Early life



Rogers was born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, to an African American father and a South Korean mother. As a result of her father being in the United States military, Amerie traveled to and lived in many different places, including Alaska, Texas, Germany, and South Korea. She graduated from Georgetown University in 2000 with a degree in English and Fine Arts. She considers Washington, D.C. to be her home and has a younger sister named Angela. Amerie and her sister's first language is Korean.

Amerie received her big break in 2001 when she blessed a track from Nas' Stillmatic release entitled "Rule". Throughout early 2002, Amerie's single, "Why Don't We Fall In Love", from her debut album All I Have received much urban radio airplay. Producer Rich Harrison wrote and produced All I Have in its entirety, except for the track "Outro" which Amerie co-wrote. Amerie's album was released amid the success of her "Why Don't We Fall In Love" single, and the media immediately began to judge her successes against those of other recent female R&B artists such as Tweet and Ashanti.

The album's next single, "Talkin' To Me", did not hit nearly as big at urban radio, yet its video still enjoyed strong support from MTV2. VH1 Soul has been known to play both of Amerie's videos with regularity since their debuts, and MTV Jams still occasionally spins "Why Don't We Fall In Love". The album was a surprise success, going gold with 623,000 units sold.

In fall 2002 she once again continued solo and released a cover of the Diana Ross' classic "I'm Coming Out" as a single to the Maid in Manhattan movie. Afterwards, in 2003, Amerie returned to the music scene briefly as a featured vocalist, first on LL Cool J's "Paradise" (a top 20 entry in the UK, top 40 in the U.S.) and later on DJ Kay Slay's "Too Much For Me". Neither single, although their videos received a lot of attention from digital music video channels, went on to become a hit.

Around this time Amerie also spent some time as the host of a brand new show on BET called The Center. However, she left the show before her contract was up because she had been offered a supporting role as Mia Thompson in the 2004 romantic comedy First Daughter alongside Michael Keaton, Katie Holmes, Lela Rochon, and Marc Blucas.

On April 26, 2005, Amerie released her sophomore album Touch. Once again the album was primarily produced by mentor Rich Harrison, who contributed seven (new) tracks to the record; additional productions came from Lil Jon, Bryce Wilson, Red Spyda and Dre & Vidal. It debuted and peaked at #5 on the Billboard 200 and #3 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. The album Touch was certifed Gold by the RIAA in August of that year. The album received two Grammy Award nominations in 2006.

Along with Touch Amerie's biggest hit came with the first single "1 Thing". The track was also featured on the soundtrack to Hitch, a romantic comedy film starring Will Smith. Producer Rich Harrison sampled the distinctive main drum-and-guitar loops of the song from a 1970 version of "Oh! Calcutta!" by funk group The Meters. The song was later certified Platinum (200,000+ downloads) and became her first top ten hit, it peaked at #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks. "1 Thing" also earned several awards and nominations: two nominations for MTV Video Music Awards ? "Best Female Video" and "Best Choreography" ?, four nominations for Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards ? "Best R&B/Soul Single, Solo" and "R&B/Soul or Rap Song of the Year", "Best R&B/Soul or Rap Music Video" and "Best R&B/Soul or Rap Dance Cut". At the 2005 VIBE Awards, Amerie took home "Club Banger of the Year" for her hit. "1 Thing" also spawned into a variety of remixes by rappers such as Eve, Fabolous, and Jay-Z.

In autumn 2005, Amerie went on with a second single "Touch" and "I Don't Care", the lead single of Ricky Martin's album Life in collaboration with Fat Joe. While latter one was able to enter to the top 20 in several European countries and in Australia, the album's title track failed to preprise the success of "1 Thing". At last it didn't even enter the Billboard Hot 100, though peaking at #19 on the UK Singles Chart. "Talkin' About" was planned to be released as a third single but wasn't.