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Esthero Plays With Cee-Lo

Sean Lennon also guests on singer's winter release

November 30, 2004 12:00 AM ET
Esthero, the sultry singer featured on Black Eyed Peas' "Weekends," will follow her We R in Need of a Musical Revolution! EP (due December 7th) with the full-length Wikked Lil' Grrrls early next year. The album boasts collaborations with Cee-Lo and Sean Lennon.

The twenty-five-year-old Toronto-based singer is something of a romantic, as she wants Wikked to be released on Valentine's Day. However, because the holiday falls on a Monday and CDs are typically released on Tuesday, she'll settle for one minute later. "I'm hoping it will come out at midnight," she says.

Esthero released her debut, Breath From Another, seven years ago, and the new one has been two years in the making, as she amassed some forty songs that mix hip-hop, jazz, rock and soul. She co-produced all the songs, except for one done entirely by Dr. Dre cohort Camara Cambon (Eminem, Mary J. Blige).

Raised in a small town in Ontario, Esthero moved to Toronto in her early teens, began working with musician/producer Doc and landed a deal with the Sony-affiliated WORK Group. At eighteen, she released Breath, a mild international success, selling approximately 250,000 copies worldwide, but after WORK was absorbed into Epic, Esthero was without a label. She then quietly signed with Reprise after making an appearance at the Coachella Festival in August of 1999.

Her club track, "O.G. Bitch," hit Number One on Billboard's Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart last month, prompting the rushed release of the six-song We R in Need. "It is specifically for the fans," Esthero says of the EP, "who have been waiting."

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