Хиндо Хикс: От баскетбола к музыке и кино

Hinda Hicks (born 1976) is a British and Tunisian born singer, actress and artist who first gained notability with her musical career in the late '90s. She is best known for her debut album Hinda, that charted at #20 on the 1998 UK Top 40 Chart, and led to three nominations in the MOBO Awards and nominations for Best British Female Artist and Best British Newcomer at the 1999 Brit Awards.

Hicks was born in Tunisia but was raised in West Sussex, where she soon emerged as "one of the U. K.'s most promising talents". Before her musical career, she had a passion for basketball, which resulted in a coaching qualification, as well as a United States scholarship. However, her sights set on music after her friend overheard her singing along to an Aretha Franklin track, thus encouraging her to sing. Artists like Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone helped to shape the roots of Hicks' musical career, which she later describes in an interview with Ras Kwame as "the balance between my love of hip hop, my love of jazz, my love of soul". She began to sing with an R&B group called the Fabulous Fug Band and, at one time, sent a demo of her own vocals alongside Aretha Franklin's "Something He Can Feel" to Phil Collins. However, she continued to remain unsigned and moved to London, where she worked as a secretary and joined the band Mixed Fruits.

After the 1999 Brit Awards, Hicks spent the next year recording her second album Everything to Me. She had split from her management and production team that discovered her On Point Productions. However, due to the Island Records and Universal Records merger and a lack of promotion, her single "My Remedy" was unable to make the UK Top 40. Hicks was also featured in "Brand New Day" from Terri Walker's debut album Untitled, which released on 3 March 2003 with Mercury Records.

Hicks returned to music production in 2004, with the release of her third album Still Doin' My Thing under the R&B label Shout Out Records. The single "Up Up" was released in the summer of 2004, but she was unable to repeat her earlier success of making the UK Top 40 Chart. In February 2007, Hicks' MySpace page announced that a fourth album would be released in 2010, however the album was shelved as Hicks focused on other roles. As of November 2008, Hicks was listed as part of a London based artistic and music collective created by the DJ and producer Yvan Healer Selecta and called Raison d'Etre [sic].

In October 1998, Hicks was nominated for three MOBO awards: Best R'n'B Act, Best Newcomer and Best Album. She also appeared on a MOBO Allstars charity single called "Aint No Stopping Us Now". In early 1999, Hicks was nominated at the BRIT Awards in the categories of 'Best Newcomer' and 'Best British Female Artist'.) and Circus in 2000. Hicks took an uncredited role in a well received US film Love & Basketball in 2000 and wrote the song "Our Destiny" that appeared in the movie but was not featured on the soundtrack. The track did, however, feature on the Everything to Me album, which was not released in the UK.