Keke Palmer

Keke Palmer first rose to prominence as an actress and singer whose contemporary R&B carries both assertive poise and reflective nuance. At age thirteen she earned her initial spotlight through the lead performance in the widely praised 2006 film Akeelah and the Bee. Building directly on that momentum, she secured a recording deal and delivered her debut album, So Uncool, in 2007, a collection steeped in pop and R&B. She steadily expanded her reach by taking roles in television and cinema, among them the Fox series Scream Queens, and by writing the motivational book I Don't Belong to You: Quiet the Noise and Find Your Voice. Music continued to hold equal importance; after a string of mixtapes, EPs, and soundtrack appearances, she resurfaced in 2023 with the more polished adult-R&B statement Big Boss.

Born in 1993 and raised near Chicago, Palmer had already decided on a performing career by the age of five. Her first notable opportunity arrived in 2004 when she portrayed Queen Latifah’s niece in Barbershop 2: Back in Business. Two years later the starring turn in Akeelah and the Bee placed her in the national spotlight and on the film’s soundtrack with the single “All My Girlz.” Early in 2007 she appeared in the Disney feature Jump In! and contributed the track “It’s My Turn Now” to its soundtrack. Later that same year her work in Akeelah earned an NAACP Image Award, while her full-length debut, So Uncool, reached stores via Atlantic. The Clutch, Rodney Jerkins, Anthony Dent, and J.R. Rotem supplied songs and production, helping the album chart on Billboard’s R&B and Heatseekers lists.

In 2008 Palmer assumed the title role in the Nickelodeon comedy True Jackson, VP, which ran through 2011 and cast her as a teenage fashion executive. She maintained a steady schedule of film and television parts during and after the series, appearing opposite Ice Cube in 2008’s The Longshots, sharing the screen with Kevin Spacey in 2009’s Shrink, and joining Queen Latifah and Dolly Parton for 2012’s Joyful Noise. Her rendition of “Man in the Mirror,” featured on the Joyful Noise soundtrack, climbed into the Top Ten of the Christian and gospel digital songs charts at the start of 2012.

Even as acting assignments multiplied—including voice work for the Winx Club animated franchise and a part in the 2015 Fox series Scream Queens—she returned to the studio. The 2016 EP Lauren, issued by Island Records and featuring producer Sean Garrett along with rapper Dreezy, placed her back on the R&B and Heatseekers charts, peaking at number eighteen on the Top R&B Albums tally. January 2017 brought the release of her inspirational nonfiction book I Don't Belong to You: Quiet the Noise and Find Your Voice. The following year she issued the standalone single “Bossy,” which entered the Top Forty of Billboard’s R&B/hip-hop airplay chart, and contributed a featured verse to the multilingual viral track “GIANTS” by League of Legends’ in-game hip-hop collective True Damage. Two EPs titled Virgo Tendencies, Pts. 1 and 2, appeared in the second half of 2020, accompanied by the standalone single “Actually Vote.”

Palmer captured a Primetime Emmy in 2021 for Outstanding Actress in a Short Form Comedy or Drama Series for her work on Turnt Up with the Taylors, a 2020 production centered on a fictional reality-television family in which she portrayed every member. That year she also supplied a cover of “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” to the Sing 2 soundtrack, performing alongside Scarlett Johansson, Taron Egerton, Reese Witherspoon, and Tori Kelly. Additional voice work and guest appearances on series such as HBO’s Insecure filled the calendar. In 2022 she starred opposite Oscar winner Daniel Kaluuya in Jordan Peele’s Nope and took the title role in the thriller Alice, which also featured Common. After refining a more mature adult-R&B approach over the intervening years, she released her first solo album in sixteen years, Big Boss, on her own Big Bosses Entertainment imprint in May 2023.