July 13: Canadian R&B singer-songwriter and actress Deborah Cox is 37-years-old today.

Deborah Cox has had ten number-one hits on Billboard's Hot Dance Club Play chart. She is often cited as Canada's top R&B artist.

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Deborah Cox was born in Toronto, Canada. She began singing for TV commercials at age 12, and entered various talent shows with the help of her mother. She performed in nightclubs as a teenager, and began to write music.

Cox entered the music industry in the early 1990s, performing as a backup vocalist for Celine Dion for six months. After receiving many rejection letters from Canadian record labels, Cox moved to Los Angeles in 1994 with producer and songwriting partner, Lascelles Stephens.

In 1995, label executive Clive Davis signed Cox to Arista Records, and she released her self-titled debut album the same year. Achieving only mild success, Cox released a non-album single for the soundtrack to the 1997 movie Money Talks, titled "Things Just Ain't The Same." A dance mix of the song topped the U.S. dance charts and was included on her second album, 1998's One Wish.

The first single from that album, "Nobody's Supposed to Be Here," spent fourteen weeks at #1 on the Hot R&B charts in the USA, as well as eight consecutive weeks at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100. The album went platinum, becoming Cox's biggest-selling album to date.

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Cox then recorded a new song, "Absolutely Not," for the soundtrack to Dr. Dolittle 2. Remixes of the song repeated the success of One Wish's singles on the dance charts, and the Chanel mix of "Absolutely Not" was included on her third album.

Cox's third album The Morning After was released in November 2002 on J Records. On February 17, 2004, she made her Broadway debut in the Elton John-Tim Rice musical Aida, returning to recording only to release a dance remix of "Easy As Life" as a single.

Cox also has been involved in a number of movies and soundtracks. In 2000, she played Niko Rosen in Love Come Down.  In 2005, in the movie Blood of a Champion she played the role of Sharon, and again in 2005, her voice was featured in the movie Hotel Rwanda in the song "Nobody Cares."

Next, she released a dance single titled "House Is Not a Home" on Nervous Records in January 2006. Later in the year, the song "Definition of Love" was used in the movie Akeelah and the Bee, but was not released as a single.

Between 2005 and 2006 Deborah recorded her fourth album, called Destination Moon. It is a tribute to jazz singer Dinah Washington and was released on June 19, 2007.

Cox contributed the song "This Gift" to the soundtrack of the 2008 movie Meet the Browns and was part of Cyndi Lauper's True Colors Tour 2008. Deborah has also starred in A Good Man is Hard to Find along side Golden Brooks and Darius McCrary.

In early 2008, Cox & Stephens created the Deco Recording Group, her very own independent label, which is distributed through Image Entertainment. Soon she started recording songs for a new album.

Her fifth R&B studio album, The Promise, was released on November 11, 2008. The first single "Did You Ever Love Me" peaked at #69 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs Chart.

The song "Beautiful U R" has been released digitally to iTunes and Amazon.com on September 16, 2008. It has recently reached #3 on the Canadian Radio Chart becoming her most successful single in nearly ten years. It also peaked at #3 on the Canadian Hot AC Chart and hit #1 on the US Dance chart becoming her tenth song to do it.

"Beautiful U.R." was certified gold for digital downloads in January, 2009. The Promise debuted and peaked at #106 on the US Top 200 and on #14 on the U.S. R&B Album Chart selling 6,419 copies in its first week.

In September 2009 it was announced she would be joining Kelly Price and Tamia to form the super group The Queen Project.

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