Mandy Capristo

Mandy Grace Capristo was born on 21 March 1990 in Mannheim, the daughter of an Italian father, Vittorio Capristo, and a German mother, Carmen. She grew up in Bürstadt. Her older brother, Anthony, was born in 1986. Her parents separated when she was in her early teens. Capristo was four when she began gymnastics, dance, and piano lessons. Three years later, she enrolled in dancing. In 2001, Capristo's music teacher entered her for the Kiddy Contest in Austria. She won the competition with her song "Ich wünsche mir einen Bankomat", which subsequently appeared on the number-one compilation album Kiddy Contest, Vol. 7 (2001). Capristo appeared in shows such as Tabaluga Tivi or 1, 2 or 3 and in 2002 she recorded the song "Mosquito" for another Kiddy Contest album.[2]

Monrose at the Cover Me charity concert in Cologne, Germany in 2007.

In 2006, Capristo decided to participate in the German television show Popstars on the ProSieben network. At the finale, the audience chose Capristo via televoting to become the final member of the girl band trio Monrose alongside Senna Guemmour and Bahar Kızıl. The group's debut single "Shame" peaked at number one on the German Singles Chart and became one of the best-selling singles of the year, resulting in a sales total of 200,000 copies Europe-wide. The group released their debut album Temptation in December 2006, which debuted on the charts at number one and was certified two times platinum by Media Control Charts in 2007. Since 2006, the girl group released four studio albums, Temptation, Strictly Physical, I Am and Ladylike which entered the charts in the Top 10. Their singles Shame and Hot Summer have charted at number one. Overall, they released eleven singles, which seven of eleven reached the Top 10 in the German Charts. In 2008, they won their first Comet Award for Best Single with "'Hot Summer" and in 2009 for the best band. In June 2010 she featured on the German cover of FHM Magazine and posed in the same calendar.[3]

On 25 November 2010 Monrose announced that the group would split and each focus on their solo projects.[4] The last official TV appearance Monrose had was on 27 February 2011 with their single "Like a Lady" at the finale for cycle 3 of Austria's Next Topmodel.

Capristo in 2012

After the disbanding of Monrose Capristo confirmed in an interview that she already started recording for her first album in November 2010. In May 2011 she performed two songs off her first album. One track called "Be You", it will be the B-Side of her first single and it was written for the Be-Yu Cosmetics. The other song is called "Overrated" which will also appear on the album.[5] Because of a cooperation with Peter Maffay they recorded the song "Die Zeit hält nur in Träumen an" (German) and performed on 8 October at Wetten, dass ..?, in October 2012 the singer went on Tabaluga-Tour with Peter Maffay. The single with Peter debuted at number 86 in the German Charts.

In March 2012, Mandy announced her first solo single "The Way I Like It" written and produced by David Jost, would be released on 13 April. Her first album was to be called Grace. The album was released on 27 April under her new record label EMI and Starwatch Entertainment.[6][7][8] As her second single she released a song called "Closer" written by Robin Grubert and Martin Tingvall.

She also took part on 14 March 2012 with professional dancer Stefano Terrazzino at the dance show Let's Dance, the German version of Dancing with the Stars. The second and last single from the album was "Closer" (released 31 August 2012).

In 2016 she changed her artist name to Grace Capristo and released her single "One Woman Army" written by American songwriter and producer PJ Bianco, P. Bentley, Aimée Proal and Caprito to moderate success.[9] On 28 October 2016 she also released a song called "Ricorderai l'Amore (Remember The Love)" with Italian singer Marco Mengoni.[10]

Capristo has published songs in English; only for the Tabaluga project and the feature film Rapunzel has she sung in German. She also sang the song "Grace" in Italian, although she does not speak that language. A complete production of their songs was used in acoustic versions. 2016 she also released a track called "Ricorderai l'Amore (Ricorderai l'Amore)" with Italian singer Marco Mengoni where she sung an Italian part. Capristo said, "I feel most comfortable with English, because I personally think that my voice sounds at its best. Although German is my native language, I feel more comfortable in English." In addition, she added: "It is very important that I decide my projects." In a review of the album Grace the music magazine Laut.de wrote: "Grace is a nice debut-intentioned work, but which, unfortunately, proves that the chick from Monrose-targeted new style does not get paid on album length. [...] "It Don't Matter" and the acoustic session was the best, without all the trappings actually show her vocal talent." CD Bewertungen.de: "Her fans can look deep into her soul and makes clear that a lot is just smoke and mirrors as well as a "Star" has its problems, is lonely, has been violated."[11] The British magazine Popjustice wrote: "We love it in a very deep and pure way, of course, but we were hoping Mandy's album Grace would contain so many extraordinary tunes that we could make one of them a Big Song instead. The Way I Like It gets its time in the sun after all, and that's not a completely bad thing because it is, of course, a cracker.[12]

Beyoncé (left), Whitney Houston (middle) and India Arie (right) are three of Capristo's biggest influences

Capristo called Beyoncé Knowles as her musical influence, and her idol. Thus she sang If I Were a Boy at the Comet music award . She also called Whitney Houston as another influence, for their sake she has begun to sing. She also said: "Destiny's Child have accompanied me all my life, and so I made my first steps into the music. I also hear India Arie and Sade Adu. Eventually, she wants to work with them. Other musical influences are Rihanna and Nicole Scherzinger. In addition, she got experience with Peter Maffay and learn from him the major foundations for her solo career.[13]

2007 Capristo signed an advertising contract with Gillette Venus. That same year, Capristo modeled for the fashion brand Ed Hardy. 2008 Capristo filmed commercials for ProSieben. There, she presented the We Love Collection, a cooperation with Otto. In October 2008, Capristo was the testimonial for the Nintendo DS game Just 4 Girls. The following year, Capristo modeled for the Otto catalog and was on the cover. In spring of 2010 she had completed a two-year contract with the cosmetics brand BeYu and modeled in 2011 for the brand at the Mercedes Fashion Week in Berlin.[14]

• Grace (2012)