Anastacia Biography

Birth Name : Anastacia Lyn Newkirk

Famous as : Singer, songwriter

Birth Date : September 17, 1973

Birth Place : Chicago, Illinois, USA

Claim to fame : Single "I'm Outta Love" (2000)

Anastacia Newkirk was born on September 17, 1973 in New York City. She was raised in Chicago by her mother until the age of 14 when her parents divorced and she moved back to the west side of Manhattan with her mother. Anastacia says she comes from a very artistic family. Anastacia’s mother is an actress who worked in Broadway musicals. Anastacia’s father was a singer on the Catskills Hotel and East coast nightclub circuits. Anastacia says she never thought about being a singer her whole life. Anastacia graduated from the Professional Children’s School in Manhattan where she says that she was the only child not working in the entertainment industry already.

Soon after she released a double disc edition featuring two bonus hits, remixes for three of the tracks on the album and two live tracks taken from a Japan gig that was performed on the September 13, 2002. In 2003, Anastacia took part in the charity event, 46664, organized by Nelson Mandela to raise awareness of AIDS. She sang with U2 and Queen, and also contributed to the song "Amandla", recording the song and providing some of the lyrics.

As stated on the Australian talk show Rove in 2004, Anastacia wanted to have more edge to her vocals as she felt there was something missing from her previous works. She brought in many rock instruments which brought a new atmosphere to her music. She also felt that she still needed the funkiness and the pop as the singer felt that too much edge would sound wrong with her voice.

In late 2005, she released her first greatest hits collection, called Pieces of a Dream, named after a track of the same name. The album spawned the hit singles "Pieces of a Dream" and the duet with Eros Ramazzotti, "I Belong to You (Il Ritmo Della Passione)", which was a huge hit in Europe, charting and peaking in the top ten in almost all the European countries. Even though Sony BMG did force her to release this collection, Anastacia has said that she is happy now that it was created as it was like a "story book", or summary of the first five years of her career.

Not long after the release of "I Belong to You (Il Ritmo Della Passione)", Anastacia released her first live DVD Live at Last on March 27, 2006 in Europe. Annie Lennox joined forces with Anastacia and 22 other female artists to raise awareness of the transmission of HIV to unborn children in Africa. The single "Sing" was released on World Aids Day, December 1, 2007, in conjunction with Annie Lennox's appearance at the Nelson Mandela 46664 concert in South Africa.