Colbie Marie Caillat (ⁱ/ˈkoʊlbi kəˈleɪ/; born May 28, 1985) is an American pop singer-songwriter and acoustic guitarist from Malibu, California. She debuted in 2007 with Coco, which included hit singles "Bubbly" and "Realize". In 2008, she recorded a duet with Jason Mraz, "Lucky", which won a Grammy. Caillat released her second album, Breakthrough, in August 2009. Breakthrough was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 2010 Grammy Awards. She was also part of the group that won Album of the Year at the 2010 Grammys for her background vocals and writing on Taylor Swift's Fearless album.

Caillat has sold over 6 million albums worldwide and over 10 million singles. In 2009, she was named Billboard magazine's 94th-best-selling music artist of the 2000s. In 2011, she released her third studio album, All of You. On October 23, 2012 she released her first Christmas album, Christmas in the Sand.

Life and career

1985–2006: Childhood and youth

Caillat was born in Malibu, California, and grew up in Newbury Park, California. Her father, Ken Caillat, co-produced Fleetwood Mac's Rumours (1977) and Tusk (1979) albums. When she was an infant, her parents gave her the nickname "Coco", which she would later name her debut album. Caillat took piano lessons as a child, but lacked significant inspiration until she turned 11 years old, when she became enthralled with Lauryn Hill's performance in Sister Act 2. She realized that she wanted to be a singer, and began taking vocal lessons, performing onstage for the first time in sixth grade. Since then she has covered the Roberta Flack song "Killing Me Softly", which had previously been covered by Lauryn Hill, and Hill's own "Tell Him".

Breakthrough is the second studio album by American singer-songwriter Colbie Caillat. The album was released on August 19, 2009 through Universal Republic Records. The follow-up to her successful debut album, Coco (2007), Breakthrough was developed in late 2008 when Caillat returned to her home after two years on tour, with the singer setting up a "writing camp" with songwriters and producers in Hawaii and writing over 40 songs for the record.

Inspired by the fact that she was trying to find herself again and breaking the creativy chains that surrounded her, Breakthrough deals with themes of growing up, experiencing life, love, making mistakes and learning from them, as well as heartbreak and why everlasting love seems elusive. To help develop her expected sound and lyrics, Caillat worked with previous collaborators, such as Mikal Blue, Ken Caillat and Jason Reeves, while working for the first time with Kara Dioguardi, Rick Nowels, John Shanks and Greg Wells.