Mica Paris - Friday

Mica Paris’s roots are in soul and gospel music. She grew up singing in her grandparents’ church and by her mid teens was making regular appearances with ‘The Spirit of Watts’ gospel choir. She was soon noticed as a distinctive voice and at seventeen got her first break as a backing vocalist with the UK chart band ‘Hollywood Beyond’.
The range, power, and sheer soulfulness of her singing made a major impact on the UK scene and in the following year, 1988, she released her debut, platinum-selling album, So Good, from which she had her first top ten hit with ‘You Are My One Temptation’. This led to a collaboration with American soul singer, Will Downing, on a cover version of ‘Where Is The Love’, a song made famous by Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack in the early ’70s.
In 1991, Mica’s second album, Contribution, was released. This extended Mica’s soul and gospel influences to bring in hip-hop and house music and included a track written especially for Mica by Prince, which she recorded at his Paisley Park studios.
Her third album, Whisper a Prayer (1993), marked another departure for Mica, fusing soul, jazz and blues with lush string arrangements, garnering further top twenty singles ‘Never Felt Like This Before’ and ‘Wanna Hold On To You’. Mica then decided to take a break from recording and turned to the stage, where she starred in two acclaimed West End shows, ‘Mama I Want to Sing’ and ‘Sweet Lorraine’.
In 1997 she returned to the studio to record and produce her fourth album, Black Angel, which produced two more top twenty singles ‘Stay’ and ‘Carefree’ and in 2001, another collaboration, this time with Dave Gilmore and Jools Holland on Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ classic track, ‘I Put A Spell On You’, once again topped the charts.

In 2004 Mica was in the top 10 list of the 100 Great Black Britons which was compiled to celebrate the achievements and contributions made by the British Black community over the centuries. In the Autumn, Mica returned to the studio and recorded a duet with Australian rock legend Jimmy Barnes and started recording her new soul album based on her famous Radio 2 Soul show, Soul Solutions.
2009 saw the British star releasing her first original studio album in ten years. Mica also embarked on a nationwide tour meeting fans old and new and reminding her millions of TV fans what first put her in the public eye twenty- two years ago. Mica’s new album, entitled ‘Born Again’ was released in Summer 2009 and was produced by the legendary ‘hit- maker’, Brian Rawling. Rawling’s recent single ‘Broken Strings’, for James Morrison and Nelly Furtado was number one worldwide. James Morrison wrote Mica’s first single from the album, released Summer 2009, ‘Baby Come Back Now’ – an up-tempo retro tune, that Morrison penned especially for Mica’s soaring vocals.
“Remarkably gifted vocalist…a talent…of giant proportions.” Independent.