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At the dawn of the new millennium, Enrique Iglesias was the best-selling Latin
recording artist in the world. The son of multimillion-selling singer Julio
Iglesias, Enrique was born in Madrid, Spain, where he lived with his mother, his
brother Julio, and his sister Chabeli. In 1982, his mother sent them to live in
Miami with their father.
Iglesias' own career started when he was still attending Gulliver Private
School, a very prestigious school in Miami. He made his singing debut in a
production of Hello, Dolly, after which he began practicing his singing without
his parents knowing. After a year studying business at the University of Miami,
he decided to follow his passion for music. In 1995, he sang in person for his
soon-to-be manager, who at Iglesias' insistence of not wanting to use his family
name, first shopped his demos as an unknown Central American singer named
Enrique Martinez. It wasn't until he earned a record deal with Fonovisa that
Enrique told his father and mother of his aspirations. Then he flew to Toronto
where no one knew him and he could concentrate just on music, to record for five
months.
That first album, Enrique Iglesias (1996), sold more than a million copies in
three months. The second album, Vivir (1997), enjoyed global sales of more than
five million discs and launched his first world tour. In a mere three years,
Iglesias had sold more than 17 million Spanish-language albums, more than anyone
else during that period.
With 1998's Cosas del Amor, Iglesias moved to more mature content; his earlier
material had been written when he was 17 years old. Then came Enrique, Enrique
Iglesias' first Interscope album and first in English, which achieved gold or
platinum status in 32 countries and brought his global album sales to a total of
more than 23 million. In 2001 he released the follow-up, Escape. Iglesias
alternated Spanish- and English-language albums during the next two years, first
offering the ballad collection Quizás in 2002, then the mainstream English
record Seven in 2003.
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