LaFee | |
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Background information | |
Birth name | Christina Klein |
Born | December 9, 1990 |
Genres | Pop rock |
Years active | 2004 – Present |
Labels | 2005–2009: EMI, 2010: Capitol Records |
Website | www.lafee.de (German) |
Members | LaFee (singer) |
Past members |
Ricky Garcia (guitar) Omar Ibrahim (bass) Goran Vujic (bass) Klaus Hochhäuser (keyboards) Tamon Nüssner (drums) |
Christina Klein (born December 9, 1990), better known by her stage name LaFee, is a German singer/songwriter who has sold more than one million records worldwide. She is most famous in mainland Europe, particularly in German-speaking countries.
Klein was born in Büsbach near Stolberg in the district of Aachen, North Rhine-Westphalia. Her father, Bernd Klein, is German while her mother, Keriakoulla, is Greek. She is the younger of two children. She has an older brother, Andreas.
At the age of nine, she began sending out demo tapes to television shows leading her to perform on three of them. She participated in Kiddy Contest, an Austrian children's TV singing competition, in September 2004 at the age of thirteen, performing Handy, a parody of Barry Manilow's Mandy. It was this television appearance that led to her being discovered by German music producer Bob Arnz. Then she worked on her first album.
LaFee's first single Virus was released in 2006 from her debut album LaFee. Since the start of her career LaFee was supported by the magazine Bravo and the music channel VIVA. Virus reached fourteen on both the German and Austrian singles chart and her second single, Prinzesschen (Little princess), reached rank 11 in the German charts. Was ist das (What is that) and Mitternacht (Midnight) were charted in the German and Austrian charts, too.
She released her second album, Jetzt erst recht (Now more than ever) on July 6, 2007, and the album's lead single, Heul doch (Keep crying), in 2007. Shortly afterwards Heul doch was translated into English as Shut Up for her third studio album. The song reached the German top 10. The album "Jetzt erst recht" charted in the Italian albums chart at #94 and in the French albums chart at #79. It went Platinum in Germany and Gold in Austria. Her acting debut was on Nina's Welt which was broadcast from November 2006 until the spring of 2007. Later she made an appearance on the German daily soap Gute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten (Good times, bad times). Her biggest gig was on 31 December 2006 New Year's Eve at the Brandenburg Gate, with more than one million viewers. On 25 August 2007 Klein had a gig as a part of the open-air events at the Brandenburg Gate in front of 119,000 people. The second single was Beweg dein Arsch (Move your ass) which charted at #21 on the German charts. On 16 November 2007, she released the third single Wer bin ich (Who am I) which reached #25 on the German singles chart and #41 on the Austrian singles chart. In addition, she has received the Echo award for Best Female Singer, Bravo Gold Otto for Best Pop Female Singer and the Jetix Kids' award for Best Solo Act. The album was also re-released as a Bravo special edition with bonus songs on 27 November 2008.