Tweet (born Charlene L. Keys on March 4, 1971) is an American R&B and neo soul singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Tweet was born in Rochester, New York and grew up singing in the church along with her parents and her four older siblings (three brothers, Tom, Cedric and Lonnie, and one sister, Sundra). Tweet mastered the guitar, playing her father's as a young girl. Tweet was inspired not only by her family but also by larger than life divas Janet Jackson, Tina Turner, Aretha Franklin and Whitney Houston (whom she later worked with).
Tweet's first steps into a career in the music industry first began when she enrolled in her local Performing Arts School. In 1990, at the age of 19, Tweet gave birth to her daughter Tashawna. The name came from a mixture of both parents name "T" from Tweet and "shawn" from Shawn, and the addition of two "a"s.
In the early nineties Tweet joined the female quintet Sugah, leaving her daughter with her parents in Panama City, Florida, while Tweet relocated to Virginia. Sugah was comprised of Tweet, Susan Weems, and Rolita and was a part of Devante Swing's Swing Mob collective. While there, she met Timbaland, Magoo, Missy Elliott (who at the time was a part of the Hip-Hop/R&B group Sista), Playa, and Ginuwine who were also all apart of the Swing Mob collective. During her time with Sugah, Tweet formed a close friendship with Elliott.
Around 1999 with Sugah going nowhere, no album to show, and many broken promises, Tweet returned to her parents' home in Panama City penniless and depressed. Tweet fell into deeper depression after a string of bad relationships and a number of jobs, all the while hiding her depression from her family. The depression got so bad she had planned to commit suicide.
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