Kristinia is no stranger to the music business. She’s the daughter of 80s pop star James DeBarge but her road to a record deal was not handed over to her without patience, perseverance and hard work. Kristinia knew she wanted to be a singer at the age of three but didn’t reveal this passion to her dad until she was twelve. “He wanted me to be a doctor or lawyer. I tried to be open to other careers because I didn’t want to disappoint him but my heart was set on singing,” Kristinia remembers. The same day that Kristinia told him she wanted to sing, they recorded a duet together called “How I Feel Inside.” “Our studio session ended at 4 am and my dad asked me after all those hours and after all that work if I still wanted to do this,” she recalls. “When I answered yes, that’s how he knew I was serious about being a singer.” Less than a year later, Kristinia appeared on American Juniors – a younger version of the wildly successful American Idol. Kristinia made it all the way to the Top 20 and suddenly her phone was ringing off the hook with producers and managers who wanted to make her a star. Kristinia also went out on the road with her dad soon after her TV debut. He brought her up on stage to sing with him each night. It didn’t take long for people to start asking Kristinia for her autograph after each performance. Kristinia’s biggest break, however, came when she was 14-years-old and she started working with legendary producer Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds. He knew that she had what it would take to make it and worked with her on all the songs heard on her album. About Kristinia, Babyface notes, “First off, she’s a DeBarge, and when you are a DeBarge, one has to stop and listen. When I saw her at a very young age, I know she wasn’t ready yet but she had “it”. I’ve been watching her evolve and one day, I knew: she was ready. And she keeps getting better and better.” Babyface got Kristinia a meeting with LA Reid at Island/Def Jam records and two days before her 19th birthday, she signed her record deal. “Things started moving very fast after that,” Kristinia recalls. “When Babyface and I played LA the completed album, he liked every single song . . . that’s unheard of!” Kristinia grew up listening to strong female vocalists like Mariah Carey, Christina Aguilera, Alicia Keys and the Supremes but she credits rock artists like Led Zeppelin, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan and even Queen of the Stone Age as some of her influences. “They inspire me to take risks,” she says.
