Nikka Costa

Domenica Nikka Costa born 4 June 1972 is an American singer whose music combines elements of pop soul and blues She also had a career as a child singer starting in the early 1980s She is the daughter of music producer Don Costa Nikka Costa was born in Tokyo Japan Her father Don Costa was a producer and musician During her childhood Costa was surrounded by famous musicians and traveled around the world with her father At age five Costa recorded a single with Hawaiian singer Don Ho Italian producers Danny B Besquet and Tony Renis were working with her father on the album Don Costa Plays the Beatles when they had a brainstorm to produce an album with Nikka singing while her father played acoustic guitar The album was well received in Europe and Costa became known as a child star At age 9 Costa sang with Frank Sinatra in an appearance on the lawn of the White House Costas career as a recording artist under her own name started in 1981 when she recorded the song Out Here On My Own from the movie Fame The single reached No 72 in Germany No 7 in Switzerland No 32 in the Netherlands No 13 in the Flanders region of Belgium and No 1 in Italy The album Nikka Costa was released outside the US in 1981 Costa toured the world Her second album Fairy Tales cuentos de hadas was released in 1983 Don Costa died of a heart attack shortly after the album was recorded The pop album Here I Am Yes Its Me was released to fulfill a contractual obligation in 1989 After graduating from high school Costa decided to move away from pop and moved toward funk and soul becoming influenced by Motown artists While already a music business veteran in the early 1990s Costa transitioned away from childhood pop to mature soul She married Australian producersongwriter Justin Stanley and moved to his country Costa and Stanley now have a daughter named Sugar McQueen While in Australia Costa began writing her own songs and formed a happy funk band called Little Mona the Shag Daddies which broke up after four gigs in Sydney Costas next venture was a band called Sugarbone which toured Australia in 1994 Costa describes the experience as It was really scary to unveil it but the reaction was good It helped my confidence After Sugarbone she signed to the Mushroom label in Australia In 1996 Costa released the album Butterfly Rocket in Australia The record led to a nomination for ARIA Music Awards Breakthrough Artist in 1996 and Best Female Artist in 1997 Source Article Nikka Costa from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA 30