Kat DeLuna

Born in the Bronx and the Dominican Republic, pop singer Kat DeLuna developed an early passion for vocal performance and enrolled at the New Jersey School of the Performing Arts when she turned 14. She soon assembled the outfit Coquette, which landed an opening slot for rapper Cassidy, yet quickly moved on to ink a deal with GMB Music Group via the Sony-backed Epic imprint. That association produced her first full-length, 9 Lives, which surfaced in August 2007 and spotlighted the chart-topping club single “Whine Up,” a Top 30 pop entry that paired her with Elephant Man. After Epic let her go because the project stalled outside the Top 50, DeLuna inked with Universal, though the partnership proved equally short-lived and resulted in Inside Out, an album issued solely across Europe and Japan even though it included turns from Akon and Lil Wayne. Still, the track “Dancing Tonight” reached American listeners through eOne and marked her second number one on the Billboard club chart. Her third studio set, Loading, followed on eOne in August 2016 and featured guest spots from Trey Songz and Jeremih.