Che’Nelle is a young R&B soul, reggae singer/songwriter, producer signed to Virgin Records America. She was born on March 10, 1983 as Cheryline Lim in Sabah, Malaysia to a Chinese Malaysian father and Indian-Dutch mother.
She was born in the town of Kota Kinabalu, Sabah a state of Malaysia. At the age of ten, Che’Nelle and her parents moved to Perth, Western Australia. She showed signs of lyrical and musical prowess when she improvised her own lyrics, ignoring the ones provided by the karaoke system in her father’s karaoke lounge. At 14 she joined a band that covered Top 40 hits and remained in it for 5 years.] At college, she learned to use music composition and editing tools, and went on to study music at degree level at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. After completing her degree, she was employed at a music publishing company as a staff songwriter. One of the songs she co-wrote Hell, No! was chosen as the debut single of Ricki-Lee Coulter, a finalist in the second season of the Australian Idol competition. It gave Che’Nelle her first Australian top 5 hit as a songwriter, with a 21-week run in the top 100 chart. While still working on her demo Che’Nelle uploaded her recordings to her profile on MySpace and gained the attention of Sir Sir Charles Dixon who eventually became her manager after listening to them.
Dixon took her material to Virgin Records and flew Che’nelle to Los Angeles at the end of 2005 to meet with representatives from label. The chairman of the label and longtime music business baron, Jason Flom, signed her immediately. Within two days, she had completed the deal and was marketed as a world-class artist. Che’nelle worked as a promotions assistant before moving to New York in January after signing a six-album deal with Virgin Records America. In Australia, she is represented by EMI. She performed as the opening act on Kanye West’s Australian tour in March 2006. Her debut album Things Happen for a Reason was released on 25 September 2007 in Japan and 29 October 2007 in Australia. The first single from this album was “I Fell In Love With The DJ” featuring reggae artist Cham. The song was also produced in Bahasa Malaysia version with the title of “DJ yang Ku Puja”.
Singles|2007 - “I Fell in Love With the DJ”, “Hurry Up” |2008 - “First Love” |
