Jazmine Maria Sullivan is a singer and songwriter from the United States.
She currently lives in Philadelphia, Pensylvania.
Her main role models are Kim Burell, Brandy, Lauryn Hill, Dorinda Clark-Cole and American duo, Changing Faces.
In 2008, she released her first, debut album, called Fearless and it got gold certification in the United States.
Popular American rapper, Missy Elliot, was a producer of Jazmine’s first single, “Need U Bad” and this song contains reggae sound.
Awards that she got in 2009 at the 51st Grammy Awards were: Best Female R&B Vocal Performance, Best New Artist, Grammy Award for Best R&B Song, Grammy Award for Best Traditional R&B Performance and Grammy Award for Best Contemporary R&B Album.
Jazmine Sullivan says that she likes to write songs very much and that those songs often represent her feelings. Because of that, she can even write a song in a day, but also some of them take up to a month to be written.
Early life
The popular singer’s date of birth is April 9th, 1987. She is a daughter of Pam and Don Sullivan.
Pam was the Philadelphia International Records’ backup singer.
When Jazmine had five years, her father Don began to work at Strawberry Mansion section of Historic Strawberry Mansion in Philadelphia. He started to work as a curator and because of that they moved to that historical landmark.
Jazmine went to Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts and she graduated in 2005. She was a vocal music major in her high school days.
Her first steps as a singer were in the children’s choir as a contralto, and after that, she continued to sing in an adult choir.
In the beginning, she was limitedly exposed to secular kind of music.
Career and Discography
When she was only fifteen years old, she managed to sign a contract with Jive Records.
The first album she recorded was not released, and because of that, her contract was terminated.
Jazmine performed as a vocal the song “I Am” of the Kindred the Family Soul (American neo soul band), and also as a back vocal on “Party’s Over” of the same band.
One more song of this music group on which she performed as a back vocal was “Surrender to Love” and that is when she met Missy Elliot.
Missy Elliot decided to produce most of the songs from Jazmine’s first album Fearless, as well as every song on her second album, Love Me Back.
She wrote and recorded the song “Say I” together with Cool & Dre and this song was performed by Christina Milian.
The song “Need U Bad”, which was Sullivan’s breakthrough, was published in 2008.
Sandy “Pepa” Denton (Salt-n-Pepa) and Missy Elliot were featuring as additional vocals in this song.
“Need U Bad” was on the Billboard Hot 100 as number 37, and also it was in the top of the Hot R&B/Hip Hop Songs.
As said, her debut album was Fearless and it was published on September 23rd, 2008.
Songs from this album were mostly written by Jazmine, and she was also a producer on this project alongside Salaam Remi, Peter Edge, and Missy Elliot.
The debut of this album was a big success, as it managed to climb into first place of the Top R&B/Hip Hop Albums, as well as on the sixth place of the Billboard 200.
Sullivan appeared in the first episode of Glee (popular TV show on the Fox), performing her second single “Bust Your Windows”. This song also got a nomination for a Grammy award for Best R&B Song.
The third single that appeared on this album was “Lions, Tigers & Bears”. This single was released in December 2008.
As well as the first two singles, this one also made in the top ten of the Hot R&B/Hip Hop Songs. This tack also reached no 74 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Jazmine wanted to make a success in the UK, thus she released a single “Dream Big” there in 2009.
The album Fearless had a big success and it was sold in over 510,000 copies all over the United States.
She was a guest singer in one of the Jadakiss’s songs, named “Smoking Gun”, which was on his third album.
In the years 2008 and 2009, she appeared on two tours held by her fellow musicians. One was Maxwell’s (R&B singer) tour in 2008 and the other one was Year of the Gentleman Tour of Ne-Yo in 2009.
Sullivan was also a part of the Ace Hood’s song “Champion”.
In 2009, Jazmine had a part in some commercials for the Cotton Incorporated.
Sullivan has a collaboration with Snoop Dogg in her career. She guested in one of the songs on his tenth album. The song is called “Different Languages”.
The second album of this popular young rapper was Love Me Back. She started working on it in 2009.
Collaborators on this album were Missy Elliot, Salaam Remi, Lamb, Anthony Bell, Ryan Leslie, Ne-Yo, and Los da Mystro.
On this album, there were songs such as “Don’t Make Me Wait” (which was a tribute to Prince), “Love You Long Time”, “Excuse Me”, “Redemption”, “Good Enough” and continuation of “Bust Your Windows”, a song named “You Get On My Nerves”.
This album was published on November 30th, 2010, and besides being on Billboard 200 on no 17, it was sold in 57,000 only in the first week.
After this album, she gave an interview in which she said that writing songs had a therapeutic influence on her and that some of them are picturing her life.
The lead single on this album was “Holding You Down (Goin’ in Circles). This song was published on July 10th, 2010, and it was on the 60th place on the Billboard Hot 100 after its debut.
Jazmine even made a music video for this song, which premiere was on August 30th, 2010. It also got a nomination for the Best Female R&B Vocal Performance on the commission of Grammy Award in 2011.
Another Sullivan’s single was on this album. It was “10 Seconds”, which was published on radio and it managed to get on the 15th place of the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs.
Sullivan made a music video for this song, as well, and it was published on November 12th, 2010.
She was honored by the Billboard, in 2010, as the “Rising Star”.
During January 2011, Jazmine had an interview in which she said that she is going to leave the music industry. She also said that her decision is not final and that she might come back on the music scene at some point.
After 3 years pause, she came back to the music world, and she announced her new project, the third album Reality Show.
During an interview, which she gave to Billboard, she stated that her return was unavoidable since she cannot run away from her calling.
The inspiration for this album she found by watching reality shows on television, during a pause in her music career.
There were 14 songs on this album, which were produced by her old companion, Salaam Remi, and Key Wane.
Track “Dumb” was the leading single of this album and in this song, American rapper, Meek Mill was featuring. It was published on May 12th, 2014.
After its debut, the song finished on the 45th place of the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay.
“Forever Don’t Last” was the second single which was published on September 16th, 2014. The song managed to climb up to the 10th place of the Adult R&B Songs.
During 2015, Sullivan’s third album reached number one on the Billboard R&B Albums, and it was on the second place of the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums.
In the first week, after it was published, Reality Show was sold in 30,000 copies.
Sullivan’s third album was a big success, and she got nominated for three Grammy Awards. These nominations included Best R&B Album, as well as Best Traditional R&B Performance.
Frank Ocean’s visual album “Endless” was featured by Jazmine Sullivan in 2016. She appeared, as a vocal, in four songs: “Hublots”, “Alabama”, “Rushes” and “Wither”.
Jazmine was also the lead writer of the four songs which were on the album Strenght of a Woman, released by Mary J. Blige. These songs were “Set Me Free”, Thank You”, “Glow Up” and “Thick of It”.
She also performed as a back vocal on three of these songs: “Set Me Free”, “Thick of It” and “Glow Up”.
In collaboration with Bryson Tiller, an American singer, she released a song “Insecure” which was used as a soundtrack for the second season of HBO’s series “Insecure”.
During her present career, Jazmine Sullivan had two concert tours.
The first was called Always Have Jazmine, which she held during 2008 and 2009.
The second one was after she released her third album “Reality Show”, and it was in 2015.
Quick summary
Full name: Jazmine Marie Sullivan
Date of birth: April 9th, 1987
Birthplace: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Age: 32
Profession: Singer, songwriter, actress
Height: 1.68 m
Weight: 79 kg
Net worth: $7 million