Kathleen Emperatriz "Kat" DeLuna (born November 17,^[1] 1987^[2] in The Bronx, New York) is an American R&B singer, of Dominican descent, who is signed to Epic Records/GMB.

Biography

At the age of 12, she was invited by the 'Queen of Merengue', Milly Quezada, to sing with her on stage in front of a big crowd of over thousands of people. In April 2004, she opened for J Records musician Cassidy as part of the all Latino girl group Coquette.

Kat and her family moved from The Bronx, US to the Dominican Republic, where she spent her time listening to Aretha Franklin and realized her potential as a singer. Kat was accepted to the Arts High School in Newark, New Jersey under the vocal instruction of Dr. Jerry Forderhase. Kat is said to have a 5 octave vocal range. In her freshman year, she responded to an audition in The Village Voice and was accepted into an all-Latina, Hip Hop/R&B group called Coquette.^{citation needed} Kat continued to pursue her dream of becoming a solo artist and at age of 15, she entered a Coca-Cola sponsored karaoke competition. Her version of "I Will Always Love You" won the competition.^{citation needed} After the competition, Cuban salsa singer Rey Ruiz advised Kat to start writing her own music.^{citation needed}

Kat signed a contract with the production label, Get Money Brothers (GMB) Music Group owned by Haitian male supermodel Tyrone Edmond. According to a brief interview she granted on HaitiXchange.com, she stated that she first met Tyrone when she was only 14 years old, who was then scouting for talent. Kat and Tyrone have become good friends ever since. Kat was finally picked up by Epic Records and is currently under both labels. She is managed by Cape Town Management. Her debut album, 9 Lives, produced by hitmaker RedOne, was released on August 7, 2007, as confirmed by Billboard and will be re-released this Spring.^[3]

As of March 17, 2008, Kat was seen holding hands with actor Saville at a local coffee house. Saville appeared in the Walt Disney movie “College Road Trip” (2008) along side Raven-Symone and Martin Lawrence. He also can be seen in the new comedy, “Harold and Kumar: Escape from Guantanamo Bay” (2008). Kat and Saville are scheduled to present the “Best Male Artist” award at the 2008 MTV Music Awards this fall. He can also be seen in her upcoming music video “In The End”.

The Success of "Whine Up"

Epic Records launched a promotional campaign for her worldwide first single "Whine Up". The song features Elephant Man. On the official website, a video of DeLuna doing a choreography to the song with Elephant Man is shown on the front page. The music video premiered on MySpace on June 20. The song was released to radios in the United States on May 15, 2007.^[4] The song has debuted at number 24 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles, equal to a #124 position on the Billboard Hot 100.^[5] It has since peaked at #29 on the Billboard Hot 100. ^[6] She also had an appearance in Yung Berg's video for the single "Sexy Lady". "Whine Up" has also been released in Australia because of heavy airplay and heavy rotation on Australian TV. A tracklisting has also been revealed, it is slated for an early January release. During the summer of 2007, the single became extremely popular in Quebec (Canada) by gaining a lot of airplay on radio stations such as "CKOI" and "Énergie" and peaking at number one. In Australia the single has managed to debut in the top 20, debuting at #18 on the 11/2/08."Whine Up" was used as the theme song for WWE's SummerSlam 2007 pay-per-view. "Whine Up" peaked at #9 on French Charts by December 2007. Kat recorded a special version of Whine Up for the 2007 New York Mets. The song was called "Rise Up (Mets!)and was written by David Brody of Z100 New York. The song was played at Shea Stadium and on Z100.

Upcoming Singles

"Am I Dreaming" was rumored to become the second single of "9 Lives" but was pushed back in favor of "Run The Show", with a new rap by Busta Rhymes. "Am I Dreaming," will now feature rapper Akon and will be released as a single sometime in the Fall. The video for "Am I Dreaming" was filmed in the Dominican Republic and is rumored to be released sometime in the year.

Plans have changed and according to FHM Magazine, "In the End" is the official next single outside the States. Kat has added it to her Myspace page which builts up to the confirmation.

"Am I Dreaming (Remix)" will become her 3rd U.S. single (according to her Latina magazine interview), while "In The End" is slated for the overseas market (according to her FHM UK magazine interview).

Kat DeLuna was chosen as Descubre & Download during the summer of 2007.

Album Re-release: April 2008

Epic Records and Kat DeLuna are working on the re-release to her much anticipated first album "9 Lives", which is set to come out April 29, 2008. The new version of the album features new songs produced by R&B singer Akon. She will also be having some new collaborations in the album, some of which have not yet been named. The release date was confirmed on MTV News and on the issue of "Latina Magazine" which featured Kat Deluna as Latina of this issue. It was also stated that "In the End" will indeed be the 3rd single off Kat Deluna's album featuring a new rap with Akon which is said to bring out what the summer has to offer. However, there are speculations that "In the End" might also be the next single and that GMB/Epic must have scratched "Am I Dreaming?" as the next single. The expected re-release has been slated for a April 29th, 2008 release. Kat will also be a guest in Elephant Man's new album "Let's Get Physical" and is featured in Jason Fox's new song "Coffee Girl".

Discography

Albums