Cecelia Peniston was born in Dayton, Ohio and moved to Phoenix, Arizona at the age of 9. She attended Trevor Browne High School in Phoenix and later took to entering beauty pageants where she was crowned Miss Black Arizona in 1989. CeCe's music career began in 1990 when she signed to A&M Records and got her initial exposure doing featured vocals on female rapper Overweight Pooch's 1991 single "I Like It".
