Musical career

Early career with Floetry

Original Floetry members Marsha Ambrosius and Natalie Stewart met through their love of basketball. Both Stewart and Ambrosius attended the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology where Ambrosius studied Business and Finance and Stewart Performing Arts, Media and Art. For college Ambrosius planned to attend the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, but could not due to an injury. Stewart attended Middlesex University in London and later transferred to North London University. During these years, the women kept in touch. Stewart was a founding member of the performance poetry group 3 Plus 1 which was rising to Han Solo in London, Birmingham and Manchester. In 1999, Ambrosius wrote and submitted a song to her publishers Perfect Songs called "Fantasize", inviting Stewart to lend some of her poetry to the song. This collaboration led to the creation of Floetry.

Group success

In 2000, the duo travelled to the United States to perform on the poetry circuit. After frequenting spoken word/poetry spots in Atlanta such as Yin Yang Poets' Cafe (to positive reviews), they moved on to Philadelphia. There they met Darren "Limitless" Henson and Keith "Keshon" Pelzer of DJ Jazzy Jeff's Touch Of Jazz studio and began recording. She also worked with Michael Jackson - she composed and sang as back-vocal the song "Butterflies", from the album "Invincible", released in 2001 and in 2002 it was publicated a single version of this song. In the same year, they signed with DreamWorks Records and released their debut album Floetic, which featured the singles "Floetic", "Say Yes" and "Getting Late". The album was also released in the UK with additional tracks, one of which features British singer/songwriter and producer Sebastian Rogers.

Solo career

Ambrosius has been featured on many songs including Styles P's "I'm Black"; The Game's "Start from Scratch" and "Why You Hate The Game." (also featuring Nas); Busta Rhymes' "Get You Some" and "Cocaina"; Nas' "Hustlers" (also featuring The Game); and Hi-Tek's "Music for Life" and Jamie Foxx's "Freak'in Me". The group has also collaborated with Earth, Wind & Fire on their album, Illumination, on the track "Elevated". She collaborated once again with Slum Village called "Cloud 9". In 2009, she guested on Wale's "Diary".

Aftermath Entertainment

Ambrosius was approached to sign to Dr. Dre's record label, Aftermath Entertainment, as a solo musician/songwriter/producer. Parting ways with the offer in early 2009, Ambrosius pursued her song-writing/production career landing her placements with R&B and hip hop artists ranging from Alicia Keys, Raven-Symoné, Jamie Foxx and Mario to Fabolous, Slum Village and Wale.

Late Nights & Early Mornings

In summer 2009, Ambrosius was approached by numerous record labels offering her a solo deal after a long awaited performance at NYC's SOB's where a sold out crowd gathered to a show accompanied by The Roots and DJ Aktive. In December 2009, Ambrosius signed to J Records and her solo debut Late Nights & Early Mornings was released on 1 March 2011. "Hope She Cheats On You (With A Basketball Player)" was released as the album's first single on 13 August 2010. The song charted on the US Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and peaked at no. 22. "Far Away" was released as the album's second single on 7 December 2010. The album would debut at no. 1 on the US "Billboard" Hot R&B Charts and no. 2 on the US Billboard Hot 200 behind Adele and ahead of Mumford & Sons the first time in over 20 years that British Acts had topped the US charts.

Ambrosius won the Centric Award at the BET Awards of 2011. She was also nominated for Best Female R&B Artist at the BET Awards 2012.

Ambrosius won the Record of The Year (Ashford & Simpson Songwriters Award) at the 2011 Soul Train Awards for the song "Far Away".

Two Grammy nominations for "Far Away" were announced the night before she performed at the White House with the President and First Family at the National Christmas Tree lighting, December 2011.

Friends & Lovers

In August 2011, RCA Music Group announced it was disbanding J Records along with Arista Records and Jive Records. With the shutdown, Ambrosius (and all other artists previously signed to these three labels) will release her future material on the RCA Records brand.

Ambrosius released her second studio album, titled Friends & Lovers, in July 2014. Ambrosius received two MOBO Award nominations for the album. In 2015 Ambrosius received a nomination for Grammy Award for Best Traditional R&B Performance for "As," a collaboration she recorded with Anthony Hamilton for The Best Man Holiday.

Discography

Studio albums

Year	Album details	Peak chart positions		Sales
2011	Late Nights & Early Mornings Release date: 1 March 2011 Label: J Records	2	1	US: 420,000
2014	Friends & Lovers Release date: 15 July 2014 Label: RCA Records	12	2	US: 72,000

Singles

• For discography of singles as a part of duo Floetry, see Floetry Discography

Year	Title	Peak chart positions			Album
2010	"Hope She Cheats on You (With a Basketball Player)"	88	22	15	Late Nights & Early Mornings
	"Far Away"	74	3	1
2011	"Late Nights & Early Mornings"	—	30	12
2012	"Cold War"	—	45	18	Non-album single
2013	"Without You"	—	—	—
2014	"Run"	—	44	13	Friends & Lovers
	"Stronger"	—	—	—

Guest appearances

List of non-single guest appearances, with other performing artists, showing year released and album name

Title	Year	Other artist(s)	Album
"Start from Scratch"	2005	The Game	The Documentary
"Get You Some"	2006	Busta Rhymes, Q-Tip	The Big Bang
"Cocaina"		Busta Rhymes
"Music for Life"		Hi-Tek, Nas, J Dilla, Busta Rhymes, Common	Hi-Teknology²: The Chip
"Why You Hate the Game"		The Game, Nas	Doctor's Advocate
"Hustlers"		Nas, The Game	Hip Hop Is Dead
"I'm Black"		Styles P	Time Is Money
"This Can't Be Real"	2007	Freeway	Free at Last
"Reunion"		Ya Boy	Optimus Rime
"Wanna Go Back"	2008	Solange, Q-Tip	Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams
"The Light '08 (It's Love)"		Common	N/A
"Freak'in Me"		Jamie Foxx	Intuition
"If I Ruled the World '09"	2009	Nas	N/A
"Yacht Music"		DJ Drama, Nas, Willie the Kid, Scarface	Gangsta Grillz: The Album (Vol. 2)
"Stay"		Fabolous	Loso's Way
"Take Me Away (With You)"		Queen Latifah	Persona
"Diary"		Wale	Attention Deficit
"A's & E's"		Masta Ace, Ed O.G.	Arts & Entertainment
"Still Hurts"	2010	Macy Gray	The Sellout
"Welcome Back"		Stat Quo	Statlanta
"All I Got to Give"		John Regan	Sorry I'm Late
"It's Alright"	2011	Saigon	The Greatest Story Never Told
"Streets Gone Love Me"	2012	Saint Nick	N/A
"Light Dreams"		Tyga	Careless World: Rise of the Last King
"Take You There"		Currensy	The Stoned Immaculate
"The One"		Kanye West, Big Sean, 2 Chainz	Cruel Summer
"The Game Changer"		Saigon	The Greatest Story Never Told Chapter 2: Bread and Circuses
"Right Back"		Freeway	Diamond In the Ruff
"It Only Gets Better"	2013	Talib Kweli	Prisoner of Conscious
"Material Things"		Lee Mazin	In My Own Lane
"Trust"		Robert Glasper Experiment	Black Radio 2
"Alone Together"	2014	Daley	Days & Nights
"War"	2015	King Los	God, Money, War
"Genocide"		Dr. Dre, Kendrick Lamar, Candice Pillay	Compton
"All in a Day's Work"		Dr. Dre, Anderson Paak
"Darkside / Gone"		Dr. Dre, King Mez, Kendrick Lamar
"Satisfiction"		Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, King Mez
"Make it Through the Night"		Joe Budden, Jadakiss	All Love Lost

Writing credits

• 2001: "Butterflies" - Michael Jackson (Invincible)
• 2002: "Simple Things", "Beautiful Eyes", "Lonely", "This Love", "Take You High" - Glenn Lewis (World Outside My Window)
• 2004: "My Man" - Angie Stone (Stone Love)
• 2006: "Circus" - Kelis (Kelis Was Here)
• 2007: "Go Ahead" - Alicia Keys (As I Am)
• 2008: "Wanna Go Back" - Solange featuring Marsha Ambrosius and Q-Tip (SoL-AngeL and the Hadley St. Dreams)
• 2008: "Love Me Or Leave Me" - Raven-Symoné (Raven-Symoné)
• 2008: "Do About It", "Mirror" - Girlicious (Girlicious)
• 2008: "Music (All I Need)" - Jazmine Sullivan
• 2009: "Matter" - Letoya - Lady Love
• 2009: "25 To Life" - JoJo

[ Source: Wikipedia ]