Tamia

Born: May 9, 1975 in Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
Her birth name is Tamia Washington, but after getting married in 1999, she amended it to Tamia Washington-Hill.

Tamia was born to a black mother and white father and was raised with her three younger brothers in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. She grew up singing in a Gospel choir, but later branched out to singing pop music as a solo artist. While still in her teens, she became a known artist in the Ontario area and wound up winning several performance awards. In 1994, she ventured out to Los Angeles to jump-start her singing career and wound up recording a track for legendary producer Quincy Jones while she was still only 19. The song, "You Put a Move on My Heart," wound up on Quincy's compilation album Q's Jook Joint.

In 1995, "You Put a Move on My Heart," was released as a single and wound up being nominated for (but not winning) a Grammy for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance. Also that year, Tamia participated two other collaborations that wound up being nominated for (but again not winning) Grammys: The first was "Missing You," a single from the soundtrack of the movie Set It Off. The song, which was nominated for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group, also featured the singers Brandy, Chaka Khan and Gladys Knight. The other song was "Slow Jams," a duet with Babyface that was nominated for Best Pop Collaboration w/Vocals.

Between 1997 and 2007 Tamia released four albums of clean, relatively wholesome R&B-pop and dance music. Her first two albums, Tamia and A Nu Day each went gold in the United States, selling more than half a million copies each. A Nu Day her most successful album to date, is known for the hit singles "Stranger in My House" and "Can't Go for That." On July 24, 1999, Tamia married national Basketball Association player Grant Hill, who at the time played for the Detroit Pistons. (Detroit is across the border from Tamia's hometown of Windsor, Ontario.) The couple's first child, Myla Grace Hill, was born on Jan. 23, 2002.

In 2003, Tamia was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, but she and her husband Grant kept the news from the public for a time while she dealt with the disease. Then in 2003, Tamia began speaking out in interviews about having MS. Currently, she says, the disease is in remission and that the symptoms only affect her periodically. On Aug. 9, 2007, Tamia gave birth to her and her husband's second child, Lael Rose Hill. The family currently lives in Phoenix, Arizona, where Grant Hill plays for the Phoenix Suns NBA team.

1998: Tamia
2000: A Nu Day
2004: More
2006: Between Friends
2007: A Gift Between Friends (a re-release of Between Friends with a bonus CD of Christmas songs).