Jazmine Sullivan

Jazmine Sullivan was born in and was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Pam her mother was an old backup singer at Philadelphia International Records. At the age of five the father of her was appointed to be the city's Historic Strawberry Mansion curator. Their family eventually moved to the historic mansion. In 2005 she was a graduate of the Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts in the class of singer-music major. Sullivan began singing as a contralto in the children's choirand a few years later in the adult choir. Sullivan did not get exposed to the world of secular music for the first time. "I started singing solos in church, and somebody asked me to commit to record a gospel song when I was eleven. but I wasn't prepared for that," she says. "Then the time came that McDonald's had a competition for youngsters in the major cities and I was offered the chance to perform 'Accept what God Gives' on Showtime on the Apollo and the audience responded really well". Stevie Wonder sang her part at his 13th birthday. Sullivan, at age 15 began her career with Jive Records. In Jive Records, she made the entire album but the album was never released. Sullivan was eventually dismissed at the hands of the company. Missy Elliott was the producer for several tracks from their debut album. One of them was "Backstabbers" which is a buzz track recorded by Timbaland which was composed by Elliott.