| Name |
Jaya |
| Height |
|
| Naionality |
Filipino |
| Date of Birth |
21-March-1969 |
| Place of Birth |
Manila, Philippines |
| Famous for |
Singing |
Jaya is a Filipino soul music, singer, rapper, dancer, record producer, TV host, and actress of mixed Filipino and Jamaican descent. She is dubbed as the Soul Diva and The Asia's Queen of Soul and is currently a contract artist of GMA Artist Center. She is the first Filipino recording artist to chart in the United States, as her debut single "If You Leave Me Now" peaked at 44 at the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
1995 was a turning point in Jaya's musical career. Asia's Queen of Songs Pilita Corrales noticed her voice after Jaya did an opening act for Corrales, Carmen Soriano, the late Bert "Tawa" Marcelo, and Elizabeth in the U.S. Corrales then asked Jaya if she would come to Manila and record an album. Jaya went back to her native land and signed a record deal with Viva Records in March 1995 and completed her first local album. Five songs were recorded in the US while the rest were done in the Philippines. Jaya is Philippine Music Industry's Female Record Holder of an 7 times platinum album. She was a big hit when Pinoys first get to hear her belt out soul ditties in 1996. Her winning the 1996 Metro pop Song Festival via Danny Tan's "Sometimes You Just Know" made her the biggest star on the rise at the close of the last century. Her first album under Viva Records hit an all-time high of 8 times platinum closely followed by Jessa Zaragoza 2 years after.
In 1997, she released her third album In the Raw, (second in the Philippines) the follow-up to her massive-selling 1996 Philippine debut album, Jaya, which sold a remarkable nine times platinum, (360,000 units; platinum is 40,000 units sold) In 2001, Jaya released her sixth Unleashed album. Jaya sings in a relaxed, confident manner, and performs middle-of-the-road songs that mostly have depth and quality. Jaya mostly foregoes the soulful embellishments that were plentiful in her first two albums, 1996's Jaya and 1997's In the Raw, although every so often she adds a few unwritten notes in a passionate, soulful manner.
She approached her last album, 1999's Honesty, in the refined manner that she furthers on Unleashed. Jaya covers Roy Orbison's "Love Hurts" and John Lennon's "Love" in an understated, yet enjoyable manner. Johnny Nash's "I Can See Clearly" features an imaginative, bass-heavy arrangement. 2007, she released her eighth album Cool Change under her new label, GMA Records, featuring covers of international hit songs including Donna Summer's "On the Radio" and the Chaka Khan's "Through the Fire". All of the songs were presented with new arrangements in various musical genres. The first single was "Is It Over?" originally sung by Ronnie Mil sap which received Platinum award in 2009.
