African Celebrities: December 2013

Kelly Rowland

Kelendria Trene Rowland popularly known as Kelly Rowland is an American singer, songwriter, actress and television personality. She was born on February 11, 1981 in Atlanta, Georgia. She is the daughter of Doris Rowland Garrison and Christopher Lovett. When she was seven her mother took her and left her father, who was an abusive alcoholic.

Kelly Rowland rose to fame in the late 1990s as a founding member of R & B girl-group Destiny's child, one of the world's best-selling girl groups of all time. She released her debut solo album Simply Deep (2002), which sold 2.5 million copies worldwide and produced the number-one single "Dilemma" with Nelly, as well as the international top-ten hit "Stole".

Following the disbandment of Destiny's child in 2005, she released her second album Ms. Kelly (2007), which included international hits "Like This" and "Work".

Her work has earned her several awards and nominations including four Grammy Awards, a Billboard Music Award and a Soul Train Music Award. Kelly Rowland has also received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame with Destiny's Child and has been honored by the American Society of Composers Authors and Publishers and Essence for her contributions to music.

Kelly Rowland

Kelly and her mother Doris Rowland Garrison

Kelly Rowland and her friend Beyonce Knowles

From Left to right: Beyonce Knowles, Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams (Destiny's Child)

From Left to right: Kelly Rowland, Beyonce Knowles and Michelle Williams (Destiny's Child)

Kelly Rowland and Jeanette Jenkins

Kelly Rowland and Pusha T

Jennifer Hudson

Jennifer Hudson is an American recording artist, actress and spokesperson. She was born on September 12, 1981, in Chicago, Illinois. She is the third and youngest child of Darnell Donnerson and Samuel Simpson.

Jennifer Hudson attended Dunbar Vocational High School, from which she graduated in 1999. At the age of 7 she got her start in performing by singing with the church choir and doing community theater with the help of her late maternal grandmother, Julia.

Jennifer Hudson rose to fame in 2004 as a finalist on the third season of American Idol, coming in seventh place. She made her film debut in Dreamgirls (2006), which won her an Academy Award for Best supporting Actress, a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA Award, an NAACP Image Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She won a Grammy Award for her eponymous debut album, Jennifer Hudson, which was released in 2008 on Arista Records and was certified gold by the RIAA for selling over 800,000 copies in the U.S. Her second album, I Remember Me, was released in March 2011, and reached number two on the Billboard 200, selling 165,000 copies in its first week of release. The album was certified gold by the RIAA, for shipping over 500,000 copies in the U.S.

In October 2008, Jennifer Hudson's mother, Darnell Donnerson, brother Jason and nephew were killed in a shooting.

In September 2008, Jennifer Hudson was engaged to David Otunga, a professional wrestler in the WWE and a Havard Law graduate. The couple have one son named David Daniel Otunga Jr. who was born in August 2009.

Jennifer Hudson

Jennifer Hudson and her fiance David Otunga

Jennifer Hudson and her son David Daniel Otunga Jr.

Jennifer Hudson with her fiance David Otunga and their son David Daniel Otunga Jr.

Jennifer Hudson (centre) with her sister Julia Hudson (left) and Oprah Winfrey (right)

Jennifer Hudson with her sister Julia Hudson

Jennifer Hudson with her son David Daniel Otunga Jr. and sister Julia Hudson

Jennifer Hudson with her fiance David Otunga, son David Daniel Otunga Jr. and sister Julia Hudson

Naomi Campbell

Naomi Campbell is a British model. She was born on 22nd May 1970 in Streatham, South London. She is the daughter of Jamaican-born dancer Valerie Morris. Naomi Campbell has never met her father, who abandoned her mother when she was four months pregnant and was unnamed on her birth certificate. She took on the surname Campbell from her mother's second marriage.

Naomi Campbell is of African-Jamaican descent as well as of Chinese-Jamaican ancestry through her paternal grandmother, who carried the family name Ming. She has one half brother, Pierre Blackwood who was born in 1985.

Discovered at the age of 15, she established herself among the top three most recognizable and in-demand models of the late 1980s and the 1990s, and she was one of six models of her generation, declared "Supermodels" by the fashion world.