an idea to the other musicians working with me on the album and we'll come up with something together. Sometims I get songs very early in the morning, say 5am or 6am. They just come to me. I have a dictaphone by the bed now so I can reach over and store the ideas." "On the album, 'Something Special' came out of a coffee break - I was just chilling with one of the guys in the band, he started to play guitar and I got these lines: "Recorded just in case. The challenges we face. To make a little space. I think we need more bass." It became a song about how songs are written! 'It's OK' on the other hand was written when I was feeling a bit pissed off. It came out of me feeling downhearted about things and it turned into a song about a day in the life of everyone."
This is Des'ree's world. A world striving for peace and understanding; a world where beauty and hope is discovered in the most unlikely places or in the simplest events. Return to Des'ree's website and you find this: "Thank you for my birthday wishes. I had a lovely day. I got sent so many flowers. I just love flowers. My house smells beautiful. In the evening I lit candles around the house and just meditated. There was a full moon. A friend once told me that you should give thanks on the full moon and make your wishes on the new moon. So that's just what I did..."
The success of 'Feel So High' and the accompanying album 'Mind Adventures' launched Des'ree as an international star, but it was the lead single from her second album 'I Ain't Movin' which pushed her career stratospheric. 'You Gotta Be' became an anthem for positivity, not just in the UK and Europe but across the world. In America the song stayed on the Billboard recurrent airplay chart for 80 weeks and became the highest rotation video on VH1. At home, 'You Gotta Be' was chosen to appear on the tribute album to Diana, Princess of Wales in autumn 1997. 'You Gotta Be' has been remixed and re-released twice and each time has become a Top 20 hit single - the only song in the 1990s to have charted three times inside the 20.
A 1995 US Tour with Seal cemented Des'ree's position as an international superstar. It was the hottest ticket in town, and as Seal's support, Des'ree got a standing ovation every night. In the same year, she performed at the first ever secular concert in the Vatican and received a blessing from Pope John Paul II. Between 'I Ain't Movin' and her third album 'Supernatural', Des'ree dabbled in the world of movie soundtracks, with considerable success. She provided songs for Spike Lee's 'Clockers', 'Set It Off', and most notably Baz Luhrmann's 'Romeo & Juliet'. Des'ree sang 'Kissing You (Love Theme from Romeo & Juliet)' which accompanied the first meeting on screen between Leonardo di Caprio's 'Romeo' and Claire Danes' 'Juliet' and which, for many, was the highlight of the soundtrack. 'Supernatural', released in 1998, became Des'ree's most successful album to date - the first single from 'Supernatural' was 'Life' which became a Top 10 smash in June and the follow-up 'What's Your Sign' became a Top 20 hit in November. A world tour took in America, Europe and the Far East and it was here in late 1998 and early 1999 that the first songs for the new Des'ree album began to take shape. In The Phillippines, while she was relaxing in her hotel pool, Des'ree began to develop the lyric and melody for 'Cool Morning', a very clean, very pure vocal. Around the same time she co-wrote 'Why' with Prince Sampson a guitarist / composer. "The way I write songs does vary," says Des'ree, "but usually I get a snippet of a lyric and then a bit of melody and then I develop it from there. I might sing it around the house for a few hours until it becomes a song. Or I'll take an idea to the other musicians working with me on the album and we'll come up with something together. Sometims I get songs very early in the morning, say 5am or 6am. They just come to me. I have a dictaphone by the bed now so I can reach over and store the ideas." "On the album, 'Something Special' came out of a coffee break - I was just chilling with one of the guys in the band, he started to play guitar and I got these lines: "Recorded just in case. The challenges we face. To make a little space. I think we need more bass." It became a song about how songs are written! 'It's OK' on the other hand was written when I was feeling a bit pissed off. It came out of me feeling downhearted about things and it turned into a song about a day in the life of everyone."
This is Des'ree's world. A world striving for peace and understanding; a world where beauty and hope is discovered in the most unlikely places or in the simplest events. Return to Des'ree's website and you find this: "Thank you for my birthday wishes. I had a lovely day. I got sent so many flowers. I just love flowers. My house smells beautiful. In the evening I lit candles around the house and just meditated. There was a full moon. A friend once told me that you should give thanks on the full moon and make your wishes on the new moon. So that's just what I did..."
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