Christina Milian Flores was born on 26 September 1981 in Jersey City, New Jersey, and was four years old when she showed an interest in show business, and when her family realized that she was a talented actress, she became determined to pursue an entertainment career. By the time she was nine years old, she was auditioning with local talent agencies, shooting commercials for Wendy's and Honeycomb, and landing the lead role in the musical 'Annie'. When her mother noticed her daughter's potential, she left her husband and moved to Los Angeles with her three daughters, and once there the 13-year old Christina was determined to become an actress, as well as wanting to get into the record business, although she didn't know how to obtain a recording contract. After living in Los Angeles for six months, she moved into the same apartment complex as songwriter and producer Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins, and when he heard about her from a boy band he was involved with, they began working together. For a year and a half, Milian went into a studio every day and worked with Jerkins, which is where she started meeting people in the record business, and by the age of 17 she was writing songs as she needed a demo to help her obtain a recording contract.
Her first professional musical appearance was on rapper Ja Rule's second studio album 'Rule 3:36' in 2000, performing vocals on the song 'Between Me And You', and this led to to a record deal with Def Soul Records, who sent her to Sweden to record her self-titled debut album. This was released on 9 October 2001 in the UK, and peaked at number 23 in the album chart, although its domestic release in the US was cancelled, primarily because of the September 11 attacks. The critical response to the album was mixed to generally positive, but she was not happy with it, as she felt that it was not what the public expected, and she told her company executives that they were not listening to her when she told them the sort of music she wanted to record. However, after a couple more singles, Def Soul was shut down in 2003 and absorbed by its parent Def Jam, although Milian was instead moved over to Island Records. After the international release of her debut album, she went back into the recording studio, but felt that music trends had changed into rock music, hardcore hip hop and tribute songs, and as her music did not fall into those categories she decided to stop recording and toured overseas for a year and a half. When she returned to the US, she decided not to release her previous album domestically, and started working on a new album, and 'It's About Time' was released in the US on 13 July 2004.
Once again, the critical response to the album was mixed, but Milian insisted that it was more R&B when compared to her "bubble-gum" pop debut album, and it did debut at number 14 on the Billboard 200 album chart. Whereas her previous albums had pop and then R&B stylings, she was encouraged by Island Def Jam to target a new audience, and release an urban record. Although she was originally supposed to work with several different music producers, she felt that the chemistry she had with Cool & Dre in the first week was so instant that she couldn't get a better vibe, and so ended up working with them on the majority of the production of the album. When 'So Amazin'' was released in May 2006 it debuted at number eleven on the Billboard 200 albums chart, although for the third time, critical reviews were mixed, saying that while she claimed that she was displaying the various sides of her personality, the album could only scratch the surface of who she really was. A week after the album was released it was confirmed that she had been dropped by Island Def Jam, and for two years she was without a record label, until she signed to MySpace Records in 2008. When she was featured on the cover of Rap-Up's 2008 Winter issue, she announced that her new album's title was 'Dream in Color', and a single was released in October 2008, with the ballad 'Us Against The World' being written by Milian and produced by Madd Scientist.
In early 2009 she began working with The-Dream and Tricky Stewart, and she later revealed that aside from 'Us Against The World', they would be producing all the songs on her album. It was originally set for an early 2009 release date, however, for reasons unknown, it was was never released, and Milian left MySpace Records later that same year, signing a new record deal with The-Dream’s record label, Radio Killa Records. She later retitled the album 'Elope', explaining that "the definition of elope is to run away secretly with one's beloved. This next album is about taking responsibility for yourself and making your own decisions". In June 2009, The-Dream confirmed that the album was finished, but for similar unknown reasons as 'Dream In Color', it was shelved, possibly because she broke up with The-Dream, and left Radio Killa Records. In August 2009, she confirmed that she had signed a deal to release 'Elope' through Interscope Records, with a 2010 release date, but despite announcing that she was going back into the studio in the summer to record more material, the record has never appeared, either as 'Dream In Color' or 'Elope'. So that her work on the thirty or so songs that she laid down is not wasted, here is an approximation of the 'Elope' album, with about two thirds made up of confirmed tracks, and the rest taken from the scrapped 'Dream In Color' sessions.
Track listing
01 Elope
02 Sock It 2 Me
03 I'm Not Perfect
04 Super Villain
05 Take A Piece of My Heart
06 I Gotta Get To You
07 Diamonds (feat. Kanye West)
08 Too New (feat. The-Dream)
09 My Bloody Valentine
10 Supersonic (feat. The-Dream)
11 Sugar Rush
12 Stay
13 Zipper
14 Chameleon
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