Samantha James is an American dance pop singer from Los Angeles, known for her style of blending downtempo to uptempo dance music, with soulful vocal styles. She released her debut album, ''

Rise Rise or RISE may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities * '' Rise: The Vieneo Province'', an internet-based virtual world * Rise FM, a fictional radio station in the video game ''Grand Theft Auto 3'' * Rise Kujikawa, a vide ...

'', in 2007 through

Om Records Om Records is an American record label, established in 1995, which releases electronic music, dance music and hip hop. The label was founded in San Francisco in 1995 by Chris Smith. Om Records releases both artist albums and compilations, incl ...

. The title track from the album was released as a single the year prior, and reached No. 1 on the US ''Billboard''

Hot Dance Club Songs Dance Club Songs is a chart published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine in the United States. It is a national look over of club disc jockeys to determine the most popular songs being played in nightclubs across the country. It was launched as t ...

chart.

Life and career

The daughter of Melanie Lee Rose, and granddaughter of musician David Rose, James grew up with different types of music. During her teens, she became heavily involved in the underground dance scene in Los Angeles. Her influences include

Pat Metheny Patrick Bruce Metheny ( ; born August 12, 1954) is an American jazz guitarist and composer. He is the leader of the Pat Metheny Group and is also involved in duets, solo works, and other side projects. His style incorporates elements of progre ...

Sade Sade may refer to: People * Marquis de Sade (1740–1814), French aristocrat, writer, and libertine * Sade (singer) (born 1959, Helen Folasade Adu), British Nigerian musician and lead singer of the eponymous band * Sade Baderinwa (born 1969), WAB ...

Tracey Thorn Tracey Anne Thorn (born 26 September 1962) is a British singer. She is best known as being one half of the duo Everything but the Girl from 1982 to 1999. She was a member of the band Marine Girls between 1980 and 1983 and since 2007 has been ...

Lady Miss Kier Kierin Magenta Kirby (aka Lady Miss Kier) is an American singer, songwriter, DJ, designer, fashion icon, and activist. During her career, Lady Miss Kier has been the vocalist for the band Deee-Lite, a disc jockey, and solo songwriter. She support ...

Madonna Madonna Louise Ciccone (; ; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer-songwriter and actress. Widely dubbed the " Queen of Pop", Madonna has been noted for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, songwriting, a ...

Esthero Esthero ( ; born Jenny-Bea Englishman on December 23, 1978 in Stratford, Ontario) is a Canadian singer-songwriter who lives in Los Angeles, California. The name ''Esthero'' refers both to the singer and formerly to the two-person team of herself ...

Morcheeba Morcheeba is an English electronic band formed in the mid-1990s with founding members vocalist Skye Edwards and the brothers Paul and Ross Godfrey. They mix influences from trip hop, rock music, rock, folk rock and downtempo, and have produced ...

Bebel Gilberto Isabel Buarque de Hollanda Gilberto de Oliveira (born May 12, 1966), known as Bebel Gilberto, is an American-born Brazilian popular singer often associated with bossa nova. She is the daughter of João Gilberto and singer Miúcha. Her uncle is ...

Basia Barbara Stanisława Trzetrzelewska (Polish: , born 30 September 1954), better known as Basia, is a Polish singer-songwriter and recording artist noted for her Latin-inspired jazz-pop music. She began singing professionally in various Polish ban ...

, and

Róisín Murphy Róisín Marie Murphy ( , ; born 5 July 1973) is an Irish singer, songwriter, and record producer. She first became known in the 1990s as one half of the pop duo Moloko alongside English musician Mark Brydon. After the breakup of Moloko, she em ...

. At the age of 13, James lost her mother to breast cancer, after an eight-year battle with the disease. After eight years of working on her music, she met

Sebastian Arocha Morton Sebastian Arocha Morton is a Grammy-nominated American record producer and composer based in Los Angeles, California. Throughout his career as a record producer and songwriter, Morton has worked with many notable artists, including Seal, Sting, ...

, who worked with artists such as

Sting Sting may refer to: * Stinger or sting, a structure of an animal to inject venom, or the injury produced by a stinger * Irritating hairs or prickles of a stinging plant, or the plant itself Fictional characters and entities * Sting (Middle-eart ...

Vikter Duplaix Vikter Duplaix (born October 14, 1969), is an American singer-songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist, and DJ. Duplaix has traditional soul singer's beginnings – being raised in both Philadelphia and Augusta, Georgia singing in church ch ...

, and

Fischerspooner Fischerspooner were an electroclash duo and performance troupe formed in 1998 in Chicago after meeting in school. The name is a combination of the founders' last names, Warren Fischer and Casey Spooner. Career Originally a duo formed by classi ...

. When she met Morton, James was determined to be different from other artists. After a while, James and Morton came up with a mix of soulful and electronic music and continued on that path. James and friend Dave Curtin discussed which label would be good for her music and came up with

. When they contacted the label and sent them a demo of her song "Rise", she was signed on to a single deal. After a while, she was signed to do a full-length album. When she released her first single "

" in 2006, it reached No. 1 on the ''Billboard'' Hot Dance Club Songs chart. Shortly after releasing her debut album, she toured around the world. In 2009, James announced that she was working on a new album named ''

Subconscious In psychology, the subconscious is the part of the mind that is not currently of focal awareness. Scholarly use of the term The word ''subconscious'' represents an anglicized version of the French ''subconscient'' as coined in 1889 by the psycho ...

''. James later stated that just before ''

'' was released, her father died and she took some time off before producing material for the new album. On the new album she worked with producer (and old school friend) Shane Drasin since Morton was busy working on other projects. On June 22, 2010, James released the album. James released the song "Wings of Faith", dedicated to Japan, due to the tsunami in March 2011.

Discography

* ''

'' (2007) * ''

'' (2010)

References

External links

Samantha James
on Facebook
Samantha James
on

Discogs Discogs (short for discographies) is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. While the site was originally created with a goal of becoming the la ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:James, Samantha 21st-century American women singers American contemporary R&B singers American dance musicians American electronic musicians American women pop singers American women singer-songwriters American house musicians American people of British-Jewish descent American pop musicians American rhythm and blues singer-songwriters American sopranos American soul singers American women in electronic music Chill-out musicians Dance-pop musicians Downtempo musicians Jewish American musicians Jewish women singers Living people People from Greater Los Angeles Singers from Los Angeles Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American singers 21st-century American Jews Singer-songwriters from California Women in electronic music

Life and career

Discography

See also

References

External links