Early Life
Lawson was born and raised in London. She is the youngest in a family of five, with three brothers and one sister.
Lawson is of Jamaican, Chinese and Cuban descent, her mother being Jamaican and her father part Cuban. Her grandfather is Chinese from the family descending from the name Chang.
Before finding fame on The X Factor, Lawson was discovered by Active Music Management, who obtained her first record deal with President Records and her first publishing deal. Her first single was "A Night to Remember", which was used by the Gala Bingo advertisement after the producers of the advert thought that her version was better than the original. Lawson was in a band called Skye, managed by her husband, Lawrence Garry. Kyra Simone provided backing vocals, Mark Coutier and Mark Hubden played guitar, Evgeni Vachov was on bass and the drums were by Ramy Abood. Some of Skye's most popular tracks included "Woman's Intuition" and "Body & Soul".
Lawson was signed to Peer Music Publishing from 2002 to 2005 and started her career as a published singer-songwriter. During that time, she worked with established producer David Brant, who produced three tracks for her – "Rush", "I Wanna Say Yes" and "Inferno". During her time as a singer-songwriter, she worked with recording artist Gabrielle and performed on Gabrielle’s hit singles "Out Of Reach" (as featured in the Bridget Jones' Diary soundtrack), "Don't Need the Sun to Shine (to Make Me Smile)" and the live version of "Rise". She has also provided backing vocals for many other artists, including British soul singer Lemar.
Read more about this topic: Maria Lawson (singer)
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