Despina Vandi, born as Despina Malea (Born 22 July 1969) , is a Greek singer. Born in Tübingen near Stuttgart, West Germany, Vandi's family returned to Kavala, Greece when she was six years old. She enrolled at the University of Thessaloniki, but eventually dropped out to begin a career in music. After moving to Athens in the early 1990s, Vandi signed with Minos EMI and released two albums Gela Mou (1994) and Esena Perimeno (1996). She then began an exclusive collaboration with songwriter/producer Phoebus and struck commercial success with her third album, Deka Endoles (1997), followed by the multi-platinum Profities (1999), where she incorporated pop elements into her music, in addition to laïko, as well as a more pop stage performance style and image, becoming one of the most prominent portrayers of the laiko/pop genre that was thriving into the mid-2000s.
Her single "Ipofero" (2000) became the best selling single of all-time in Greece. Following Phoebus' departure from Minos EMI, Vandi followed him to the newly formed independent label Heaven Music and released Gia (2001), which became and remains her biggest commercial success, as well as one of the best-selling albums of all time in Greece and Cyprus. Vandi also released the album abroad and the selftitled single "Gia" witnessed some success, topping the US Billboard Hot Dance Airplay and making her the first Greek artist to top a Billboard chart. She released her first live album in 2003 and later that year she gave birth to her first child, from her marriage with football player Demis Nikolaidis. She returned with Stin Avli Tou Paradeisou (2004), which was certified multi-platinum and became her fourth album to achieve six-figure sales. In 2007 Vandi gave birth to her second child, after a hiatus that ended with 10 Hronia Mazi (2007), a ten year celebration of her collaboration with Pheobus. Vandi once again followed Phoebus' departure in favour of his new label The Spicy Effect. Her eighth studio album C'est La Vie was the label's first release.
Vandi has won three Arion Music Awards, ten MAD Video Music Awards, seven Pop Corn Music Awards, and a World Music Award, becoming the first Greek artist recording in Greece to ever win the award. On 14 March 2010, Alpha TV ranked Vandi the fourth top-certified Greek female artist in the nation's phonographic era (since 1960), with 11 records having been certified platinum or multi-platinum and three gold by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry of Greece. According to Heaven Music, as of 2007, Vandi has sold one million records in Greece.
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