Colbie Marie Caillat (
/ˈkoʊlbi kəˈleɪ/; born May 28, 1985) is an American pop singer-songwriter and acoustic guitarist from Malibu, California. She debuted in 2007 with Coco, which included hit singles "Bubbly" and "Realize". In 2008, she recorded a duet with Jason Mraz, "Lucky", which won a Grammy. Caillat released her second album, Breakthrough, in August 2009. Breakthrough was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 2010 Grammy Awards. She was also part of the group that won Album of the Year at the 2010 Grammys for her background vocals and writing on Taylor Swift's Fearless album. Caillat has sold over six million albums worldwide and sold over 10 million singles. In 2009, she was named Billboard magazine's 94th-best-selling music artist of the 2000–2009 decade. In 2011, she released her third studio album All of You. On October 23, 2012 she released her first Christmas album Christmas in the Sand.
Caillat was born in Malibu, California, and grew up in Newbury Park, California. Her father, Ken Caillat, co-produced Fleetwood Mac's Rumours (1977) and Tusk (1979) albums. When she was an infant, her parents gave her the nickname "Coco", which she would later name her debut album. Caillat took piano lessons as a child, but lacked significant inspiration until she turned 11 years old, when she became enthralled with Lauryn Hill's performance in Sister Act 2. She realized that she wanted to be a singer, and began taking vocal lessons, performing onstage for the first time in sixth grade. Since then she has covered the Roberta Flack song, "Killing Me Softly", which had previously been covered by Lauryn Hill, and Hill's own "Tell Him".
