LaFee German Singer Born 1990 in Stolberg

Early life

LaFee, born Christina Klein on 9 December 1990, comes from Büsbach, a district of the German town of Stolberg. By the age of nine she was already posting demo tapes to television programmes, and a few of them led to appearances. In September 2004 she took part in Kiddy Contest, an Austrian singing competition for children, with "Handy", a comic reworking of Barry Manilow's "Mandy". The broadcast caught the attention of the German producer Bob Arnz, who then guided her towards recording a first album.

Career

Her debut single, "Virus", came out in 2006 together with the album LaFee. The magazine Bravo and the music channel VIVA backed her from the start of her career. "Virus" climbed to number 13 in both Germany and Austria, and the follow-up "Prinzesschen" reached number 11 in Germany. "Mitternacht" and "Was ist das" also appeared in the German and Austrian charts.

Her second album, Jetzt erst recht, was released on 6 July 2007, led by the single "Heul doch", which entered the German top ten. Both the debut and its successor topped the album charts in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and Jetzt erst recht was certified Platinum in Germany and Gold in Austria. Further singles from it included "Beweg dein Arsch", which peaked at number 21 in Germany, and "Wer bin ich", released on 16 November 2007, which reached number 25 there and number 41 in Austria. Two large live appearances belong to this period: a New Year's Eve show at the Brandenburg Gate at the end of 2006, watched by more than a million people, and an open-air concert at the same site on 25 August 2007 in front of 119,000 people.

Alongside the music, LaFee began acting. Her first role was in the series Nina's Welt, shown from November 2006 until spring 2007, and she later turned up in the long-running soap Gute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten.

In 2008 she released Shut Up, an English-language collection built from songs of her first two albums; the title track is the English version of "Heul doch" and was first performed on 30 May 2008 at The Dome. Her next single, "Ring frei", appeared on 21 November 2008 and peaked at number 22 in Germany. The album Ring frei followed on 2 January 2009 and reached number 6 in Germany and number 5 in Austria, and it earned Gold status in Austria. She toured Germany, Austria and Switzerland in 2009. A compilation, Best of, was issued in November 2009, preceded by a re-recorded "Der Regen fällt". In December 2009 her band announced it was leaving to start a new project, and she parted ways with her manager.

She returned in 2011. She presented "Ich bin" on 4 June at The Dome, and the album Frei was released on 1 July 2011 through EMI. She wrote three of its songs alone and two more with a co-writer. In 2012 she sang "Zeig dich!", the theme song of the film Hanni & Nanni 2, and from mid-November to late December 2012 she played the roles of "Angel" and "Belle" in the Essen stage production Vom Geist der Weihnacht, a version of A Christmas Carol.

From 22 October 2014 to 23 October 2017 she played Iva Lukowski in the RTL soap Alles was zählt, where several of her new songs were featured. One of them, "Was bleibt", gave her a place in the German singles chart in March 2015, her first in four years. Her autobiography Frei, written with the author Anne van Straelen, was published on 14 November 2014. She released the single "Karthenhaus" with a video on 16 November 2018.

In July 2020 she announced that she was back in the studio with the producer Christian Geller. A cover of Madonna's "Material Girl" in German, "(Ich bin ein) Material Girl", came out on 26 February 2021, and she appeared on the ARD programme Schlagerchampions the following day. A second single, "Halt mich fest", a German-language version of a-ha's "Take On Me", followed on 30 April 2021. Her album Zurück in die Zukunft was released on 20 August 2021 by the label Telamo, which specialises in schlager and folk music. A limited fan box added a second disc, Zurück in die Vergangenheit, with reworked versions of earlier songs such as "Virus", "Prinzesschen" and "Heul doch". The album entered the German chart at number 7, her first top-ten placing since Ring frei.

Her work is classed as pop rock, and she has also been listed as an actor. As of April 2025 her YouTube channel had 47,700 subscribers.

Recognition

LaFee won four listed awards in the first years of her career: the Bravo Otto in 2006, then in 2007 the Echo Pop Award for the Best National Rock/Pop Female Artist, the Goldene Stimmgabel, and a Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award. Jetzt erst recht and the self-titled debut album are the two works most often named among her notable releases.