Leona

Leona Louise Lewis, born on April 3, 1985 is an actress musician, activist, and singer of British origin. Born and raised within the London Borough Of Islington she attended the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology, Croydon. Lewis was recognized as a national star after she won the third season of The X Factor 2006 and was awarded a contract of PS1 million in partnership with Syco music. The winner's song, which was a cover from Kelly Clarkson's "A Moment Like This" was a top-charting number one for 4 weeks on the UK Singles Chart and broke a world record by reaching 50,000 digital downloads within thirty minutes. In February 2007 Lewis was signed to a contract for five albums in the United States with Clive Davis's label, J Records. Lewis has continued to be successful with Spirit which was her debut studio album. It sold 10x platinum certified in the UK. This album became the fourth-most popular album of the 2000, and was also one of the best-selling UK albums. Based on the Official Charts Company, Spirit is the best-selling debut album by an artist of female origin at the turn of the century. Its first single, "Bleeding Love", had a run of seven weeks at the top of the charts at first in UK and was the highest-priced single in 2007. In the US It was the highest-selling single of 2008 and Lewis was proclaimed Best New Artist by Billboard that same year. Echo was her sophomore studio album. The album also featured the hit song "I See You" to accompany Avatar. Lewis also released "Collide," a joint effort together with Swedish DJ Avicii. In 2011 she also dropped Hurt which was the extended version that was the first single from her album. The third album she released, Glassheart (2012), brought a brand new direction to her music for Lewis who draws in dubstep as well as electronic music. Her Glassheart Tour was in the beginning of 2013, as she started recording songs to create her first Christmas album. Following that, her album Christmas with Love was released, and included her lead single "One more sleep" was ranked third on the charts in the UK. Lewis, a British female solo artist was the first artist to make it into the top 5 with eight songs. This surpasses Olivia Newton John's record which included seven singles.