Keri Hilson

**Keri Hilson** (born December 5, 1982) is an American contemporary R&B singer and songwriter signed to Zone 4/Mosley Music Group/Interscope Records. She is part of a collective of writers and producers known as The Clutch.

## Early life/career

Hilson was born and raised in Decatur, Georgia, a nearby Atlanta, Georgia suburb, to Christine and Gamaliel Hilson, where she graduated from Tucker High School. She was an active participant in extracurricular activities such as swimming and basketball. At the age of fourteen, she joined a band called D'Sign, who dropped from their label before recording an album before it later disbanded. Oxford College of Emory University in Georgia, while she continued writing songs for artists, including Britney Spears, The Pussycat Dolls, and Mary J. Blige, with the production and songwriting team The Clutch. In 2006, Hilson signed with American rapper and producer Timbaland's record label Mosley Music. Her breakthrough came in 2007 after appearing on Timbaland's single "The Way I Are", which topped charts around the world.

## Career

Hilson has been writing music for other artists since 2001, including Britney Spears, Ciara, Usher, and Ludacris. Despite having made a name for herself as an arranger and background vocalist, lending her vocal talents to many of the songs she wrote on, Hilson remained behind the scenes for the most part until 2004, when she was featured on Xzibit's single, "Hey Now (Mean Muggin)" and made her performing debut singing the track live at the 2004 MTV Europe Awards.

In 2006, Hilson reappeared on the music scene in the video for Nelly Furtado's single "Promiscuous". Meanwhile, she signed as an artist with Timbaland's newly formed Interscope associated label Mosley Music Group and the pair started work on her debut album '"In A Perfect World...". The same year, she was featured on "After Love" from P. Diddy's album Press Play as well as "Help", the second single from Lloyd Banks' Rotten Apple.

In 2007, Hilson made several appearances on Timbaland's solo effort, Shock Value where she featured heavily on the singles "The Way I Are" and "Scream" and the tracks "Miscommunication" and "Hello". Furthermore, she was featured on the track "Lost Girls" on Rich Boy's debut album and its second single "Good Things" and was credited as a writer and backing vocalist on Britney Spears' album Blackout. She also worked on Spears' follow-up "Circus", but the tracks didn't appear on the album.

A promotional video for her song "Where Did He Go" was released in 2008 and she went on to further promote herself as a solo artist on "Get It Girl", a track produced by Timbaland & Danja and recorded for a Verizon ringtone promotion and available also through iTunes.

She also played the lead role in Usher's music video for "Love in This Club", (as well as co-writing its "Pt. II" remix) appeared as one of the "independent women" in Ne-Yo's music video for "Miss Independent" and appeared briefly on Nelly's "Party People" music video wearing a T-Shirt with the slogan 'Hip Hop aint dead'. She soon after featured on Nas' debut single from his controversial album Untitled, "Hero".

The second single "Return The Favor" features Timbaland was released officially as a digital download on October 7, 2008 and the video, directed by Melina, premiered on October 23, 2008. In the meantime, she also featured on Chris Brown's singles "Superhuman" and "Forever", and Kardinal Offishall's second single "Numba 1 (Tide Is High)", which was originally supposed to feature Rihanna.

The track "Turnin' Me On" features rapper Lil' Wayne and was released as the third digital single on November 25. The video, which was directed by Erik White after he and Hilson met on the set of the "Superhuman" video, premiered on November 20, 2008. "Turnin' Me On" has so far peaked at #24 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, becoming Hilson's most successful single as well as her first Top 50 single in the U.S.. It's believed that the next single will be "Do It" as she performs a snippet on every live.

During an interview on *106 & Park* on October 25, 2011, Hilson revealed that she has already begun recording her third studio album. She explained, "There's some people in the world that aren't gon' like this album coming from me. As I was experiencing the world, there were things that I was also experiencing on a personal front, and in my music it's coming out. There's a specific few people who ain't gon' like to listen to this album. Very emotional, I'll say that." She further explained in an interview with *The Boombox* that she's working on a new sound for the album, and described it as a mixture of her first two albums with some surprising elements thrown in. Hilson also said a release date had not been confirmed yet, saying "I just write about my experiences and keep the release dates far, far from me. When I feel that I have [good material] is when I will give it to the label. But I'm not quite there yet. I'm still working." After a five-year musical hiatus for Hilson, it was announced on March 14, 2016, that the album would be named *L.I.A.R.*, an acronym for *Love Is a Religion*. *L.I.A.R.* will have contributions from Chris Brown, Danja, Timbaland and Polow Da Don. In July 2017, Hilson was featured on Zambian singer Tiwah Hillz's single "Beautiful".

Hilson announced that she would be releasing new music in summer 2019, nine years after her previous album. She is performing on Femme It Forward Tour in summer 2019 alongside Mýa, Brandy Norwood, Ashanti, Monica and Amerie. In October 2019, Hilson referred to the album as untitled but said that it was in the final stages of mixing and production.

### Reception

Hilson's music has been favorably received, appearing on list of "Top Year Singles" with the songs, "Energy" and "Turnin' Me On". The first was on Blender magazine list of the "The Top 144 Songs of 2008", at #61, and the latter was on Vibe magazine's "The 80 Best Songs of '08" at #67. Vibe also praised her voice and called her "ridiculously hot".

## References

1. ↑ Corder, Cyril (January 1, 2004). Keri Hilson >> Biography & History >> AllMusic. *RhythmOne plc.*. Wikipedia:AllMusic. Retrieved on January 16, 2019. “R&B singer, vocal arranger, and songwriter”
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Corder, Cyril. Keri Hilson – Biography. *Allmusic*. Rovi Corporation. Retrieved on March 8, 2012.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Keri Hilson Channels Emotions on Third Album. *Rap-Up*. Devin Lazerine (October 25, 2011). Retrieved on March 10, 2012.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Murphy, Keith (March 5, 2012). Keri Hilson Third Album: Singer Will Be 'Emotional', 'Hurt' With New Music. *The Boombox*. AOL. Retrieved on March 10, 2012.
5. ↑ Keri Hilson Announces New album L.I.A.R.. Retrieved on March 14, 2016.
6. ↑ https://www.daily-mail.co.zm/tiwah-keri-hilson-release-cute-single/
7. ↑ Beautiful (feat. Keri Hilson) - Single by Tiwah Hillz (en-us). Retrieved on 2019-04-29.
8. ↑ Keri Hilson Announces Return to Music With New Release to Come This Summer - YouKnowIGotSoul.com (en-US) (2019-03-25). Retrieved on 2019-04-29.
9. ↑ Live Nation Urban Reveals Femme It Forward All-Female Series With Cardi B, Jorja Smith, Brandy & More. Retrieved on 2019-04-17.
10. ↑ Keri Hilson Talks Taste of Soul, New Album and Mental Health (en-US) (2019-10-10). Retrieved on 2020-02-06.

## External links

* Keri Hilson article at *Wikipedia*
* Keri Hilson links at FreeOnes
* Keri Hilson at Babepedia