SOPHIE B. Hawkins was at the heart of nineties mania thanks to smooth pop tracks I Wish I Was Your Lover, and Lay Me Down.
She sold millions of cassettes and 32 years later her songs are still huge.
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Sophie, no 59, was part of a wave of female singers in the mid nineties who were a force to be reckoned with.
Sophie, along with Alanis Morissette, Melissa Etheridge, Bonnie Raitt and Gwen Stefani showed talent was practically falling out of the sky.
Last year she released her new album, Free Myself and also went on tour.
But despite her musical genius she has been hounded by questions about her sexuality.
Sophie honed her musical talents at the Manhattan School of Music before working with Bryan Ferry and getting fired.
In 1989 she caught the attention of record labels and released her first music with Sony.
After she quit Sony she released five albums on her own label, and would later say her career in the 90s was “a journey to create on my own terms and defy classification.”
Despite her achievements and selling millions of records she said she was annoyed when a journalist was only interested in whether she was gay.
She wrote in a piece on her life for Huffington Post last year: “I’m sitting with The New York Times’ esteemed music writer. ‘Are you a lesbian?’ he asks.”
Sophie went on to say she told the journalist: “I’m omnisexual.”
She continued: “My gender doesn’t define my sexuality.
“My creative spirit does. A male partner doesn’t make me straight, nor does a female partner make me gay. ‘I am everything,’ omni is all, and one.”
Sophie went on to become a huge supporter of LGBT rights and spoke freely on the gender spectrum.
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