Career
As a 15 year old, Zakiya was crowned Hal Jackson's Talented Teens Miss International Queen of 1992. Two years later, she signed with Ric Wake's production company as part of the girl group Faces. After a year with the group, Zakiya pursued a solo career and signed with DV8 Records in 1995.
Her debut single, "Love Like Mine", was released in 1996. A review of the song in Billboard, which compared Zakiya's musical style to that of Brandy, remarked that Zakiya "has the voice to be taken seriously she slinks through a song that has a sing-along refrain that permanently sticks to the brain after the first listen." Andrew Hamilton of Allmusic was critical of the CD single for containing five different versions of the song. The music video for "Love Like Mine" was added to BET's video rotation, and the single peaked at number 60 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.
Zakiya's second single, "My Love Won't Fade Away", was released in 1997. The song features a guest rap by Charisma and a sample of Barry White's 1977 song "Playing Your Game, Baby". A Billboard review of "My Love Won't Fade Away" compared Zakiya's voice to that of a young Gladys Knight, and that she "exudes mucho star power on this sleek jeep-soul cruiser." The music video for the song was added to BET's video rotation and it reached number one on The Box's weekly video countdown in May 1997. Zakiya's self-titled debut album was also released that month, and "My Love Won't Fade Away" peaked at number 52 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. A 12-inch single for "I Like" was released in 1998, but Zakiya was dropped from DV8 before work on her second album was completed.
Read more about this topic: Zakiya Cox
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“What exacerbates the strain in the working class is the absence of money to pay for services they need, economic insecurity, poor daycare, and lack of dignity and boredom in each partner’s job. What exacerbates it in upper-middle class is the instability of paid help and the enormous demands of the career system in which both partners become willing believers. But the tug between traditional and egalitarian models of marriage runs from top to bottom of the class ladder.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)
“I doubt that I would have taken so many leaps in my own writing or been as clear about my feminist and political commitments if I had not been anointed as early as I was. Some major form of recognition seems to have to mark a woman’s career for her to be able to go out on a limb without having her credentials questioned.”
—Ruth Behar (b. 1956)