Jaya

Maria Luisa Ramsey Kagahastian (born March 21, 1970), known professionally as Jaya, is a Filipino singer, actress, and television personality.

Referred to as the country's "Queen of Soul", she is known for her distinctively deep voice and soulful singing style.

She was a talent of GMA Network but later transferred to ABS-CBN, where she served as one of the head jury of the Tawag ng Tanghalan segment of the Philippine noontime variety show It's Showtime and performer on ASAP.

Jaya is the second Filipino recording artist to chart in the United States (the first being The Rocky Fellers), with her debut single "If You Leave Me Now" peaking at number 44 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Maria Luisa Ramsey Kagahastian was born on March 21, 1970.

Her mother was Elizabeth Ramsey, a Filipina comedian and singer of Jamaican and Spanish-Filipino descent.

Ramsey's father is Reynaldo Kagahastian, a Filipino.

Her parents separated when she was young, and her father migrated to the United States.

He now resides in Alberta, Canada.

She entered show business at the age of ten as a backup dancer for her mother, and at the age of 12 was a backup singer and front act for some minor and major shows.

She began performing solo in 1982, using the name Louise Ramsey.

Ramsey did not finish high school in the Philippines because of her busy lifestyle as a child performer.

She nonetheless received high marks and was once elected class president.

Her mother Elizabeth decided to leave for the United States in June 1985, and brought Louise with her.

There, she continued her solo singing stints, performing with other overseas Filipino artists like Tillie Moreno, Eddie Mercado, Lerma dela Cruz, and the duo Reycards.

Life in America was difficult for Ramsey and her mother as they moved around different cities in California.

She attended John Marshall High School in Los Angeles, which at the time already had a large Filipino-American student population.

She ran away from home in 1988 after finishing high school, moving to New York with a friend and landing a job as a backup vocalist for Stevie B's group of musicians.

After high school in the U.S., Ramsey became a back-up vocalist to Miami freestyle singer Stevie B.

In 1989, she was re-christened "Jaya" and signed a record deal with Stevie B's label LeFrak-Moelis Records and her eponymous first album, produced by Stevie B, was released in the US.

The album consisted largely of freestyle dance tracks written or co-written by Stevie B, who also provided backup vocals.

The album's first single, "If You Leave Me Now", was a hit in discos and debuted on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart in October 1989.

After 18 weeks on the Hot 100, the song was still gaining in both sales and airplay —it ended up peaking at number 44 in February 1990 — and remained in the Hot 100 for a total of for 26 weeks, an unusually long chart run for a single peaking outside the top 40.

The song did well in many markets but at different times, thus diluting its Hot 100 rank.

It hit top 10 in several markets and made it to number one at the crossover powerhouse KMEL.

The song hit number 14 on Billboard's Top 40/Dance crossover chart and number 25 on the 12-inch Singles Sales chart.

Jaya's follow-up single, "One Kiss Per Minute", was a minor dance hit, but failed to make the pop chart and the third single from the album failed to chart as did another non-album single in 1993.

1995 was a turning point in Jaya's musical career.

Pilita Corrales, dubbed "Asia's Queen of Songs", noticed her voice after Jaya did an opening act for Corrales, Carmen Soriano, the late Bert "Tawa" Marcelo, and Elizabeth in the United States.

Corrales then asked Jaya if she would like to return to Manila and record an album, to which she agreed.

Jaya returned to the Philippines and signed a record deal with Viva Records in March 1995 and completed her first local album.

Five songs were recorded in the US while the rest were done in the Philippines.

Jaya is noted for being the Philippine music industry's female record holder of a seven-times platinum album.

She was a big hit when Pinoys first heard her belt out soul ditties in 1996.

Her winning the 1996 Metropop Song Festival via Danny Tan's "Sometimes You Just Know" made her the biggest star on the rise at the close of the last century.

Her first album under Viva Records hit an all-time high of 9 times platinum.

In 1997, she released her third album In the Raw, (second in the Philippines) the follow-up to her massive-selling 1996 Philippine debut album, Jaya, which sold nine times platinum, (360,000 units; platinum is 40,000 units sold).

She also won as Best Interpreter at the Asia Song Festival held in Hong Kong in February 1997 for her rendition of the song "You Lift Me Up", composed by Danny Tan with lyrics by Dodjie Simon.

This composition also received the grand prize, the Best Song award.

Jaya also ventured into musical theatre, playing the role of Surpanakha in the 1999 Filipino musical Rama at Sita staged at the University Theatre.