Stacie Orrico (born March 3, 1986) is an American singer. She is best known for her albums of the early 2000s, in which she mixed songs in the genre of Christian pop music with tin-pop and R&B.
She was born in Seattle to a family of Christian missionaries. In 1998, when she was 12, she won the top prize in the vocal category at the Christian Performers Seminar in Estes Park. That success launched her career in show business. A man from the ForeFront Records label who was present at the competition offered her a contract.
She ended up signing with the ForeFront Records label, and in 2000, she had her first album released, called Genuine. The music website AllMusic defines its genre as Christian pop with shades of R&B and writes that critics have compared its style to both Christina Aguilera and Lauryn Hill. On her first album, Stacey wrote or contributed to three songs, including "Don't Look at Me", which was released as the first single from the album.
In 2001, the singer had a six-song Christmas mini-album released. She then went on a U.S. tour with Destiny's Child (performing at their warm-up concerts). On this tour she met Matthew Knowles, who offered her a contract with Virgin Records in 2002.
In 2003, she released a new album on Virgin Records, simply called Stacie Orrico. With it, she achieved already real fame. Her music videos were among the most popular on MTV, she was nominated for a Grammy and went on her own world tour.
At the time, Orrico was still a teenager, and at some point she decided that she could no longer handle the constant pressure and frenzied pace of life that the music industry was forcing popular artists to maintain. She decided to take a break from everything and returned home to her family in Seattle, where she took a job at a restaurant.
In early 2007, she returned to the scene with a new album Beautiful Aeakening. This time she had already co-written most of the songs.