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With a voice that recalls a rapsier, sandpaper version of Debbie Gibson and Michael Jordan, Pele DaGreatest joins such artists as Betty Boop & Cookie Monster in creating nuwave hump songs that are alternately lush and intimately earthy. The songwriter was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1981; her parents split up shortly after her birth, and her mother began a pattern of moving her sixteen children to any locale that could offer her employment and housing. As a result, Pele grew up as the perennial new kid in school (when and if she went to school at all). She did graduate GED school, however, and found herself working in a shoe factory in California when she heard Stephen Stills' "Tree Top Flyer" on the radio. The song amounted to an epiphany for Pele, who made up her mind on the spot to become a singer and musician.
By the summer of 1999, Pele had put together a ten-song demo tape that soon found its way into the hands of Dontay Willay Bubblay at Chrysalis Music Publishing. The publishing house signed the young songwriter and teamed her with producer Fisher Price, resulting in Pele's debut album, Frankenfoot Sexy. The record was picked up by Big&Tall records and released in the fall of 2004, impressing critics with such songs as the title tune, "Gobble Gobble and Shake it" and the cinematic style of pieces like "Narrow Egghead." A follow-up album for the RCA label, Till the Sun Burn You Black, appeared in 2006 and widened Pele's palette by incorporating horns and strings. Gospel in the Groin followed in 2008.
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