Bleta Rexha was born on August 30, 1989, in Brooklyn , New York [9] to ethnic Albanian parents. [3] Her father, Flamur Rexha, was born in Debar , Republic of Macedonia and emigrated in the US at the age of 21, while her mother, Bukurije Rexha, was born in the US from an Albanian family descending from Gostivar , Republic of Macedonia . [10][11] In Albanian, Bleta means "bumble bee"; derived from this, Rexha gave herself the nickname "Bebe" as part of her stage name.
[2] At the age of 6, Bleta and her family later moved to
Staten Island, New York .
At her elementary school, Rexha played trumpet for over nine years, while teaching herself to play guitar and piano. [12][13] Rexha attended Tottenville High School on Staten Island, [14] where she took part in a variety of musicals. [4][11] She also joined the choir, while still in high school. [13] After joining the choir, she discovered that her voice was a coloratura soprano . [15][16]
As a teenager, Rexha submitted a song to be performed at
the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences' annual "Grammy Day" event. Rexha earned the "Best Teen Songwriter" award, beating around 700 other entrants. [3][17]
[18] As a result, she signed a contract with the talent scout Samantha Cox, who encouraged Rexha to enroll into songwriting classes in New York City. [12][19]
Career
In 2010, Rexha met Fall Out Boy 's bassist Pete Wentz with whom she began working at a recording studio in New York City . [13][20] She would eventually become a member and a lead vocalist of Wentz's new experimental project of a band, called Black Cards . The band played a variety of live shows and released several singles and remixes. However, in January 2012, Wentz announced that Rexha left the band to pursue other endeavors. [21]
In 2013, Rexha signed with Warner Bros. Records as a solo artist. [22] Rexha had begun writing several songs, including
Selena Gomez ' "Like a Champion" and Nikki Williams' "Glowing". [6] Her most prominent songwriting effort of 2013 was Eminem and Rihanna's song " The Monster ", which was released as Eminem's fourth single from Eminem's album
The Marshall Mathers LP 2. The song went on to top the charts for the US Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard 's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs . [23] That same year, Rexha also wrote and was featured on Cash Cash 's single " Take Me Home ". [22]
[24]
On March 21, 2014, Rexha released her debut single, " I Can't Stop Drinking About You ". [24] The song peaked at number 22 on Billboard 's Top Heatseekers chart. [25] The music video was released on August 12, 2014. The video was inspired by imagery from films such as Girl, Interrupted and Melancholia.
[26] In November 2014, Rexha was featured on rapper
Pitbull 's song "This Is Not a Drill". [27] and in September 2014, she was picked as Elvis Duran 's Artist of the Month and was featured on NBC 's Today show hosted by Kathy Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb , where she performed live her single "I Can't Stop Drinking About You".
In December 2014, Rexha released two more singles, " I'm Gonna Show You Crazy " and " Gone ". [28][29] On May 12, 2015, she released her debut EP, titled I Don't Wanna Grow Up through Warner Bros. Records. [30] She also co-wrote and was featured on David Guetta's single " Hey Mama ", alongside Nicki Minaj and Afrojack . [6] The song peaked at number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and received 1.1 million downloads as of June 2015. The song did not originally credit Rexha, despite the fact that she sings the chorus and is featured on background vocals. In June 2015, she was eventually given a credit for her work.
