Cherise Roberts (born 29 December 1982) is an English singer and songwriter who is a member of dance-pop duo Cherise & Nadia a.k.a. Booty Luv. She is also a former member of the hip hop/R&B group Big Brovaz. She has been with both groups since they both started. Roberts released a solo album, Look Inside before the debut album Nu-Flow by Big Brovaz was released. It only spawned one single, "2nd Best", while the album won a MOBO award.
History
2002–2006: early career and Big Brovaz
Cherise, and her friend Nadia, both began their career in the R&B group Big Brovaz, who had considerable success following their launch in 2002. Cherise was an established singer before the group's success, recording the solo album Look Inside and single "2nd Best". The album was much praised and won a MOBO Award. After scoring top five hits with songs such as "Favourite Things" and "Nu Flow", Big Brovaz received rave reviews from fans and critics for their unique style, and received comparisons with other groups such as Outkast and solo artists such as Eminem, Nelly and Jamelia. After a lengthy hiatus following one member's drug addiction being revealed, Big Brovaz re-instated their career in 2004 with new single "Yours Fatally". Expectations were high following their previous string of top ten hits, although the single disappointingly stalled at number 15 in the UK Top 40 and third female member Dion left the band. Subsequently, the band were dropped by their record label. This resulted in a three-year gap before they finally released a second studio album. In April 2007, new album Re-Entry was released, although it was a commercial disaster and failed to chart.
Booty Luv was created during early recordings of Big Brovaz' Re-Entry album when music executives offered Cherise and Nadia the chance to record and promote a new version of R&B/soul singer Tweet's club hit "Boogie 2nite". Following the poor sales of early singles from Re-Entry in mid-2006, the girls accepted the offer and began recording their new version of the song, initially only as a promotional track for the record label Hed Kandi. Six months later in December, however, Booty Luv's version of "Boogie 2nite" was decided to be released as an actual single in the United Kingdom and mainland Europe following positive reviews from club DJs on the dance scene. It peaked at number two on the UK Singles Chart, behind Take That's comeback single, "Patience".
2006–2009: Booty Luv
In late 2006, the video for "Boogie 2nite" was sent to top music channels and the song was heavily promoted. The original dance remix by Seamus Haji was chosen for the song's download and physical releases, while the video was chosen to feature the remix by the group DB Boulevard. The song continued its success onto digital music video channels, holding Number one positions on The Hits Most Selected and TMF Hitlist UK. The song was released on download format a week before the physical release, and shot to Number 1 on the 3 Download Chart. This furthered its success into the UK Singles Chart, where it peaked at Number 19 on download sales before climbing as high as Number 2 following its physical release. It also became their first Number 1 single in the UK Dance Charts. Spending 17 weeks inside the UK Top 75, the positive response for "Boogie 2nite" resulted in Booty Luv extending their contract with Hed Kandi to four follow up singles and an album. As of September 2009, the single re-entered the UK Dance Chart at number 31 following on from the popularity of the band's recent single "Say It", three years after its original release.
In 2007, after taking several months to record their debut album, Booty Luv released the follow-up single "Shine", a cover of the Luther Vandross song on 14 May. It was well received by radio and added to the A-List on BBC Radio 1, peaking at Number 17 on the UK Airplay Chart. In its first week of release, "Shine" entered the UK Singles Chart at Number 25 on downloads alone, and became the group's second top ten single the following week when it jumped 15 places to Number 10 following its physical release, spending an eventual seven weeks inside the UK Top 40. It also managed to hit the top spot on the UK Dance Charts.