Born Brittany Nicole Waddell, Britt Nicole is a pop singer and songwriter whose inspirational tunes landed on the contemporary Christian charts before crossing over to the pop charts in the early 2010s. Born and raised in North Carolina, she started singing in her grandfather's church at just three years of age, later learning the piano and guitar and starting to write songs in her teens. When Belmont University offered her a scholarship for their music program, she made the decision to turn it down in favor of actively pursuing a recording contract.nn That goal came to fruition in 2006 when she signed with the Sparrow label, which released her debut LP, Say It, in 2007. Behind the Top Ten Christian song "You," it reached number 40 on Billboard's Top Christian Albums chart. Nicole's empowering dance-pop hit the Christian charts again in 2009 with her sophomore effort, The Lost Get Found, which also landed on the Billboard 200. A year later, she released the Acoustic EP, a collection of acoustic versions of some of her songs.nnBritt Nicole's third studio album, 2012's Gold, climbed to number 41 on the Billboard 200, and its title track marked her debut on the Hot 100 as well as on Billboard's Pop Songs chart. Later in 2012, she signed with Capitol Records, which reissued Gold in 2013. The LP went on to earn a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Christian Music Album. A year later, the song "The Sun Is Rising" appeared in the Cameron Diaz film The Other Woman. Led by the charting single "Through Your Eyes," her first album of original material for Capitol, titled simply Britt Nicole, arrived in 2016. ~ Marcy Donelson