Nikka Costa

Biography

Nikka Costa has been in show business from an early age; in fact, she has been in show business from the earliest of ages. Nikka was born June 4th, 1972, in Tokyo, Japan during the Tokyo Music Festival, into a top musical family. Her father is legendary '50s producer/arranger/writer Don Costa, who worked with all the bigwigs of the time like Barbra Streisand, Paul Anka and Frank Sinatra (Old Blue Eyes and Nikka sang a duet when she was nine, on the White House lawn). Nikka's father also had a home studio in their family's Los Angeles home, where a young Nikka was able to watch a steady parade of true superstars like Quincy Jones, Tony Bennett and Sammy Davis Jr. work their magic. When you were five, your biggest hobby was probably seeing how far you could fit your finger into your belly button. This is par for the course of most five-year-olds, but not for Nikka Costa. When Nikka was five, she was already singing with Don Ho in Hawaii for a Christmas album that was being produced by her father. By the time Nikka was seven, she was once again on tour with her father's project, The Don Costa Orchestra. At the encore for a show in Milan, Italy, little Nikka sang "On My Own" before a huge and adoring crowd. It is said that it was this performance that led to the recording of her own record simply entitled Nikka Costa, which was released in Europe, Israel, and South and Central America and was awarded platinum status in each area -- a huge accomplishment for an artist of any age. When Nikka was ten, she already scored another huge hit with her second release, Fairy Tales. But it was then that tragedy struck the young superstar, when her father died. It would be four years before a young Nikka would perform again. Nikka moved to Australia, where she took time to write her own songs and find her own style. With a new self-driven approach to music, Nikka released a new adult (as in sophisticated) version of herself on her album, Butterfly Rocket, which was a financial success and earned her a Best New Artist nomination at the Australian Recording Industry Awards.