Karmah

Italian dance/hip-hop duo Karmah first emerged in 2005 with their pan-European club hit "Just Be Good to Me." A product of the Italian production house the Bliss Corporation (whose credits include artists such as Gabry Ponte and Eiffel 65), Karmah consist of vocalist Elisa Bava and MC July B. Bava began her performance career at the age of 14 with heavy metal groups in her hometown of Torino before moving on to funk and gospel pursuits with groups like Banca Funky and the Joy Gospel Choir. National freestyle champ July B was an experienced recording artist before teaming up with Bava, having made his recording industry debut in 1999. As half of hip-hop duo Oessepi with fellow MC Aikon, July B recorded two discs with Oessepi before making his solo debut in 2005 with Uno a Zero. July B and Bava were introduced by friends at Bliss, who had an eye on engineering a dance group with cross-genre appeal. The duo's first collaboration, "Just Be Good to Me," was first created by Gabry Ponte eight years prior as a part of his live show. Sampled from the Police's "Every Breath You Take," the track became so popular that the Bliss Corporation chose the surefire hit as Karmah's debut single. Released in 2005, the song had climbed to a place on Billboard's European Hot 100 just a year later. Karmah spent that summer touring Europe supporting the track, earning new fans from Poland to the Czech Republic. The duo released its next single, "Tom's Diner," in August of 2006. ~ Evan C. Gutierrez, Rovi