Hot 21 Radio

Ariana Grande

A former child actress who starred in the Nickelodeon sitcom Victorious and the Broadway musical 13 before launching her highly-successful solo career, Ariana Grande's music combines a slick, sassy reinterpretation of 1990s R&B with heavy doses of pop, trap, hip-hop, and EDM. Born in Boca Raton, Florida, on June 26, 1993, she began working on her debut album in August 2010, having already attained teen idol status as a young actress. After spending three years writing, recording, and transforming herself into a pop diva, Grande landed her first Top 10 hit with "The Way," her 2013 duet with rapper Mac Miller, and returned to the Billboard charts later that year with her full-length debut, Yours Truly. A Number 1 hit in America, Yours Truly was a global smash that cracked the Top 10 in six other countries. Grande's follow-up, the Grammy-nominated My Everything, was even more popular, earning double-platinum sales in the US and producing a string of Top 10 singles throughout 2014. Meanwhile, Grande also found time to join forces with Nicki Minaj and Jessie J on the hit single "Bang Bang," which reached Number 3 in the US and Number 1 in the UK. Although her third album, Dangerous Woman, became another transatlantic hit upon its release in 2016, tragedy struck during Grande's UK tour in 2017, when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive device in the entrance to the Manchester Arena, killing 23 people. Halting her tour, she organized a benefit concert that helped to raise $23 million to help victims of the attack. Grande returned to the charts in 2018 with Sweetener, her Grammy-winning album fourth album, and released the double-platinum Thank U, Next less than a year later. Both records topped the charts in at least seven countries, paving the way for the arrival of Grande's sixth album, Positions, in October 2020.