It’s been almost two decades since Amerie stormed the charts with her hit song 1 Thing but the singer has not aged a day since.
She rose to fame in the 00s with the popular track and has four studio albums to her name, including 2005’s Touch which secured two Grammy nominations.
Now aged 44, she has revealed she’s back in the studio in a series of teasing posts on Instagram and looks as glowing as ever.
Amerie, full name Amerie Mi Marie Rogers Nicholson, has sporadically released music over the years as well as writing multiple novels and starting an online book club.
In 2011, she married her manager Lenny Nicholson and the pair have children together, generally keeping the family out of the spotlight.
Debuting at number four on the UK charts, 1 Thing earned Amerie a nomination for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance at the Grammys and her only Top 10 chart position.
Despite the huge success, the hit song nearly didn’t see the light of day after studio executives repeatedly pushed back, calling it unfinished.
Songwriter Rich Harrison claimed they wrote and finished the song in under three hours but trying to get it out there was impossible, with Amerie and Rich resorting to leaking it.
Bosses reportedly felt the chorus needed to be ‘bigger’ with more percussion, clashing with the duo who said that would ‘overpower’ it.
In hopes of appeasing the execs, Amerie returned to the studio numerous times, submitting multiple versions which were all rebuffed.
‘When I first played it for the label some people got it, but many didn’t,’ Amerie once told Okayplayer.
After six months of back and forth, Amerie ended up leaking the track to radios in a bid to get an official release.
However, the record company still wasn’t giving in and attempted to suppress it as Jennifer Lopez was interested in doing her own version for her album, Rebirth.
Radios refused to recall the song and 1 Thing climbed to number one on the R&B chart, forcing the studio to relent and give it an official release.
She added: ‘People did put the effort into it afterwards but it was kind of too late. I definitely felt like 1 Thing did well in spite of the label, instead of because of the label.’
The track eventually made it onto the soundtrack of the romantic comedy Hitch, starring Will Smith and Eva Mendes.
Amerie has not released a studio album since 2009’s In Love & War, which was her first album after parting ways with her label Columbia Records.
Despite generally positive reviews, the record debuted at 46 on the Billboard 200 and failed to produce any singles as popular as 1 Thing.
She has continued to perform over the years, with the track taking on a life of its own with remixes and sampling from the likes of Lauryn Hill and Girls Aloud.