Pinkan Mambo

Pinkan Ratnasari Mambo (born 11 November 1980), also known as Pinkan Mambo, is an Indonesian actress and singer-songwriter.

Mambo was born in Jakarta on 11 November 1980 to Yoke F. Mambo and his wife Deetje Syarif.

She was the eldest, and only girl, of three children born to the couple.

When she was five years old, her parents divorced.

Not long afterwards, Mambo was sent to live with her grandmother because her mother, who received custody, could not afford to send Mambo to school.

The two boys stayed with their mother.

Life with her grandmother was strict and, as Mambo felt depressed without her father, she became withdrawn, sticking to a daily routine of prayers and studying.

However, she performed well at school, ranking amongst the top five in her class at Yapenka Elementary School in South Jakarta.

She later became more outgoing and was known among her family and friends as a very feminine child, enjoying dresses and make-up.

While in elementary school she began singing along with songs by her favourite singers Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston in her bedroom.

Her mother, believing that Mambo had the ability to be a professional singer, convinced Mambo to try and sing in public while the latter was still in junior high school.

Mambo began her studies at Cendrawasih Senior High School in Cilandak, South Jakarta, in 1997.

In 1998, while visiting a friend at Amigos Café, where she worked, Mambo was asked to sing and later booked as a singer at the café; her mother supported the decision.

Mambo held the job while continuing her studies.

She changed venues often, telling the entertainment magazine Tabloid Nova that within a year she had sung at almost every café in the city.

In 1999 Maia Estianty and her husband Ahmad Dhani established a musical duo consisting of a singer and musician, based on concepts pioneered by international bands such as Roxette and Savage Garden.

They began looking for a singer.

Mambo convinced Dhani to hire her by calling "at all hours of the day" after meeting him while at a café in Pondok Indah Mall in South Jakarta; she had chosen to seek out Dhani because of his previous experience with new singers, including Reza Artamevi, and had heard that he frequented the mall.

After her sixth audition for the band, named Ratu, meaning Queen, she was chosen to be its vocalist.

Although Mambo begun studying economics at Trisakti University, owing to the pressures of her contract she dropped out.

She achieved success as the vocalist in the Indonesian music duo Ratu between 2000 and 2004, then continued her career as a soloist.

Born and raised in Jakarta, Mambo began singing at an early age but only began to sing in public as a teenager.

While still in senior high school, she found a job as a café singer and performed in numerous venues throughout Jakarta.

In 2000 she joined songwriter and music producer Maia Estianty as part of Ratu after she met Estianty's husband Ahmad Dhani, the singer for the band Dewa 19; after six casting calls, Dhani invited her to join the band, which he had established for his wife and let her manage.

The duo was successful, but because of conflict between the two members and Mambo's unintended pregnancy, she left the group.

She then began a solo career with Sony BMG, releasing three solo albums.

After three years of training, during which time Mambo joined Dhani's band Dewa 19 as a backing singer, Ratu released its first album, Bersama (Together), in 2003.

It had a rhythm and blues (R&B) flavour and featured Mambo on vocals and Estianty on instruments.

The album was a commercial success, selling 250,000 copies.

With her portion of the proceeds, Mambo paid for both of her brothers to attend university and bought a car.

Although Mambo and Estianty began work on another album, Mambo withdrew from the group in 2004 after widespread reports that she was pregnant and unmarried; Mambo said that she had been fired by Estianty, although she admitted that her pregnancy had been a factor.

She was officially replaced on 7 April 2005 by Mulan Jameela, a café singer from Bandung who took the stage name Mulan Kwok.

Mambo had long nurtured a desire to become a solo singer.

After she left Ratu, she was signed by Sony BMG for six solo albums.

Distancing herself from her former band, she found inspiration for her first album from a doll named she saw in a magazine.

Considering herself as coquettish and pampered as the doll, she decided to base her album on the concept.

She also acted in one film, Selimut Berdarah, in 2010.

Onstage Mambo is known as an energetic performer who often includes her audience in her act.

She generally collaborates with other artists, working with local bands when she performs and has other people write her songs.

The mother of fourth children, as of 2013, she's married to music-video director Steve Wantania.