Lady Gaga

Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (born March 28, 1986), better known by her stage name Lady Gaga, is an American pop singer-songwriter. After enrolling at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in 2003 and later performing in the rock music scene of New York City's Lower East Side, she signed with Streamline Records, an imprint of Interscope Records. During her early time at Interscope, she worked as a songwriter for fellow label artists and captured the attention of recording artist Akon who, recognizing her vocal abilities, signed her to his own label, Kon Live Distribution.
Gaga came to prominence following the release of her debut studio album The Fame (2008), which was a critical and commercial success and achieved international popularity with the singles "Just Dance" and "Poker Face". The album reached number one on the record charts of six countries, topped the Billboard Dance/Electronic Albums chart while simultaneously peaking at number two on the Billboard 200 chart in the United States and accomplished
positions within the top ten worldwide. Achieving similar worldwide success, The Fame Monster (2009), its follow-up, produced a further three global chart-topping singles "Bad Romance", "Telephone" and "Alejandro" and allowed her to embark on her second global concert tour, The Monster Ball Tour, just months after having finished her first, The Fame Ball Tour. Her second studio album Born This Way (2011) topped the charts in all major musical markets after the arrival of its singles "Born This Way", "Judas" and "The Edge of Glory" – the first-mentioned achieved the number-one spot in countries worldwide and was the fastest-selling single in the history of iTunes, selling one million copies in five days
Inspired by glam rock artists like David Bowie, Elton John and Queen, as well as pop singers such as Madonna and Michael Jackson, Gaga is well-recognized for her outré and ever-changing sense of style in music, in fashion, in performance and in her music videos. Her contributions to the music industry have accrued her numerous achievements including five Grammy Awards, among twelve nominations; two Guinness World Records; and the estimated sale of 13–15 million albums and 40–51 million singles worldwide. Billboard named her the Artist of the Year in 2010,ranking her as the 73rd Artist of the 2000s decade Gaga has been included in Time magazine's annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world as well as being listed in a number of Forbes' annual lists.
Lady Gaga was born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta on March 28, 1986, in New York City.[10] The first child of Italian American Joseph Germanotta, an internet entrepreneur, and Cynthia (née Bissett),Gaga has one sister, Natali, who was born in 1992 Gaga is left-handed and began learning to play piano aged four, went on to write her first piano ballad at 13, and began performing at open mike nights by the age of 14.Raised as a Roman Catholic on Manhattan's Upper West Side after the family moved there in 1993, Gaga attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart, a private all-girls Roman Catholic school on Manhattan's Upper East Side, from the age of 11.
Despite the comparative wealth between the Upper East and West Sides, Gaga stressed that she did not come from a wealthy background, stating that her parents "both came from lower-class families, so we've worked for everything—my mother worked eight to eight out of the house, in telecommunications, and so did my father." She described her academic life in high school as "very dedicated, very studious, very disciplined" but also "a bit insecure" as she told in an interview, "I used to get made fun of for being either too provocative or too eccentric, so I started to tone it down. I didn't fit in, and I felt like a freak. Acquaintances dispute that she did not fit in at school. "She had a core group of friends; she was a good student. She liked boys a lot, but singing was No. 1," recalled a former high school classmate.
An avid actor in high school musicals, Gaga portrayed the lead roles of Adelaide in Guys and Dolls and Philia in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.She also appeared in a very small role as a mischievous classmate in the television drama series The Sopranos in a 2001 episode titled "The Telltale Moozadell". At 16, she began to sing and play in front of live audiences and unsuccessfully auditioned for parts in New York shows.When her time at the Convent of the Sacred Heart came to an end, her mother encouraged her to apply to New York University to study drama and performance – specifically the Collaborative Arts Project 21 (CAP21), which is a faculty of the Tisch School of the Arts.