Esmée Denters

Dutch singer-songwriter Esmee Denters' meteoric rise from pancake house waitress to writing songs with Justin Timberlake happened over a mere two year period, thanks to popular video-sharing site YouTube. At 17, Denters posted videos of herself in her bedroom singing songs from the likes of Alicia Keys and Natasha Bedingfield and her popularity grew to the extent that she started taking viewer requests and adding her own songs. At the time she became the Number 1 Most Subscribed To musician YouTube had seen and gained 21 million views within nine months; leading Justin Timberlake to seek her out to sign as one of the first artists on his Tennman Records label. As well as performing the on-stage opening for Timberlake as part of his European FutureSex/LoveShow tour in summer 2007, Denters and Timberlake began writing songs together and she started working with a number of big name producers. Her debut album Outta Here was released in May 2009, hitting Number 5 in her native Netherlands and Number 48 in the UK, while the title song reached Number 3 and 7 in the Netherlands and UK singles charts.