(Born: June 4, 1972)
Nikka Costa's career began at age five when she sang with Don Ho in Hawaii for a Christmas release produced by her father, Don Costa, who had worked with the likes of Frank Sinatra and Paul Anka. In her father's home recording studio, the young Costa would hang out with stars like Quincy Jones and Sammy Davis Jr. Concerts and performing have represented some of the most significant moments in Costa's life.
Although she was raised and lives in Los Angeles, she was born in Tokyo during the Tokyo Music Festival. At age seven, she sang "On My Own" with the full Don Costa Orchestra as the encore of one of his Milan shows. The crowd and Italian press reacted with enthusiasm to her performance, which led to her first record. It was released in Europe, Israel, Sough and Central America, where it reached platinum status in each territory.
Following the release of her second non-U.S. release Fairy Tales, Costa took a four-year break from recording when her father died. She then got back in the business at age 14 with a record for a small German recording label before moving to Los Angeles.
In the following years, she moved to Australia to hone her chops. She gigged incessantly, developed her own live show, and started to seriously write songs. Costa landed a deal with Mushroom Records and released Butterfly Rocket, which earned her a nomination for Best New Artist at the Australian Recording Industry Awards.
Music exec Dominique Trenier (D'Angelo, R. Kelly) then took Costa under his wing, signing her to his label Cheeba Sound. Trenier hooked her up with album producers Justin Stanley and DJ Mark Ronson, and the three created Everybody Got Their Something--a fierce fusion of rock and soul. Costa wrote or co-wrote all of the songs on the album. Costa also proved she can still tear it up on stage when she recently appeared on the season finale of The Chris Rock Show--her first performance in over three years.
Nikka's first album for Cheeba Sound (and U.S. Debut), Everybody Got Their Something, is scheduled for release on May 22nd, 2001. The music video for her first single, Like a Feather (which you may recognize from a Tommy Hilfiger commercial), premiered on MTV on May 7th and a song called "Push & Pull" made it onto the soundtrack of the film Blow, released a month ago.
