Brooke Gabrielle Fraser Ligertwood, better known as Brooke Fraser (born 15 December 1983) is a New Zealand award-winning folk-pop and Christian music artist. Her third studio album Flags has become the most successful album of her career, with the single "Something in the Water" reaching number one on the RIANZ singles chart in 2010.
Fraser is the eldest of the three children born to former All Black Bernie Fraser, who was born in Lautoka, Fiji, and his wife Lynda Fraser. She grew up in Naenae, Lower Hutt and attended Dyer Street School, Naenae Intermediate School and Naenae College.[3]
Fraser took piano lessons between the ages of seven and seventeen. She started writing songs at age twelve and taught herself the acoustic guitar at fifteen, although despite her singing success she has never taken singing lessons.
She performed at Parachute, an annual New Zealand music festival in 2000 – including a special guest performance in 2007.
She began writing for the Soul Purpose magazine at age fifteen, and was later made editor in 2002. She gave up her job as editor shortly after moving to Auckland in late 2002 in order to pursue her music career.In 2002, while Fraser was in Auckland, Scotty Pearson, the drummer for Elemeno P, organised a meeting with producer Matty J for her. Matty J became her manager, liaising with the major labels who had shown interest and compared their offers. Fraser had about five different labels offer her deals and chose to sign a multi-album deal with Sony Music at the age of 17.Fraser's first album, What to Do with Daylight, was released in New Zealand in late 2003, debuting at number one and achieved gold status in the same week. The album eventually went seven times platinum,selling over 105,000 copies in New Zealand alone. It remained on the album charts for sixty-six weeks. All five singles from the album reached the top twenty in the New Zealand Singles Chart. Her album also topped the New Zealand Top 50 Albums of 2004.
Following the release of What to Do with Daylight, Fraser toured Australia and New Zealand with American artist John Mayer and then toured New Zealand with veteran U.K. rock artist David Bowie. Whilst on tour with John Mayer, she met with his guitarist and keyboardist Michael Chaves who, after recording Mayer's album Heavier Things, Fraser enlisted to play on her album and future concerts.In 2005, prior to writing and preparing her follow-up album, Fraser took a trip to Africa to immerse herself in Rwanda before visiting her sponsor children in Tanzania, as she is an advocate for child sponsorship. In this trip, she was so moved that she wrote the song Albertine about a young child (named Albertine), whom she met while in Rwanda. It was later decided to make this song the album's title track.


Fraser performing in Seattle, 8 December 2010
For the second album, Fraser decided to enlist a new band, primarily constructed from American musicians who'd worked with an array of notable artists, both live and recorded. In 2006, Fraser and the band went into the studio in Los Angeles to record the album. Later Fraser allowed her fans to listen to the album's first single Deciphering Me via her MySpace page. The single was later released initially to radio and ultimately to CD single, and achieved number four in the New Zealand single charts.
On 4 December 2006 Albertine was released in New Zealand, achieving double platinum status less than a month after its release and has remained, to date, in the top 20 every week since. The album was released in Australia and internationally on 31 March 2007. In Australia, it charted at number twenty-nine in its first week on 9 April and has thus far achieved Gold sales status.
On 6 April 2007, Fraser performed "Deciphering Me" for the Good Friday Appeal, an annual televised fundraising event to raise money for the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne.
In 2008, Fraser appeared on the Dave Barnes song "Believe" from his album Me + You + the World, performing backing vocals.
Albertine was also Fraser's U.S. debut, released 27 May 2008 and entered the Billboard 200 at number ninety on 19 July 2008. Her album propelled in success with online sales after being chosen as Editor's Choice on iTunes. On 4 July 2008 Fraser supported Canadian artist/U2 collaborator Daniel Lanois at the Montreal Jazz Festival. In August she toured the southern U.S. In September, she re-toured several major U.S. cities and completed the tour at the Shepherd's Bush Empire in London, UK.

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