MARIA MENA » BIOGRAPHY


QUICK INFORMATION

Name: Mena
Forename/s: Maria Viktoria
Date of birth: February 19, 1986
Place of birth: Oslo, Norway
Zodiac sign: Aquarius
Gender: Female
Marital status: Allied (boyfriend: Eivind Saether, Norwegian journalist)
Occupation: Singer/Songwriter
Label: Sony BMG
Hobbies: Running, reading books, dancing, kissing


FULL BIOGRAPHY

Maria Viktoria Mena was born on February 19, 1986 in Norway's capital city Oslo. One could say that Maria was born with the artistic gene - as her mother wrote plays and her father worked as a professional drummer. In fact, is was her father that got Maria to enter pop business. But before that, Maria, who is named after the main character from West Side Story, grew up like any other child. Until she was nine years old - at that time, her parents divorced. Maria had a hard time and started to suffer from depressions and later, at the age of 17, from an eating disorder. More than ten years later, she'd write songs about her sufferance and release the album Cause and Effect as a result.
"I realized that when I wrote songs and created music, I liked myself. It's my therapy."
   -Maria Mena
At the age of 13, however, Maria moved in with her father and started developing a relation-ship with her mother that she nowadays describes as "barely existant". One day at that period of time, Maria and her father were taking a busride. Charles Mena noticed his daughter was humming a melody and assumed she had gotten to know it on MTV. But when he asked her, she said, 'That's a song I wrote'. Maria, who claims that she started writing songs at a very young age, actually made this fragment a part of her first hit single "My Lullaby". Maria had really started writing songs at eleven. It had just been a song that she wrote to enter a competition - the prize had been a meeting with the boyband Hanson. Maria actually had had a crush on one of the boys. But before that, Charles had encouraged his little daughter to record a demo and send it to several record companies. And it worked out! In 2001, at the sweet age of 15, Maria released her first single, followed by the debut album "Another Phase" in 2002. The CD reached platinum status in Norway. The next album was released in 2004 - it is called "Mellow" and contains the well-known single "You're The Only One", which Kanye West speaks of as "THE summer hit of 2004". In the same year, the album "White Turns Blue" was released - a compilation of songs from the two former albums. It was only released in the USA where Maria toured as opening act for Hanson and also appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman. Only one year later, in 2005, "Apparently Unaffected" was released. By the way, you may ask yourself if Maria is really Norwegian when you look at her. Her father Charles is actually of Nicaraguan origin, but grew up in New York, so Maria speaks English as mother..er..father tongue. Her mother is from Norway. So that's what makes the beautiful mix.
"I shall use time to be the artist I want to be. I'll treat each album as if it were the last."
   -Maria Mena
"Apparently Unaffected" was a great success in Norway - it made the record label go a step further and release the album in Holland and Germany in early 2007. And it was a full success! Who doesn't know "Just Hold Me"? Through the rest of the year, Maria went touring mainly across Germany and Holland. A new chapter begins in 2008, when Maria releases her fourth studio album "Cause and Effect", a very personal record concerning mostly her childhood. It is not hard to see that Maria grew up and is more feminine now than she was in the past. Her voice also got stronger and better. Just days after the release of "Cause and Effect" in Norway, it also got gold status. We'll see what the future may bring!

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