Anthony Hamilton

Today, Anthony Hamilton draws comparisons to Bill Withers and Bobby Womack. He reasoned that it was his childhood motivation to move on to bigger things that finally got him there. Born on January 28, 1971, Hamilton was raised in Charlotte, North Carolina. At the age of 10, he joined a local church's choir and sang with his high school's choir.

Hamilton decided to move to New York City in 1993 to pursue a more professional career in music and it was when he scored a recording deal with Andre Harrell's Uptown Records. In 1995, his debut album was on preparation to be released but the company went bankrupt and left the album in the shelves. But his journey did not go down with the label.

He signed with MCA Records and spawned a debut album called "XTC" in 1996. Despite the medium success of single "Nobody Else", the album failed to chart on both the Billboard 200 and the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums charts, and subsequently went out of print. During his downtime, Hamilton wrote songs for other artists and was eventually invited to provide background vocals in D'Angelo's "Voodoo Tour".

By this time, Hamilton was already under a new label, recording another solo album. Unfortunately, Soulife Records had also gone out of business after he returned from D'Angelo's tour. He later gained mainstream audience when he sung the chorus of Nappy Roots' "Po' Folks". Hamilton earned a Grammy Award nomination for "Best Rap/Sung Collaboration" for the song in 2003. More collaborations followed suit.

"Comin' from Where I'm From", his second studio album was released in 2003 and achieved platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in early December 2004. The single "Charlene" peaked at number 19 on Hot 100. He was nominated for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for the single in 2005.

First compilation album, "Soulife" was released in 2005 on Rhino Records. It sold 53,000 copies in its first week, peaking at number 12 of Hot 200 chart. His third studio album, "Ain't Nobody Worryin'", was released at the end of 2005, debuting at number 19 on Hot 200. Then he made another compilation album in 2007, "Southern Comfort", which was his first album to have a Parental Advisory tag.

Hamilton later went under Arista Records and released his fourth studio album, "The Point of It All", in 2008. Beside debuting at number 11 on Hot 200, the album received generally positive reviews from most music critics. His private life took over for a while in 2010 when his wife Tarsha gave birth to twin boys. A year later, he was back in business with "Back to Love", his fifth studio album which was released in December 2011 by RCA Records.