years_active birth_place label name background birth_date genre article_title birth_name
1996 -- 2003 benton harbor , michigan , u.s. rca -lrb- 1996-1999 -rrb- jtj -lrb- 2001-2003 -rrb- rome solo_singer 5 march 1970 r & b rome -lrb- singer -rrb-
 jerome woods
rome -lrb- singer -rrb-

jerome woods -lrb- born march 5 , 1970 in benton harbor , michigan -rrb- , better known by his stage name rome , is an american r&b singer .
woods sang in a cover band called fire & ice while a high schooler , and toured regionally both as a solo artist and with the band .
he attended oakwood university but dropped out in 1989 and moved to california in hopes of making a career as a singer .
he toured with vesta but had little success until he met with gerald baillergeau and victor merrit , the producers who heard his demo and sent it to rca records .
rca signed him and released his eponymous debut album in 1997 , which went on to sell over half a million copies in the u.s. , mainly on the strength of the single `` i belong to you -lrb- every time i see your face -rrb- '' , which peaked at # 6 in the u.s. .
he had two top 40 hits from the album .
having achieved success with his rca records debut , a projected second album was rejected .
instead , he signed a distribution deal with ground level for his own label follow-up - `` rome2000 : thank you '' , but the material recorded while under contract to rca has never been released .
in 2001 he returned with two albums : `` to the highest '' and `` to infinity -lrb- thank you -rrb- '' ; the last one is just an alternative edition of `` rome2000 : thank you '' .
`` do it '' followed in 2003 , and three years later sony issued rome 's `` best of '' , which has only 10 songs from his 1997 debut .
