Deborah Christine “Siedah” Garrett
( June 24, 1960)
She is an American singer and songwriter who has written songs and performed backing vocals for many recording artists in the music industry, such as Michael Jackson, the Pointer Sisters, Brand New Heavies, Quincy Jones, Tevin Campbell, Donna Summer, Madonna, Jennifer Hudson among others. Garrett has been nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Original Song and won the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards for co-writing “Love You I Do” (performed by Jennifer Hudson) for the 2006 musical film, Dreamgirls.).
Garrett was born on June 24, 1960, in Los Angeles and raised in Compton, where she started singing as a child. Born Deborah Christine Garrett, she opted to change her name at age 13, because of the disdain she had towards her birth name. Garrett said, “It’s a pretty name but nobody called me Deborah. It was always abbreviated to Deb, Debbie, or DeeDee. I hated it”. She later changed it to Siedah, which meant “shining and star-like”.
Garrett is writing the lyrics for the upcoming Broadway musical Black Orpheus, which is based on the 1959 film Black Orpheus. the music will be composed by Carlinhos Brown. She is also a part of the songwriting team alongside Stephen Bray and Brenda Russell (in place of the late Allee Willis) for the upcoming 2023 film The Color Purple.
Personal life
She announced that she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) when performing at the “Race To Erase MS” event in 2017