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‘Alicia Lena’ (born January 18, 1988) is an American recording artist, musician, singer-songwriter and producer. Lena released her debut album “This Is Who I Am” with Junction Records in May 2010, the record was a slow-burner, peaking at number seven on the album charts, but the record has since gone on to sell over three million copies worldwide and proven to be a fan favourite throughout the singers career, spawning five top twenty singles that have gone on to become some of her most popular songs to date and continue to be live favourites to this very day. The release of that album helped to launch Alicia into the spotlight and what followed was something that many considered to be a meteoric rise for the RnB musician who quickly became one of the biggest names in the music industry in her sophomore year in 2011.

Her sophomore album “Waking Up” was released in April 2011 to widespread mainstream success, it peaked at number one in the album charts and saw the release of four singles, all of which peaked at the top position of the singles charts. The record has since gone on to sell over four and a half million copies worldwide and is widely considered to be Alicia’s crowning achievement, with some considering it to be one of the best RnB records in recent memory. The success of the album was met with a bigger vision from Alicia who quickly transitioned from performing in clubs and theatres to becoming a major live arena draw, with her “Waking Up: World Tour” becoming one of the highest-grossing tours of 2011 and helped propel Alicia into that top bracket of musicians in the industry.

Her third studio album “Reign Over Me” saw the first drop-off of productivity from Alicia, the album however continued on from the success of her previous effort, again peaking at number one and selling around five million copies worldwide and spawning three hit singles. However, what followed was a period of downtime for Alicia. Once she had wrapped up her “Reign Over Me: World Tour” she opted to take herself away from the spotlight and put more of a focus behind the scenes in the music industry, she has since had a number of different roles within the music industry, serving as a judge on StarFactory to working as a talent scout and label executive at record label FREEDOM. Her productivity as a musician dropped off for a year, returning briefly with the free release of a mix-tape titled “Almost Grown” in December, 2014. She opted against promoting the collection and continued to work behind the scenes.

Throughout her career, she has won a number of awards and has sold over twelve millions records worldwide and around eight million singles worldwide. Her reputation in the industry has always been one of a talented and humble musician that managed to bring old-school sensibilities back to the music industry through RnB and Soul influenced music. Taking inspiration from legends of the past like Sam Cooke, Otis Redding and Stevie Wonder and trying to provide a positive message through music in a way that inspires and influences a whole new generation of creators.

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She was raised in San Diego, California by her adoptive parents Kelly and Mark Stevens, her birth parents we're heavily involved in crime and drugs so they decided that once Alicia was born that they would put her up for adoption. Her birth father was Spanish which means that Alicia is half Spanish. She was told from an early age that she was adopted and has never met her birth parents and has also never attempted to find her parents. Her adoptive parents were fans of classical music and Alicia began Cello lessons at the age of 6. She started playing piano at the age of 8 years old and started singing for school events at the age of 11, clearly she was destined to be involved in music. She's said in the past that she loved growing up in California when she was younger but says that her teen years were less fun, in an early interview she says, “I never really got bullied but I was never the popular girl, I guess I just managed to blend in with everyone else, I was just quiet and I just sort of got on with things.”
Her adoptive father Mark was a huge fan of classical music and taught Alicia pretty much everything she knows about music, He also taught her piano lessons from a very early age and it led to her learning and performing music by composers such as Beethoven and Mozart. At the age of 12, her parents enrolled her in a summer performing arts school which is where she began writing songs, within 3 summers of being enrolled at the performing arts school she graduated as valedictorian and a former teacher at the school claims that Alicia is the most gifted musician to come out of the school. Every summer, she visit’s the school and occasionally takes over one or two classes for a day. She graduated from high school at 17 years old as an honours student, achieving A star grades in various subjects including, Literature, Philosophy and more. She initially planned to study at NYU but decided that she wanted to move to New York City to start her music career rather than continue with education.

She decided to start her music career at 18 years old. She left San Diego on her 18th birthday and moved to New York, she quickly found a part-time job at a clothing store in Times Square which helped her to begin her new life in New York City. She would perform in various small clubs in New York almost every night of the week, she described this period as very testing, “I was blessed to get a job so quickly after moving to New York but I also wanted to perform as much as I could, so I’d wake at about 6:30am and get ready for work, I’d return home at around 6:00pm and quickly change clothes and head out to these tiny little clubs in New York. It was very tiring for me but I couldn’t choose one over the other and I wasn’t getting paid enough money from performing to make a living of it so I just had to make do with it.”
In 2007, she performed at a small club in Greenwich Village, New York called the Blue Note Jazz Club, the owner was so impressed by her performance that he offered Alicia the job as the clubs resident pianist which was a welcome offer for Alicia, she left her job at the clothing store and things finally started to look positive for her, “It was my first solid job as a musician, before Blue Note came along I was just managing to continue to live in New York but Blue Note came along and I had a permanent job playing music and they helped me a whole lot, I owe to the guy that hired me, I dunno how much longer I could have continued to live in New York but he kinda saved me really.” She continued as resident piano player at the Blue Note Club from 2007 to 2009. During the period between 2007-2009, Alicia claims that she sent out almost 30 copies of a demo that she cut in a low budget recording studio but says that very few labels showed interest in her.

In early 2010, Alicia felt on the verge of a breakthrough, she auditioned for two New York based record labels which reportedly told her to audition again in two years because that’s when they felt she’d be ready for a career in music. She remained unsigned until she auditioned for Max Armstrong and Jake Wilson at newly created label called Junction Records in January 2010. Within a week of her audition for Junction Records she received a phone call from Max explaining that he wanted to offer her a record deal.
She was signed by Junction Records in February 2010 and quickly began work on her debut album in an early interview she explained, "I really want to get this debut album released, it’s something I’ve been working towards for the last 4 years, which is why I'm already working on the songs".
In February 2010, it was announced that Stephanie Fierce had agreed to feature on a track with Alicia, having heard Alicia perform a cover of Stephanie’s own song, Kill The Runaways which impressed the popstar. It was confirmed that Stephanie would feature on a song called New York Love Affair which was also confirmed as the debut single from Alicia. Within weeks of being signed to Junction Records, Alicia had already confirmed a host of names to appear on the album including, Ryan Ross Hernandez, Tisha Jackson and Moquel. She made her first televised performance at the 2010 IMA's performing three songs. Alicia finished work on her debut album, entitled, This Is Who I Am, which went on to become one of the most successful debut album’s in music, selling over 4 million copies worldwide. it has also spawned the hit singles New York Love Affair [#26], More Than You'll Ever Know [#17], Party-Starter (Feat. Tisha Jackson) [#7] and Rooftops (Feat. Ryan Ross Hernandez) [#3]. Her music is a mix of Pop/R&B and Blues.

She was confirmed as a support act for Tisha Jackson on the US leg of her world tour in the summer of 2010 and on 29th May she announced dates for the first leg of her debut world tour, the Here I Am World Tour which began in October 2010 and ended in December 2010 with support from G2L. At the end of 2010, Alicia was considered the breakthrough act of the year, achieving huge success both in the U.S and Worldwide, proven when she won Best Breakthrough Artist at the 2010 Hall Of Fame Awards, and she also proved her ability when she featured on a track with young UK based rapper MattY, the song Close To Tears peaked at number 1 on the Top20 and became the longest running number single in history. A great end to a great year for Ms. Lena. In early 2011, she began work on her sophomore album Waking Up, she brought Ryan Ross Hernandez and Will.Rocca into the studio to serve as producers. After almost 3 months of recording she finally confirmed that the album was completed and due for release on April 3, 2011. She also released the lead single Clichés Come Easy on March 13, 2011 and it went straight into the charts at number 1 in the Top20, UK Top40 and US Billboard, making it the biggest single of her career so far, it also shipped almost 200,000 copies in it's first week of release. Her hugely anticipated sophomore album Waking Up was released on April 3, 2011 and went straight to number one on the Chart Heat Album Charts and has quickly gone on to sell over 2 million copies worldwide and continues to sell copies in rapid pace. On April 17, 2011 she released the follow up single The Butterfly Effect which continued on from the success of Clichés Come Easy by also debuting at number 1 on the Top20 Airplay Charts which gave Alicia Lena two number 1 singles from a number 1 album an achievement that not many have managed to do.

On June 26, she released the third single from her hugely successful sophomore album Waking Up, the single initially charted at number 4 but the following week, sales surged and the single went to number 1, making it three consecutive number 1 singles, an incredible feat. On August 21 2011, she released the fourth single from her sophomore album, the single Another Face In The Crowd again peaked at number #1, adding to her hugely successful run of number #1 singles, it was the fourth single from the album and the forth consecutive number #1 single. With the end of the promotional run for “Waking Up”, Alicia then began working on her third studio album “Reign Over Me”, the record again peaked at number one and spawned three successful singles, with “Drop The Needle and Pray” peaking at number one and “Place A Wish In Your Heart” and “Last Known Surroundings” peaking at number two. With those proving to be the last releases from Alicia Lena for an extended period, she took a backstage role in the industry working on various other projects for almost a year and a half before we heard a brief return at the very end of December 2014 with the release of a free mix-tape titled “Almost Grown”, the release received widespread praise from fans and critics but Alicia decided to continue to step away from the spotlight.

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