Brief Information• Full Name: Esmée Denters |
In-Depth Biography1988-2005 | Early Life |
Early Life
Childhood
Born as Esmée Denters on September 28, 1988 in Arnhem, Gelderland, the Netherlands to jurist Hank Denters and secretary at a children’s hospital Fenny Boonstra. Esmée was their second child; their first born was Daphne Denters. She was born and raised in the Netherlands. Until she was twelve she lived in Westervoort, Gelderland and moved to Velp, Gelderland and she is currently living with her mother Fenny in Oosterbeek, Gelderland. Her parents got divorced when Esmée was about 14 years old. Daphne on the divorce: “Esmée and I only got closer, because of the divorce of my parents over five years ago“. Esmée has great memories about her childhood: “We had a street were lived lots of kids that where my age so whenever you had nothing to do you just go to your neighbor and be like ‘Hey do you want to do something?’ “. She loved doing child-ish activities with her friends and she even sold home made perfume door to door.
Education
Esmée and her sister Daphne went to primary school in Westervoort. Esmée attended Highschool in Arhnem, Gelderland. She graduated in class of 2005-2006 and she decided to study to become a social worker. “I just love talking to people, and i would love to know why people do what they do. Cause everyone has problems, and i would love to help people out with their problems. ” says Esmée on her study. Esmée later admitted she always wanted to be singer but “you don’t have a school to become an artist in the Netherlands“. Her sister Daphne followed a pre-dance school during her high school in Arnhem and after graduation she attended a study for jazz and musical in Amsterdam, Noord-Holland. She was understudy for Baby Houseman, Penny Johnson and Lisa Houseman during her internship at the dutch version of Dirty Dancing.
Jobs
When Esmée cold older she had different jobs a part from her school but she never liked to stick to one job because “I used to get bored really fast“. Her first job was selling cards from door to door and her last job before she got discovered was as a waitress at a pancake house but “I was a terrible waitress“.
Music Influences
The dream of becoming an artist was a dream Esmée had since she was little. Always singing around the house and drove her mother ‘crazy‘. She admired a lot of artist, in the beginning following the example of her dad. She admired artist like Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye but growing up she discovered her own genre. Her dad was a big influence music-wise: “My dad use to have lots of records lying around and I always lean towards the soul music“. Later on she loved artist like Janet Jackson, Alicia Keys and the Spice Girls. The Spice Girls were also an influence because the moment she saw them she knew she wanted to be a popstar: “Me and my friends used to dress up as The Spice’s; I was always Mel B, even though I don’t look like her at all“. Her friends loved her voice when they were growing up and where like: “Esmée can you sing this?“.
In 2005 Esmée took her first step to making a career in the music industry. She audition for the dutch version of Popstart The Rivals. Esmée didn’t make it to the next round.
Once Upon a Time …
In the year of 2006 Esmée’s fairy-tale like story began when she found the webcam of her sister. At the moment she was living in Oosterbeek with her mother studying to become a social worker. Her sister was living in Amsterdam with her boyfriend Marco and her father moved to Friesland. He re-married on August 21, 2009 to his current wife. One day Esmée decided to put a video on youtube because “When I saw youtube I thought ‘This is so cool’ you can post a video of yourself online“. Her first ever cover was ‘Waterfalls’ by TLC, the video is currently removed on her official youtube channel due to copyright issues, posted by Esmée on August 25, 2006.
It did not take long for people to notice Esmée and they started sending messages with comments and request. She kept recording and posting covers frequently via her youtube channel and after a while ‘it started turning into this massive thing‘ reaching the number #1 spot of most subscripted female artist of the world, getting over 140 million hits and millions of channel views. But Esmée did not know this was only the beginning of her journey.
When the views became massive Esmée got noticed by the music business; she got messages from record labels. In the beginning she did not take it seriously: “I did not know if it was for real, I mean it’s the internet” but after she showed the messages to a friend she realized they where all for real. From the beginning Esmée is under the wing of her manager Jonathan Berhane, a dutch artist of D-Ground. Esmée signed a contract with the Grammy nominated Billy Mann on March 6, 2007. Billy Mann worked with artist like P!nk, Take That and Kelly Rowland. Esmée’s dad Hank is really pleased with Jonathan as manager: “The relationship with Jonathan feels good. We recognize a lot of good things in him as parents. It feels like we got a son“. Hank, who is a jurist, is really pleased with Esmée contract at Billy Mann.
She sings it better then me!
In february of 2007 Esmée decided to leave her study to become a social worker for her music career. Her parents were really supportive. Her dad in mid-2007: “She is passionate about music, she writes her own songs and she gets the opportunity to follow her dream. If it fails, nothing happens, she can always continue her study.” Fenny, her mother, admitted she was first a little bit hesitant about Esmée leaving her study but sees it was a chance of a lifetime so she is fully supportive.
In march of 2007 Esmée met Justin Timberlake at one of his shows in the US backstage. Esmée felt the pressure during their meeting but she thought “this is your one shot” – she asked him if she could sing a song. She sang ‘How Come You Don’t Call Me’ by prince and guide herself with the piano. After she performed Justin went silent but then he said : “You have a great ear“. Since Esmée is dutch she did not understand him in the first place: “I just thought he thought I had nice ears!” but it went better then Esmée thought because a month later she was signed.
To give the fans who followed her journey via youtube a sneak preview of what’s going on she posted a brand new cover on May 28, 2007 of herself singing ‘What Goes Around, Comes Around’ by Justin Timberlake himself and he made a cameo on the end with the memorable words: “She sings it better then me“. After the video the rumors and speculation started, but only a few days later Esmée revealed on Jensen! (Dutch Late Night Show) that she was signed to Justin Timberlake’s label Tennman Records. She was the first artist who signed to the label, which is a joint venture between Justin and Interscope Records. Tennman was founded on May 28, 2007 – the same day Esmée posted the ‘What Goes Around’ cover.
To kick-off her career Esmée was the pre-show, besides Natasha Bedingfield, for Justin Timberlake’s FutureSex/LoveSounds tour in Europe. Her first ever live performance was on June 15th,2007 as Pre-Show for the dutch artist VanVelzen the set list included her ‘Getting Over You’ and ‘Daddy’ which Esmée both co-wrote. The first song would later be included in her debut album ‘Outta Here’. A day later Esmée performed for the first time on a main stage as the opening act for Justin Timberlake in the Amsterdam Arena with around 50,000 fans. The set list included ‘Daddy’ and ‘Eighteen Years Old’ both (co-)written by herself. After Amsterdam, Sweden – Stockholm (June 19), Oslo – Norway (June 21), Copenhagen – Denmark (June 23), Götenborg – Sweden (June 25), Antwerp – Belgium (June 27), Dublin – Ireland (June 30, July 1) and London (July 4,5, 8,10) followed. During the tour more songs were added to the setlist including covers of ‘So Sick’ by Ne-Yo and a medly of ‘Crazy’ by Gnarls Barkley and R.E.S.P.E.C.T. by Aretha Franklin.
In november 2007 another dream of Esmée became reality and her inspiring and amazing journey continued. Esmée made a guest appearance during The Oprah Winfrey Show’s special on Youtube: ‘Youtube’s Greatest Hits’ (aired November 6, 2007 in the US). During the interview Esmée said: “Every dream I have since now will come true, so I think I’m going to keep on dreaming“. After the show Oprah recorded a backstage video with her very own camera and gave Esmée advice: “Keep your feet on the ground, just wear better shoes” – Oprah admitted she loved Esmée’s spirit and said “just keep on doing what you are doing right now“.
Esmée released her very first single which she wrote herself ‘Crazy Place’ via Itunes after being on the Oprah Show because she felt inspired by her. All the raised money was donated to Oxfarm. The single would later be added to the digital US release of her debut album ‘Outta Here’. Esmée recorded a lot of songs for her debut album in 2008, she had recording sessions in London, Miami, LA and Stockholm and worked with top producers and songwriters like Ryan Tedder (OneRepublic), Lady Gaga, Lucie Silvas and Toby Gab. She started working with Justin Timberlake in the summer of 2007 and she wrote over 100 songs in 3/4 years. In 2008 Esmée mainly worked on her debut album and announced in late 2009 the album would be released early 2009. She also released her second Charity single with Justin Timberlake “Follow my Lead” which they premiered during the Justin Timberlake And Friends Concert in Las Vegas.
Debut Album
About two years after she got signed to Tennman Records and almost three since her Youtube break-trough Esmée released her debut album on May 22, 2009 in the Netherlands after the release of her debut single ‘Outta Here’ a few weeks earlier (April 6, 2009). ‘Outta Here’ was followed by ‘Admit It’ (September 4, 2009) and her last single ‘Love Dealer’ featuring Justin Timberlake (28 April, 2010). Her debut single was most successful in her home country, it peaked at number 3 of the official charts. After the Netherlands single released in the United Kingdom followed, the world wide and US release was pushed back. She reached number seven of the official charts with ‘Outta Here’ in the UK, an amazing accomplishment for a dutch artist.
To prepare and give her more stage experience Esmée returned to the stage in 2009. She was a pre-show for Enrique Iglesias Greatest Hits Tour in Europe, Ne-Yo’s Year of the Gentleman Tour in Europe and N-Dubz Christmas Party Tour in the United Kingdom. She also did a pre-show during the Fashionably Late Tour in Canada and America of Honor Society, a band discovered by the Jonas Brothers.
Esmée already received important nominations and awards. She won the title ‘Best Female Artist’ of TMF (dutch MTV) two years in a row (2009-2010) and also won the ‘Superchart’ Award in 2009 for ‘Outta Here’. She received a nomination for ‘Best Video’ for her second single ‘Admit It’ at the 2010 TMF Awards and was nominated for ‘Best International Artist’ in 2009. During the European MTV Awards of 2009 Esmée won the ‘Best Dutch/Belgian act’ and was nominated for ‘Best European act’. She received the EBBA Award in 2010 and a nomination at the dutch Grammy’s: Edisons – all in the same year.
Collaborations & Second Album
The Post-Debut Album Release started in 2010 but Esmée kept herself bussy. She did two collaborations: the first one was with rising UK artist Chipmunk. Their single ‘Until You Were Gone’ was recorded in January and released on April 19, 2010 and peaked at number 3 in the UK. The single was Esmée’s first top 3 hit in the UK. Fun fact: the two artist met each other via the social network site twitter. Her second collaboration was with the German band Stanfour and their Ryan Tedder song ‘Life Without You’ – the song peaked at number twenty-five in the German charts and Stanfour and Esmée made a guest appearances on the German TV series ‘Guten Zeiten, Slechte Zeiten’ [Good Times, Bad Times].
The future will bring us another collaboration: Esmée with UK artist Aggro Santos and their single ‘Do You Believe’ which is featured on Santos album, released in January 2011. It’s most likely the future will bring us more collaborations because Esmée admitted she loves collaboration and finds them really inspirational and a good learning-process. Other artist who she wants to work with are Tinie Tempah, Pixie Lott, Kayne West (Before the ‘Taylor Swift’ incident) to name a few.
Esmée is currently brainstorming, writing and recording songs for her second album. She sees her first album as a learning process: a process in finding her own musical voice. The album is going to show us more “growth and maturity” because we are almost four years later since her first recording sessions. She recently revealed it’s “definitely a pop album but because it’s so personal you can get a real mixture in there” she also admitted there will be a couple of collaborations between Justin and herself. She will return to the studio in London in January 2011 to have a recording sessions of a few weeks for her second album.
Besides her music Esmée has some really amazing other projects going on. All since the beginning of her career Esmée is model and sponsored by the US brand Beats by Dr. Dre just like a lot of other Interscope artists. In 2010 was announced Esmée was the face and spokeswoman of B.Tempt’d for the fall of the same year. She appeared with a one-page-spread advertisement in big magazines such as Lucky and Glamour promoting the brand and her debut album. The brand also expanded to the UK and it was just announced she will be attached to the brand for the Spring of 2011. Esmée is besides modeling for the brand the spokeswoman for the ‘Get Breast Cancer Outta Here’ campaign to raise awareness for breast cancer and raise money for the Susan G. Komen Foundation.
Future: What to expect?
Of course it is hard to say what is next and what will happen in the future of Esmée. We can expect her second album in late 2011/early 2012. She showed us by the career moves she took Esmée is here to stay. She knows what she wants: making music and she is doing everything she can to be sure she can have a long-term career. She wants to be known for her own music, not “the girl who sang covers via Youtube“. Her debut album did not get a big release in the United States/World Wide but we can expect a big release for her second album. Esmée felt she was very young when she recorded her debut album and a second album “will determine what you are worth“, she feels the pressure with this album but she promised her fans: “It is going to be bigger and better“.
Esmée Denters, a dutch 23 year old singer/songwriter, discovered - as one of the first - throughout 
