My Stuff: My Babes List (#49)

#49 Mya

Mya Marie Harrison (born October 10, 1979 in Washington, D.C.) is an American R&B singer, dancer, and actress who debuted in early 1998 as a teenager. She is usually credited simply as Mya. However, she has also been credited as Mya Harrison for acting roles.

Biography

Growing up in the Baltimore/D.C. area, Mya studied both singing and dancing as a child, at one point taking lessons in New York City from Savion Glover. As a teenager, she appeared as a panelist on BET's Teen Summit talk show.

In 1997, Mya signed a recording contract with Haqq Islam's University Records, after being brought to the label by her friends in the R&B group Dru Hill. The four members of the group, Tamir "Nokio" Ruffin, Mark "Sisqó" Andrews, Larry "Jazz" Anthony', and James "Woody" Green, wrote and produced half of Mya's eponymous debut album. The first two singles, "It's All About Me" and "Movin' On," were co-written by Sisqó; the former song also featured Sisqó on guest vocals, while the latter featured rapper Silkk Tha Shocker. The third single, the love ballad "My First Night With You", was written by Diane Warren. Although the singles all had substantial airplay on urban and rhythmic radio, they all also failed to cross over onto pop radio. Nevertheless, the videos for all three songs were MTV staples through 1998.

Besides her own work, Mya was a featured artist (she sang the chorus), with Ol' Dirty Bastard, on Pras' smash summer 1998 hit, "Ghetto Supastar (That Is What You Are)". During the fall of the same year, she also scored a pop hit as a featured vocalist on Blackstreet's "Take Me There", which also featured guest raps from Ma$e and Blinky Blink.

In 2000, Mya returned to the music scene with her second album, Fear Of Flying. Its first single, "Best Of Me," was an urban R&B song that featured rapper Jadakiss and had an even more urban hip-hop remix, which featured Jay-Z. Once again, the song and its remix were huge on urban radio, but did not have any pop success. Mya's first big pop hit came with the second Fear Of Flying single, "Case Of The Ex". The song's video was also huge on MTV's TRL. Following the success of "Case Of The Ex," Interscope re-released Fear Of Flying with a revised track order and two additional songs, including Mya's third single, "Free." "Free" was even more pop-friendly and also became quite successful on MTV, TRL, and pop radio.

In spring of 2001, Mya joined forces with Lil Kim, Pink, and Christina Aguilera, on a remake of Patti LaBelle's "Lady Marmalade". The track was produced by hip-hop producers Missy Elliott and Rockwilder and was featured in Baz Luhrman's Moulin Rouge. The song's success was driven by its sexually suggestive video, which featured the four singers dressed in burlesque. Pink and Mya later described that the immodest concept almost prevented the video from being filmed (Mya appeared with a whipping switch in the video's opening scene); nonetheless, the video was a huge hit on MTV, VH1, and MTV2, and collected several MTV Video Music Awards in 2001. The song was also one of the year's biggest at pop, rhythmic, and even adult top 40--an unlikely supporter of any song at all urban-leaning--radio stations, receiving a dizzying 120+ plays per week at some American radio stations during the peak of its success. Though all four performers have had at least one subsequent mainstream hit, none of them has since achieved the same magnitude of chart success as they did with "Lady Marmalade".

Around the same time, Mya also began to dabble in acting. She had a supporting role in the 2002 musical film, Chicago, and most recently in 2005's Cursed.

In the summer of 2003, Mya released the video for "My Love Is Like... Wo", the lead single from her third album, Moodring. The song was arguably Mya's poppiest solo song yet, which necessitated a more urban remix. Despite lackluster support from the hip-hop crowd, the song managed to become a top 20 hit in the U.S. due to its mainstream pop success. The follow-up single was "Fallen", a poppier song still that was not commercially successful but whose video remains in fairly heavy rotation to this day on VH1 Soul. The concept for the video for "My Love Is Like...Wo" was developed by Mya herself; it is notable for a break in the middle which features Mya doing a tap dance.

Moodring debuted at #3,selling 113,000 copies in it's first week. However,Moodring's modest success was eclipsed by her peers Monica, Beyoncé, and Ashanti, who released their Platinum plus selling albums that same summer. Unlike them, Moodring didn't debut at #1 and only went Gold selling only 683,000 to date. And unlike those girls, Moodring failed to produce a single that made it to the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. The second single from the album, "Fallen" (A song that sampled from Pharacyde)failed to become a big hit.

Mya is recently recording her fourth album, that's scheduled for early 2006 tentatively titled, 'Control Freak'.

Mya has a sopranos and a highly energetic voice, although it's not like Brandy's or Monica's.

Year	Title	Chart Positions			Album
Year	Title	US Hot 100	US R&B/Hip-Hop	UK Singles	Album
1998	It's All About Me ^{(featuring Sisqó of Dru Hill)}	#6	#2	-	Mya
1998	Movin' On ^{(featuring Silkk Tha Shocker)}	#34	#4	-	Mya
1998	Ghetto Supastar (That Is What You Are) ^{(with Pras & Ol' Dirty Bastard)}	#15	#1	#2	Ghetto Supastar
1998	Take Me There ^{(with Blackstreet, Blinky Blink & Ma$e)}	#2	#10	#3	Finally
1999	My First Night With You	#28	#28	-	Mya
2000	The Best Of Me ^{(featuring Jadakiss)}	#50	#14	-	Fear Of Flying
2001	The Best Of Me (Holla Main Remix) ^{(featuring Jay-Z)}	-	#35	-	Fear Of Flying
2001	Case Of The Ex	#2	#10	#3	Fear Of Flying
2001	Girls Dem Sugar ^{(with Beenie Man)}	-	-	#13	From Kingston To King
2001	Free	#42	#52	#11	Fear Of Flying
2001	Lady Marmalade ^{(with Christina Aguilera, Pink & Lil' Kim)}	#1	#1	#1	Moulin Rouge (Soundtrack)
2003	My Love Is Like ... Wo	13	17	33	Moodring
2003	Fallen	#51	#35	-	Moodring
2005	Sugar Daddy ^{(with Cuban Link)}	#51	#35	-	Chain Reaction

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Friday, January 13, 2006

My Babes List (#49)

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