Early life



Barrino began singing in her church at the age of five. She was a member of The Barrino Family, a group that travelled and performed in The Carolinas and elsewhere in the American South.

She dropped out of high school due to a sexual assault that left her feeling embarrassed and harassed. Barrino has a young daughter, Zion Quari' Barrino, whom she had as a teenage single mother on August 8, 2001. The incident is not related to her subsequently giving birth to her daughter.

Her cousins are R&B singers K-Ci (Cedric Hailey) and Jo-Jo (Joel Hailey) who formed the singing group Jodeci along with the DeGrate brothers in 1990.

Fantasia Barrino made an immediate impression on American Idol with her stylized, gospel-influenced sound, and her explosive stage presence. Her audition version of John Fogerty/Tina Turner's "Proud Mary" made her an early favorite in the competition. Her standout performance during the course of the show was a heartfelt staging, begun seated, of the Porgy and Bess standard "Summertime" that left her in tears from "feeling the song" and earned raves from the judges, as well as landing her on the Emmy Awards's 2004 list of greatest television moments. "Summertime," was also labeled by idol judge, Randy Jackson, as the best performance he had ever heard in the show's history.

Nevertheless, Barrino's rise to the final two on American Idol was plagued with controversies, including accusations of racism when she and two other well-praised African American female singers in the competition, LaToya London and Jennifer Hudson, all landed in the bottom three of that week's voting. Guest artist Elton John labeled the outcome "racist". Other concerns were raised over her as a single mother being a poor role model and charges of rigged voting and busy telephone signals.

In the final performance of the season that formed the basis upon which America voted, Barrino offered a second performance of "Summertime" that again drew enormous praise from the judges?including Simon Cowell's remarks that she was the best contestant among the over 70 Idol champions crowned nationally and internationally since the show began its first global incarnations. On the finale, over 65 million votes were cast in order to determine the winner on May 26, 2004, up from 24 million in 2003. It is still the highest finale vote in the show's history. In the end Fantasia beat out runner-up Diana DeGarmo by a margin of 2% (1.3 million votes).

Barrino participated in the U.S. tour with the other American Idol finalists and appeared in the 2004 Christmas special, Kelly, Ruben and Fantasia: Home For the Holidays.

I Believe

Now billed as just Fantasia, she released her first single in June 2004 on the RCA record label. The single included "I Believe" ? cowritten by former Idol contestant Tamyra Gray (who also sang backup on it) ? which Fantasia performed on the finale of Idol, the Aretha Franklin hit "Chain of Fools" (released before on an American Idol compilation), and her signature version of "Summertime". The single entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number one, the first artist to do so with her first record. On the sales chart, the single spent 11 consecutive weeks at number one (10 weeks in Canada), giving it the longest consecutive stay at #1 on that chart for an American Idol contestant. The CD, "I Believe", went on to become the top selling single of 2004 in the U.S and has since been certified double platinum by the CRIA.

Free Yourself

Fantasia released an album, Free Yourself, in November 2004. It debuted at #8 on the Billboard 200 pop album chart, selling 240,000 copies in its first week. Just two months after its release, it sold over one million copies and went platinum. To date, it has sold over 2 million copies in the U.S. The singles "Truth Is" and "Free Yourself" became huge R&B hits, reaching #2 and #3 on the Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Tracks chart, while the controversial "Baby Mama" ? which critics charged romanticized single motherhood ? reached the top 20. Fantasia did even better on the Billboard Adult R&B Airplay, where she was the first artist of any kind to simultaneously have two of the top three songs, and where "Truth Is" set a record stay at #1 by a female with 14 weeks. However, none of these singles has repeated "I Believe"'s success on the more-pop-oriented Hot 100, where "Truth Is" reached the highest at #21.

Through Spring and Winter of 2005, Fantasia made many television appearances to promote her album. She played Aretha Franklin in an episode of the series American Dreams, singing "Respect", guest voiced on The Simpsons episode "A Star is Torn", and guest starred as herself in a cameo role on the sitcom All Of Us. Fantasia appeared three times as a musical guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

On March 25, 2005, Fantasia performed at the 36th NAACP Image Awards in honor of Illinois Senator Barack Obama after winning the award for Most Outstanding Female Artist. In May and June 2005 Fantasia went on her first tour with her own live band, supporting soul singers Kem and Rahsaan Patterson. She also appeared as a headliner at several music festivals including the Saint Lucia Jazz Festival and the Reggae Sumfest in Jamaica. In October 2005, Fantasia received good notices as an opening act for Kanye West's Touch the Sky Tour.

In the late summer of 2005, Fantasia collaborated with Lyfe Jennings on his single "Hypothetically".