Anita

Anita Doth (born Anita Daniëlle Dels on 28 December 1971 in Amsterdam) is a Dutch singer, best known for her participation in the Eurodance group 2 Unlimited.

Doth was born in Amsterdam to Rolf and Lydia Dels. In 1991 she finished her education and landed her first steady job in an administrative position at a police station.

After 2 Unlimited, Doth joined the Dutch TMF (The Music Factory) Music television station to host Welcome the Pleasure Zone, a TV show with music videos, live performances, and dancers from the dance scene. Doth also worked as a DJ on Dutch radio station Radio 538, before starting her solo career in 1997.

In 2000, she duetted with popular Dutch singer René Froger in “That’s When I’ll Stop Loving You”.

In 2002, Divas Of Dance, was formed: apart from Doth herself, the trio consists of Linda Estelle (formerly T-Spoon) and Desiree “Des’Ray” Manders (former lead singer of Eurodance project 2 Brothers On The 4th Floor, mostly known for Dreams (Come Alive)). They go on stage with a variety of old dance classics, not factoring out 2 Unlimited songs, of course.

In June 2004 she gave a solo performance of No Limit on German TV station ZDF. In 2000 she released a solo album, Reality, using her first name as her artist name. Singles taken from the album include Universe, Lifting up My Life, and This Is Reality.

She has one child, a son named Destyno (b. 20th April 2005), with her boyfriend Willy de Leon Agramonte. She was 2 Unlimited ‘s female vocalist until 1997. Her real name is Anita Daniele Doth.

Anita was born on 28th of December 1971 in Amsterdam. Her family’s origins are in Surinam, a former Dutch colony. Lydia, her mother, had also another daughter. She is 1,69 m for 60 kg, and she is brown-haired and brown-eyed. She likes to dance (she likes to go to discotheques), to sing and to swim, but also bungy jumping. She does one hour of sport exercises per days, this is how she keeps slim. She loves to play Monopoly. She doesn’t considere herself as an intellectual person, and she says she is arrogant and ill-tempered.

She has a cat. She used to drive an Opel Calibra (she had her driving license in 1994). She had a love story with a painter. Her favourite actors are Eddy Murphy, Richard Pryor and Meryl Streep. Her favoured movie is Gone With The Wind. She likes to listen to Led Zeppelin. Her 2 preferred colours are red and pink. She likes every kind of food that contains rice. She dedicates the few time left to an orphan house in Surinam directed by her a friend of her mother : she sends clothes and goods as needed.

Anita has been involved with music since she was very young. ‘When I was small I was always singing at family gatherings.’ She also recalls singing in a contest in front of 1 200 kids. She didn’t win, ‘but it was a kick!’. Before starting her musical career, she had a job as secretary at a Dutch police station, in the parking ticket division.

It wasn’t long after that when she was tapped to join Trouble Sisters, an all-female rap group. Then Marvin D asked Anita to join his group as a dancer and back-up singer. ‘It was my first taste of show business’ said Anita of the job. But she was soon tired of ‘standing around just looking sexy’. She wanted to perform. Marvin asked her if she’d like to make a record. He said a friend of his (Ray) was doing a project, and needed a female singer. ‘Of course I said yes’‘, and what happened then was nothing short of history. 2 Unlimited was born. Ray and Anita didn’t really know each other before the group was formed, although they had seen each other at clubs.

This was the beginning of a friendship and a professionnal complicity. They think of themselves as brother and sister. As one half of the most successful dance duo in the world ever she toured all across the world and reached top positions in more than 50 countries with hits like No Limit, The Real Thing, Get Ready 4 This and Tribal Dance. 5 long years did Anita Doth and Ray Slijngaard move people all around the world as 2 Unlimited. In 1996 it all came to an end. Their contract ended and they both decided not to extend it for another 5 years. After they left 2 Unlimited, they were going to call them self the A & R Foundation or just simple Ray & Anita. Many record companies offered them a lot of money to go on together, but because Anita wanted to do more dance stuff and Ray wanted more Hip Hop/R&B they decided not to go on together.

Anita is currently busy with her own production company. She used to have her own dance program on The Music Factory, a Dutch music television station. She has appeared as a guest vocalist on dance singles like That’s When I Stop Loving You from Dutch artist Rene Froger. There was also a project of a telefilm on Dutch TV. In 1999 she released a solo single entitled Center Of Your Universe and not the title track of her show called Welcome 2 The Pleasure Zone. This song, an upbeat happy hardcore track, was produced by Digidance (better known as the Klubbheads), who also made remixes for Jump For Joy and Spread Your Love.

Anita explains : ‘Winter ‘98 I went to New York to write some songs together with Todd Terry. My sister came along with me as a representive for our production company and of course also for some family support. It was she who had established the contact with Todd Terry in the first place. After meeting Todd Terry, (which was scary at first, but turned out to be great) and listening to lots of his musical material, Todd played us this fantastic tune, at that time it was of course only a basic beat, with some beautiful strings and a fantastic baseline! Rolanda and me went totaly crazy right away in the studio. We took the idea back to the hotel and played it only about 5 million times that night.The next morning we woke up feeling all happy; here we were in Manhattan on the 33rd floor of the New York Palace hotel. Just looking out of the window made us feel like the world was at our feet. My sister got up to take a bath, and I put the track back on and played it really loud. So while my sister was sitting in the tub praying something fantastic would come out of this exiting trip, the melody and the words to Universe just came to me like a gift. The music was so inspirational that it wasn’t difficult at all to find a melody and words to it. When I wrote the words I didn’t think of a subject to write about at all, like I said the words just came to me. After writing the song I read it over and over again and thought this is not something I often think about, were did it come from? Ever since that moment the song has become such an inspiration and encourigement for me. Whenever I felt’ life was though and I was feeling down’ this song has always made me feel good about myself, like I am special. I sincerely hope the song has the same effect on you !!!!

We can expect her first album in a couple of months. Anita wrote all songs for the her solo CD by herself. “It is my vision on dance music… poppy songs with a hard beat underneath.”

We asked if she ever missed the times she had with 2 Unlimited she answers “Those 5 years went incredibly fast. They were really hectic. I needed a long time to recuperate and I’m glad that I can walk across the streets nowadays without being recognized too often. What I do miss are the performancesv!”. About the new 2 Unlimited : “It’s just not my style. The first single (Wanna Get Up) was very catchy, but I think it’s becoming all too poppy. 2 Unlimited used to be a lot more violent.”.

Anita recently recorded a few songs with Jamaican raggae artist Mad Cobra. She had a modest success with her second solo single Lifting Up My Life which was released in Holland. Anita is convinced she can manage herself as a solo-singer, and achieve success all by herself. In 2000 she finally released her first solo-album, Reality. She wrote most of her songs together with producers Steve Mac, Todd Terry (who also wrote songs for Jocelyn Brown ) and Adamski… Recording sessions for the album took place in Amsterdam, London and New York. The album contains tracks with elements from UKdance, pop, drum ‘n’ bass and even chemical beats. Anita chose to work with different producers for good reasons. “With 2 Unlimited we used to work with just one producer, which pins you down on just on type of sound. I didn’t want that to happen this time around. The track Adamski produced sounds very mysterious, while Todd Terry created a very groovy sound. The variety of sounds we created that way, works surprisingly well.” Musically, Anita chose a new direction, partially breaking free from her past. “The songs still sound very accessible and are very danceable, which also applies for 2 Unlimited-material. They’re nice popsongs, but the basis of this record were influences from different kinds of modern day dance styles for instance”.

“It turned out to be a diverse record”, she says “This album really is my personal thing. This is the music I like myself. From now on, I just want to find out what I’m capable of”. She adds “‘I want to stay who I am. I haven’t seen it all… no way. I want to prove to myself I can do it on my own, too. That’s a huge challenge to me. As a solo-singer, I haven’t proved anything yet. People still see me as ‘Anita from 2 Unlimited’. I can imagine that, but I hope it’ll change. Hopefully people will start seeing me as Anita.”

2002 : Anita joined Des’ray (of 2 Brothers On The 4th Floor) and Linda Estelle (from T-Spoon) for a project called Divas Of Dance. They will do remakes of old songs, but they will also do hitmixes of their greatest hits in their shows.

2004 : Anita declared that she would not be against joining 2 Unlimited again.

2005 : Anita gave birth to a baby boy called Destyno in April. The father is her boyfriend Willy. During her pregnancy, Denise (ex Vengaboys) replaced her on stage with the Divas of Dance. In June, she was already back with the Diva’s.

2006 : the Divas of Dance recorded a videoclip entiteld Falling into the Groove.

2010: Anita tells the public that she’s been diagnosed with breast cancer.