Bebe Rexha Biography

Bleta "Bebe" Rexha (born August 30, 1989) is a American singer, songwriter and record producer with Albanian ancestry. She is best known as a featured singer on several Billboard Hot 100 songs, including G-Eazy's "Me, Myself & I" and David Guetta's "Hey Mama". She also co-wrote the chart-topping Eminem and Rihanna single, "The Monster" (among many other songs). In March 2016, she released "No Broken Hearts", featuring Nicki Minaj, the first single off of her upcoming debut studio album, A.Y.F. The album is due to be released in January 2017.

Early life and education

Rexha was born Bleta Rexha in Brooklyn, New York to ethnic Albanian parents, who emigrated to the United States in the 1980s from Debar. Her first name, Bleta, means "bumble bee" in Albanian, which is why she uses the nickname "Bebe". The family moved to Staten Island, New York when Rexha was six. Beginning in elementary school, Rexha played the trumpet for nine years and eventually taught herself how to play guitar and piano. Rexha attended Tottenville High School in Staten Island, where she took part in a variety of musicals. She also joined the choir while in high school. There she learned that her voice was a coloratura soprano.

As a teenager, Rexha submitted a song to the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences' annual "Grammy Day" event. Rexha earned the "Best Teen Songwriter" award, beating around 700 other entrants. She would later come into contact with talent scout, Samantha Cox, who convinced Rexha to enroll in songwriting classes in New York City. At the time, she was 15 years old and took the classes with men in their 40s.

Career

Rexha's career began after she had a chance encounter with Fall Out Boy bassist, Pete Wentz, at a New York City recording studio in 2010. She would eventually become the lead vocalist of Wentz's new experimental project, Black Cards. The band played a variety of live shows and released several singles and remixes. In January 2012, however, Wentz announced that Rexha had left the band to pursue other endeavors.

In 2013, Rexha was signed to Warner Bros. Records as a solo artist. Prior to signing, Rexha had written several songs, including "Like a Champion" for Selena Gomez and "Glowing" for Nikki Williams. Her most prominent songwriting effort of 2013 was Eminem and Rihanna's "The Monster." Rexha had begun writing and producing the song with Jon Bellion, Frequency, and Aalias in 2012, and it was intended to be on her own upcoming album. It was originally titled, "Monster Under My Bed." The song eventually made its way to Riggs Morales, the Vice President of A&R at Atlantic Records, who stripped the original version down and made it the fourth single off of Eminem's album, The Marshall Mathers LP 2. It went on to top the charts for the Billboard Hot 100 and the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. Rexha also wrote and was featured on Cash Cash's single, "Take Me Home" that year.

On March 21, 2014, Rexha released her debut single "I Can't Stop Drinking About You." The song peaked at number 22 on Billboards Top Heatseekers chart. The music video for the song was released on August 12, 2014 and was inspired by imagery from films like Girl, Interrupted and Melancholia. Rexha released two more singles, "I'm Gonna Show You Crazy" and "Gone," in December 2014. Her debut EP was released through Warner Bros. on May 12, 2015 and was entitled I Don't Wanna Grow Up.

Earlier in 2014, Rexha was featured on rapper Pitbull's song "This Is Not a Drill." She also co-wrote and was featured in David Guetta's "Hey Mama" also featuring Nicki Minaj and Afrojack. The song peaked at number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and received 1.1 million downloads by June 2015. The song did not originally give Rexha a feature credit despite the fact that she sings the chorus and background vocals. She was eventually given a feature credit in June 2015.

In October 2015, Rexha co-wrote and was featured on G-Eazy's "Me, Myself & I" which peaked at number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 1 on the Billboard Pop Songs chart. The song was originally titled "I Don't Need Anything" and was intended as a song for Rexha herself. Instead, she brought the song idea to G-Eazy and was featured during the chorus.

In March 2016, Rexha released the first single off of her debut album, A.Y.F.. The single, "No Broken Hearts," features Nicki Minaj and was produced by The Invisible Men. Prior to the release of the song, Rexha saw Minaj's manager, Gee Roberson, at a party. She let him listen to the track and asked if Minaj would do a feature. Roberson sent the song to Minaj and she agreed to do the feature. The music video for the song was released in April 2016 and was directed by Dave Meyer. By August 2016, the video had accumulated over 110 million views on YouTube. A.Y.F. is due to be released in October 2016.

On 29 July 2016 Bebe Rexha together with Dutch DJ and record producer Martin Garrix released the single "In the Name of Love". It has since peaked at number 56 on US Billboard Hot 100 and has entered the top 10 charts in many countries: United Kingdom, Australia, Finland, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, New Zealand etc. and the top 20 in Canada, Germany, Italy, Scotland, Portugal and many others. The music video was released on 23 August 2016 on Martin Garrix YouTube Channel.

Discography

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EPs

• I Don't Wanna Grow Up (2015)

Albums

• A.Y.F. (2016)

Production and writing credits

Rexha has written and co-produced for a number of artists, including:

Year	Artist	Album	Song
2010	Shinee	Lucifer	"Lucifer"
	Nikki Williams		"Glowing"
2013	Selena Gomez	Stars Dance	"Like a Champion"
	Eminem (featuring Rihanna)	The Marshall Mathers LP 2	"The Monster"
	Cash Cash (featuring Bebe Rexha)	Overtime (EP) and Blood, Sweat & 3 Years	"Take Me Home"
2014	Tinashe	Aquarius	"All Hands on Deck"
	Pitbull (featuring Bebe Rexha)	Globalization	"This Is Not a Drill"
	David Guetta (featuring Bebe Rexha)	Listen	"Yesterday"
	David Guetta (featuring Nicki Minaj, Bebe Rexha and Afrojack)		"Hey Mama"
	Bella Thorne	Jersey	"Jersey"
			"One More Night"
2015	Havana Brown (featuring Bebe Rexha and Savi)	rowspan="2"	"Battle Cry"
	Reykon (featuring Bebe Rexha)	"All the Way"
	G-Eazy (with Bebe Rexha)	When It's Dark Out	"Me, Myself & I"
2016	Iggy Azalea	Digital Distortion	"Team"
			"Three Day Weekend"
	Nick Jonas	Last Year Was Complicated	"Under You"
	Martin Garrix (with Bebe Rexha)		"In The Name of Love"

Awards and nominations

Year	Event	Prize	Nominated work	Result
2015	Teen Choice Awards	Best Collaboration	"Hey Mama"	rowspan=4
	MTV Europe Music Awards	Best Collaboration
2016	iHeartRadio Music Awards	Dance Song of the Year
	Billboard Music Award	Top Dance/Electronic Song

Tours

Co-headlining

• Warped Tour (2015)

Opening act

• Nick Jonas - Nick Jonas: Live in Concert (2015)
• Ellie Goulding - Delirium World Tour (2016)