Music Artist Ciara
By: Mar

Early life
Ciara was born in Austin, Texas to Carlton Clay Harris and Jackie Smith. During her childhood her father was in the military so she has lived in several countries, but claims Atlanta, Georgia as her hometown. She has said that it was seeing a televised performance by Destiny's Child that inspired her to pursue a career in music. In her early teens she formed the goal to become a professional singer. She joined a girl group called Hearsay, worked on her songwriting, eventually left the group, got a publishing deal, and found a "music soul mate" when she met producer Jazze Pha.

Goodies
Ciara's debut single, "Goodies", became a hit, reaching the top of the United States pop 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 two milion 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.

After Goodies
Furthermore 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 past love interest, 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, entitled "Everyday People". Afterwards Ciara finished a MTV coming-of-age film, entitled All You've Got.

Sophomore album
Her new single is said to be "Get Up", which is included on the soundtrack to the motion picture Step Up, released in August 2006. She is working on her sophomore album which will be released in the fall of 2006 and involves producers Jazze Pha, Rodney Jerkins and Sean Garrett. Ciara also participated in a charity single for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, written and produced by Michael Jackson. The single, entitled "I Have This Dream", is also to be released sometime in 2006. Ciara has been nominated for the Video of the Year award with Missy Elliot and the Best Collaboration award with Bow Wow at the 2006 B.E.T. Awards. It aired on June the 27th.