News

Taio Cruz Tops Billboard Hot 100

• 11th Mar 2010

Taio Cruz’s domination of the US singles market is complete as his US smash single, “Break Your Heart” has today rocketed to number 1 from number 53 on the Billboard Hot 100. The 52 place leap sees Cruz set the record for largest jump to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 by an act with its first charting single. “Break Your Heart”, which remains at no. 1 on the US iTunes chart, has sold an astonishing 310,000 copies in the last week alone.

This is a phenomenal achievement for the multi-talented 26 year old Londoner and offers further proof, if proof were needed, that in Taio Cruz, the UK has its very own top–drawer artist/songwriter/producer who can stand shoulder to shoulder with the best that American pop has to offer.

Now Taio sets his sights on the UK chart once more with the release of his brand new single “Dirty Picture” featuring the red-hot Ke$ha. Ever the keen talent scout Taio invited Ke$ha onto the track long before she broke through in the US, and the resulting presciently titled song has been one of the most cherry-picked on Cruz’s acclaimed second album “Rokstarr”. The pair have just shot a suitably (in)appropriate video for the track. A remix of “Dirty Picture” featuring DRAKE, the hottest rapper in the US right now, will be available shortly.

Things are really hotting up for Taio with his recent Brit Award nomination for Best Single, and the US Chart success with “Break Your Heart”. In the last couple of years Cruz has established himself as a major UK artist in his own right, as well as the go-to writer /producer/performer when a hit record is the order of the day. In that time the he has written, produced and performed with a long list of A-list performers.

In the wake of success of his debut album Departure (2008), which spun off a quintet of UK chart hits (“I Just Wanna Know,” “Moving On,” “Come On Girl,” “I Can Be,” “She's Like a Star”), Taio was tapped to work in the studio with X Factor champs Leona Lewis and Alexandra Burke. Sessions followed in Philadelphia with writing for Britney Spears, Brandy, and Justin Timberlake. The year climaxed at the MOBO Awards with a Best Single nomination for “She's Like a Star,” which Taio performed with Sugababes.

With the completion of Rokstarr in 2009, overlapping the success of “Break Your Heart,” Taio kept himself busy writing and producing for Cheryl Cole's double-platinum UK debut album 3 Words. Taio also scored his second #1 UK single as writer of the Tinchy Stryder/Amelle smash “Never Leave You”; Taio previously wrote and performed on Tinchy's Top 3 hit “Take Me Back.”

The son of a Nigerian father and Brazilian mother, Taio is the founder and CEO of his own Recording Label Rokstarr Entertainment Division (R.E.D.), formerly known as Rokstarr Music London, established in 2006.