As a songwriter, Crystal Nicole has amassed an impressive string of hits for a litany of artists that include Mariah Carey (“Touch My Body,” “I’ll Be Lovin’ U Long Time,”) Jennifer Hudson (“I Got This”), Rihanna (“Only Girl (In The World)”), Monica (“Love All Over Me”), J.Lo (“Gotta Be There”) and Beyoncé (“Scared Of Lonely”), just to name a few. In addition, she has also contributed to Mary J. Blige’s latest project. Now the audiences who have unknowingly embraced her talent will be let in on a secret music industry insiders have known for some time: That girl can sing!

“I never stopped being an artist because singing was always the first thing and then the writing came,” Crystal Nicole explains of her transition from behind the scenes to the spotlight. “The crazy thing is writing helped me sing better and the singing helped me write better. They’re like my right and left hand.”

Born and bred in Atlanta, Crystal Nicole can’t remember a time in her life when she wasn’t singing. The youngest of three kids, Crystal Nicole says there was always music in her Decatur home. She credits her father for encouraging the whole family to harmonize in the car on trips to the grocery store and her mother for introducing her to Stevie Wonder, an artist whose songwriting skills she studied to hone her own. As a youngster, Crystal Nicole claims her older sister was the family star – but she earned the full support of her loved ones when it became clear, even in childhood, that she was determined to pursue her passion.

“When I was in school, I couldn’t stay focused because I was so focused on being an artist,” Crystal Nicole recalls. “I would have my math book out and my copy of “All You Need To Know About The Music Business” underneath and I would be trying to study both at the same time. I got in trouble a couple of times!”

That tireless focus helped Crystal Nicole during her struggle to gain a foothold in the music industry – a difficult journey that was finally rewarded when Crystal Nicole was introduced to Jermaine Dupri, who finally signed her to a publishing deal through So So Def/EMI in 2007. Over the last four years, singing took somewhat of a backseat to songwriting, but Crystal Nicole says she never lost sight of her vision.

“I was always going to be an artist,” she says. “I just didn’t plan for it to happen right now. I have to give God credit for that because I had nothing to do with where I am right now.”

In truth Crystal Nicole did have a little something to do with her fate as an artist, which was decided last fall after she walked into a meeting with Blackground’s Barry Hankerson about an artist she was working with, only to discover he was more interested in working with her.

“[Barry] was nice enough to take a meeting with us that day and before we got ready to leave out [he] asked could I sing,” Crystal Nicole remembers. “So I’m like yeah, you know, I do a little. And Barry said there’s just something about you, you’re the star… Nobody had ever looked at me and saw something without knowing that I could sing. It was completely out of the blue for me and the next day I came back and showcased for him.”

Crystal Nicole signed with Blackground/Interscope in October 2010 and is currently poised to send her first single to radio this June.

Fittingly titled “Pinch Me,” the song, which was written by Crystal Nicole and produced by Jermaine Dupri and Bryan Michael Cox, relates the unsettling feeling of the too-perfect start of most relationships.

“It’s just about being in the beginning stages of a relationship when things seem to be going really good, but there’s that feeling of ‘When is the ball going to drop? ‘” Crystal Nicole describes. “As a woman, as a man, whoever you are , it’s always like I’d rather you just wake me up from this dream love if you’re not going to be with me forever. If this isn’t what it appears to be just wake me up now and save me the trouble.”

“For that song we were in the studio and there was no conversation, Jermaine was working on the track with B. Cox and I heard like ten seconds of the music they were working on and it was like a light went off and I was gone,” Crystal Nicole remembers. “I probably wrote the whole song in like thirty minutes… Jermaine said it was one of the fastest sessions that he’d been part of and it was so magical. I remember singing it to him and it was still all over the place, but as soon as I hit the ‘pinch me now/ wake me up,” he was like, ‘That’s it… that’s a smash.’

For Crystal Nicole , who is happily married, the track, like many of the hits she’s penned for others, doesn’t have much to do with her own life, but she credits her songwriting ability to her gift for being able to identify and narrate other people’s experiences.

“I’ve noticed over the years that I’ve been able to explain other people’s feelings,” Crystal Nicole says. “I’m kind of like a narrator, whatever the emotion is I can take that and put it into a song and make that translate throughout in all ages of people and kinds of people. It’s an amazing gift and I’m still discovering it as I go.”

She might not be able to explain where her lyrics come from, but Crystal Nicole has a clear picture for her career as an artist that fits perfectly in line with what she’s been doing all along.

“Whether it’s heartache or falling in love, I see me being the spokesperson for the world through music and just touching people,” Crystal Nicole says. “That’s my vision for me as an artist. It’s not about me trying to roll up in a better car or me trying to sign some autographs, it’s about me trying to touch the world through this gift that I was given. “ Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.