Name	El DeBarge
Height
Naionality	American
Date of Birth	4-June-1961
Place of Birth	Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
Famous for	Singing

El DeBarge is an American R&B/pop singer-songwriter, best known as the lead singer of the R&B/soul music family group DeBarge throughout the early to mid-1980s. As a solo artist, he is best known for the hits "Who's Johnny" and "Love Always" and for his collaborations with Tone Loc, Quincy Jones, Fourplay and DJ Quik. DeBarge is a three-time Grammy nominee.

In 1981, The DeBarges was released after the family had worked in the studio for a year recording it. The album was noted for most of its songs produced and written by all four family members including Bobby DeBarge, who helped end the album track, "Queen of My Heart" after El had led the song for most of its tenure. The following album, 1982's All This Love featured younger brother James and saw much success with the compositions, "I Like It" and the title track. El would remain the producer and arranger for all of the group's Motown albums. In 1983, De Barge released In a Special Way, which spawned the hits "Time Will Reveal" and "Love Me in a Special Way" and in 1984, the band became a sensation while touring for Luther Vandross on the singer's Busy Body tour. Though the group enjoyed much success and appeared to be a family unit, there was growing tensions between El and his brothers mainly because of Motown's push to have El become the only noted star of the group, repeating a pattern that began with Smokey Robinson and The Miracles. By the end of the tour, El De Barge was mainly called to handle the production of De Barge's next album, Rhythm of the Night, without much help from his siblings.

Rhythm of the Night became the group's best-selling album ever though some contended that El De Barge was the only member present on the album with the exception of the title track, which became a top five hit in several countries including the US and UK becoming the group's and El's signature song. In 1986, El De Barge left the group and began his solo career with the release of his self-titled debut album, which spawned the hits, "Who's Johnny" and "Love Always". Three years passed, however, until De Barge released his second album, Gemini in 1989. The album was a failure and De Barge's contract with Motown was terminated in 1990 and he signed with Warner Bros. In the meantime, De Barge was featured on the Quincy Jones single, "The Secret Garden (Sweet Seduction Suite)", alongside Al B. Sure!, James Ingram and Barry White, released in 1990.

In 1992, De Barge released his third album, the Maurice White-produced In The Storm, which featured the Chante Moore duet, "You Know What I Like", which was Moore's first professional recording. Critics noted the album for its Marvin Gaye-styled productions, with El De Barge later admitting that Gaye was a huge influence on his musical style. He once commented that he had initially written "All This Love" as a song he imagined Gaye doing, even imitating Gaye's ad-libs during his I Want You era near the end. That same year, he had chart success on the R&B charts with collaboration with Four play on their version of Gaye's "After the Dance". De Barge's next album, 1994's Heart, Mind and Soul, was co-produced with Baby face, yielding modest charted singles such as "Slide" and "Where is My Love" (which featured Baby face on duet vocals).