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| Birth Name(s) : Lily Rose Beatrice Allen |
Date of Birth: N/A |
| Status:
Single
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Partner:
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| Profession:
Singer-songwriter |
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Full Lily Allen Biography
Lily Rose Beatrice Allen (born May 2, 1985) is an English singer-songwriter best known for songs such as "Smile" and "LDN". She is the daughter of actor/musician Keith Allen and film producer Alison Owen.
Her single "Smile" reached number one on the UK singles charts in July 2006. In December 2006 her debut album Alright, Still was voted the third best album of the year by Mixmag. In 2007 it was nominated for the award of Best British Album at the Brit Awards and for Best New Artist at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards.
Allen was born in Hammersmith, west London, daughter of Welsh-born comedian Keith Allen and film producer Alison Owen. She and her family eventually settled in the North London borough of Islington. She has an older sister, Sarah; a younger brother, Alfie Owen-Allen (who was the subject of her song "Alfie"); and a younger sister Rebecca. She also has a number of half-siblings. Lily Allen lived for a while with comedian Harry Enfield while her mother dated him and is also the goddaughter of late Clash singer and guitarist, Joe Strummer.
In 1988, Allen appeared on The Comic Strip Presents... episode "The Yob", which her father had co-written. When Allen was four years old, her father left the family. Allen claims to have grown up with her mother in a working class environment, living in a council house environment for most of her childhood. This certainly seems at odds with the fact that she attended some of England's costliest public schools; Allen attended 13 schools in all, including Prince Charles's junior alma mater, Hill House School and Bedales School, and was expelled from several of them for drinking, smoking and performing fellatio.
Allen told Loveline that at age 11 she was singing an Oasis tune in the schoolyard when a teacher overheard her and told her she had talent and suggested she do something with it. She took singing lessons with the teacher. She sang at a school play and claimed that the audience was brought to tears at the sight of a troubled young girl doing something good. At that point Allen said she knew that music was something she needed to do either as a lifelong vocation or to get it out of her system. She became a member of the Groucho Club at the age of 17 and in her free time, she listened to artists such as The Specials, T.Rex, and Happy Mondays and read..
Allen's vocals appeared on the single "Who Invented Fish & Chips?" by Fat Les, in which her father was the lead singer of the band.
The first song released as a single, featuring ska influence and a sample of "Reggae Merengue".
- Problems playing the files? See media help.
On the week ending on January 28, 2007, British artists made chart history taking all Top 10 places in the Official UK Albums chart for the first time since the chart was established in 1956, according to British record labels trade association the BPI, the album "Alright, Still" was number nine that week.
In concert, Allen performed a parody of 50 Cent's "Window Shopper", called "Nan, You're a Window Shopper", which was commercially released as a B-side to "LDN", because approval was not given in time for the Alright, Still release. Nonetheless, the song appears on the U.S. version of Alright, Still.
Allen provided backing vocals on the Basement Jaxx song "Lights Go Down" (from Crazy Itch Radio) and appears on tracks on Robbie Williams's latest album, Rudebox on the Manu Chao-cover "Bongo Bong and Je Ne T'Aime Plus" (produced by Mark Ronson ) and also on "Keep On". She also provides vocals on "Rawhide" by Jamie T and "Wanna Be" by Dizzee Rascal.
On 5 March 2007 "Alfie" was released. It reached #15 in the UK Singles-Chart. Upon hearing this song, her brother Alfie threw her laptop out of a window in revenge. Her newest single "Oh My God", produced by Mark Ronson reached #12 in the UK (downloads only), in the second week it jumped up to #8.
Allen is currently working with Future Cut on a second album but has avoided mentioning details about it, stating that "that's a mistake a lot of people make these days, when they have a successful first album, and then the record company pushes them into rushing a second one."
On August 5, 2007 Allen was detained at Los Angeles international airport for five hours and questioned over an alleged assault on a photographer in London in March. The U.S. authorities revoked her working visa though her manager denies this.
When asked by the NME how she would celebrate if her debut single, "Smile", got to Number 1 in the UK charts, she responded "gak" (a slang term for cocaine). She immediately said that she was joking, but the remark was widely quoted in the tabloid press. Allen has since apologized for the remark. She admitted in an NME interview that she worked as an ecstasy drug dealer at the age of 15 whilst living in Sant Antoni de Portmany, though she wasn't very good at it.
Allen has been the subject of both strong positive and negative reactions. She was included on the NME Cool List for 2006, but she complained in her blog that the treatment was "fucking patronising". She was voted the third coolest person of the year in NME Magazine. She ranked "Number One Reason to Love '07" and "Hottest Woman of Pop/R&B." in Blender magazine. On the other hand, she was also rated number 10 in BBC Three's Most Annoying Person of 2006. |
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