Esmée Denters

Esmée Denters

Esmée Denters (born September 28, 1988 in Oosterbeek) is a Dutch singer.

Denters was first noticed on YouTube in August of 2006 for amateur videos of her singing cover versions of popular songs. By early June of 2007, the then 18 year old had been signed as the first artist on the new Tennman Records label headed by singer Justin Timberlake. At the same time, Tennman Records announced that she would be opening for Timberlake at six venues during his 2007 European tour, making Denters the first amateur singer in history to go directly from a personal YouTube posting to commercially performing on a major stage.

Background

Denters started her singing career as a self taught Internet performer. Born and living in the Netherlands, she was studying to be a social worker. In 2006, using her sister's webcam, she began to post videos of herself to YouTube, singing covers of famous pop artists, and later added her own compositions. Described as having a soulful voice, she quickly became a YouTube celebrity. By June 10, 2007, less than a year after her homemade song videos first attracted global attention, her impromptu London studio recording with Justin Timberlake had been viewed over 9.5 million times, and she was the 11th all time most viewed member of YouTube - by comparison, YouTube celebrity lonelygirl15 stood at 7, corporate member Sony BMG Music Entertainment at 35.

On February 7, 2007, Denters, who actively maintains her own pages at Myspace and Dutch social networking site Hyves, announced that she would be traveling to the United States for a ten-day recording session. By February 19 2007, she announced she had come back from the U.S. and was on her way to Sweden to write and record songs.

On February 25, 2007, the Reuters news agency distributed a Billboard Magazine article about Ms. Denters and her trip to the US. Within weeks, she again traveled to the United States, where Reuters reports her to have signed with songwriter Billy Mann, and to have made a studio recording with Destiny's Child's Kelly Rowland.

On May 27, 2007, Denters announced on a Dutch television show she had signed a recording contract, but did not mention a label. The next day, she posted a studio recording on YouTube, singing Justin Timberlake's "What Goes Around... Comes Around", with Mr. Timberlake himself playing the piano and singing backup vocals. On June 4, 2007, Dutch late night talk show Jensen! reported Denters was the first artist signed with Justin Timberlake's new label, Tennman Records. On June 5, in the United States, Tennman Records, and Vivendi unit Universal Music Group on behalf of Esmee Denters, jointly issued a press release, making the contract official.

On June 16 Denters was the pre-act for Timberlake's show in Amsterdam, her first live performance. She performed a half an hour before Timberlake got on stage and she captured footage of the audience of 50,000 on video.[1] On June 27 she opened again for Justin Timberlake in Antwerp, Belgium.

On July 12, Denters released another video on YouTube, singing a duet with Natasha Bedingfield of her hit, platinum certified song "Unwritten".

On August 7, 2007 Esmee Denters appears in a video entitled "Esmee Denters is 18, sexy, talented & ... an Alpha Kitty" in it, she explains things about herself including how she became a hit YouTube sensation which susbsequently led her to her record deal. Like all the Alpha Kitty vids she partly speaks in her native language and describes, in english, what an Alpha Kitty is.,

External links

• Esmée Denters, official site
• Esmée Denters at YouTube
• Esmée Denters at Myspace
• Esmée Denters at Hyves
• Esmée Denters at Alpha Kitty