Kat walked the orange carpet and posed with a cute little cat at The Meow Mix Acatemy Launch Party, held in New York City last night. Kat also performed at the event, pictures coming up!
Kat DeLuna, looking pretty in pink, attended the New York City premiere of Illegal Tender last night. Despite low record-sales, Kat seemed to be in a good mood as she happily posed for the many waiting photographers.
Kat DeLuna released her debut album this month and was already featured on national TV. All this and she’s just 19 years old!
The Hoboken resident is profiled in today’s Star-Ledger (more than a week after she was profiled in The Jersey Journal — but of course her hometown newspaper should get first dibs). She’s had an interesting life so far — she was born in the Bronx, but her family moved to the Dominican Republic when she was still a baby. When she was 6, her parents separated and she moved back to the United States, this time to Newark, and attended Newark’s Arts High School.
How fast a rise to the top has it been for the teen-ager? In November, she was signed to the Epic label after wowing executives with an a cappella version of Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” during an audition.
A month later, she picked a producer. In January, she began working on her album, “9 Lives.” It was finished in February.
“I was hungry, I wanted to come out soon,” DeLuna said. “I was like, ‘I’m ready, it’s time.’”
From Newark’s Arts High to a massive hit single, Kat DeLuna has done it her way.
When it came time to apply to high schools, the No. 1 choice for Newark’s Kat DeLuna was Arts High School.
There was no No. 2 on her list.
“People were like, ‘You have to audition to a lot of schools,’” says the 19-year-old Dominican-American pop star, meaning she could have applied to other schools in the Newark magnet system. “I’m like, ‘No, I could only audition for one, because I want to be a singer, and that’s it.’”
Arts High did accept her, and she concentrated on vocal studies there. Representing Arts High, she was a finalist for The Star-Ledger Scholarship for the Performing Arts, in 2003. She also continued to perform on her own, and pursue a record contract. She landed one last year, with the Epic label, and her first single, “Whine Up,” became a major hit this summer.
The upbeat dance song, featuring guest vocals by Jamaican dancehall artist Elephant Man, peaked at No. 29 on the Billboard singles chart, and at No. 1 on the trade publication’s dance club chart. Promoting it, DeLuna appeared on television shows such as “Live with Regis and Kelly” (where she taught Kelly Ripa how to do the dance) and MTV’s “TRL.” On Saturday, she will perform at Arthur Ashe Kids’ Day, the annual family festival held in conjunction with the U.S. Open tennis tournament in Queens, N.Y.
DeLuna’s first full-length album, “9 Lives,” came out on Aug. 7, and debuted this week at No. 58.
“It’s seven years in the making,” says DeLuna, who now lives in Hoboken. “Ever since I was 12 I was trying to get a record deal.”
Kat DeLuna made an appearance on MTV’s Total Request Live last week. She was interviewed and gave an amazing performance of Whine Up, which you can check out below. This girl’s got talent!
As a photographer asks her to kick up her heels in a hop yet one more time, the girl in the Dominican outfit — red shorts, blue top, white sneakers and wristband — looks like she could be jumping rope by her building’s stoop after school. Don’t be fooled, though. Like each of her jumps for the camera, every step in Kat DeLuna’s career has been planned carefully. She may be only 19, but she’s been preparing for this moment for a long time.
“This has been seven years in the making,” she says.
“This” is her current status as a summer-hit wonder, thanks to “Whine Up,” an infectious dance hall-pop number featuring Jamaican star Elephant Man that reached No. 29 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart and was in the 35th spot last week.
With yesterday’s launch of her debut album “9 Lives,” DeLuna swears this summer craze will carry over into the fall and beyond.
“I’m here to stay,” she says without bombast, a purposeful look on her face. “I’m claiming my crown.
“I’m the first Dominican crossover pop artist. We’ve never had one.”
Seven years ago, Kathleen DeLuna, a Bronx-born girl who grew up in Santo Domingo and later Newark where she attended the Arts High School. She trained as an opera singer and became a soprano in the school choir.
Soon, she formed an all-Hispanic girl group called Coquette. But music executives kept telling her to break out on her own, and so she did.
“I felt bad for the other people. I thought if I made it first, maybe I can help [them],” she says. “But it’s business. They didn’t want us, what could we do?”
After five years of being shopped around by indie production company GMB, DeLuna finally signed with Epic Records in November. Legend has it that Epic president Charlie Walk would not let her leave an audition without a contract after she sang Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” acappella.
On a recent summer day in New York, recording newcomer Kat DeLuna would not let a little heat or humidity dampen her spirits. In fact, it appeared only to heighten her positivity.
It doesn’t hurt that DeLuna’s debut single, “Whine Up,” is being championed across a handful of radio formats, including top 40, rhythmic, Latin rhythmic and rap. The techno-fueled track has even spawned the Whine Up dance, which DeLuna created while she was recording the song in the studio.
“Whine Up” this week ascends the Billboard Hot 100 and Pop 100 to Nos. 35 and 23, respectively.
“The single is going crazy,” said DeLuna, a 19-year-old native New Yorker whose family roots can be traced to the Dominican Republic. “And I’m the very first Dominican crossover artist. I couldn’t be more excited.”
In the coming days, DeLuna is scheduled to return to her family’s homeland to shoot the video for her next single, “Am I Dreaming,” a track infused with bachata, the popular guitar-based variation on romantic Cuban bolero that originated in the Dominican Republic. In reference to her label, she added, “I’m Epic’s Carribean girl.”
The ShowBuzz’s Caitlin A. Johnson wrote the following article on Kat:
When Kat De Luna was just an infant, her father said she would become the family’s little artist.
She has more than proved him right. De Luna’s first single off her “9 Lives” album “Whine Up,” is screeching up the charts; it’s currently No. 29 on the Billboard Hot 100.
De Luna was born in the Bronx but moved to Dominican Republic as a young girl before returning to the United States. Her mother was a singer and a dancer, but her father, she said, has an incredible voice. Because they were poor, they never had the opportunity to see where their talent could take them. Instead, their daughter would have to be the one to make it big.
De Luna’s destiny was sealed when at 3 years old, she cried her way into a singing competition in the Dominican Republic for ages 5 and up. She won.
Now the 19-year-old from New Jersey is eagerly anticipating the Aug. 7 release date of her album with both optimism and anxiety.
Kat DeLuna released her debut album this month and was already featured on national TV. All this and she’s just 19 years old!
As a photographer asks her to kick up her heels in a hop yet one more time, the girl in the Dominican outfit — red shorts, blue top, white sneakers and wristband — looks like she could be jumping rope by her building’s stoop after school. Don’t be fooled, though. Like each of her jumps for the camera, every step in Kat DeLuna’s career has been planned carefully. She may be only 19, but she’s been preparing for this moment for a long time.