One of fifteen children, King was born in Spanish Town,in the Parish of St Catherine, not far from Kingston. She grew up singing hymns in the Philipo Baptist Church and at the same time was drawn to the music of Aretha Franklin, Patti La-Belle and Chaka Khan. However her deviutly religious family disapproved of pop music. "In Jamaica we don't sing gospel like they sing it in the U.S.," she says. "It was just plain. So when I got the chance to sing a solo in church, I wanted to do it like Aretha, and it was like, 'No, you can't do that here. You have to sing it straight."

She was just 13 when she got a job at Mingles singing on weekends, one of the premier clubs in Kingston. When her parents objected, Diana ran away from home. "I didn't even know where I was going." she says. "I took a bus , and I ended up in Ocho Rios. And I saw somebody I knew there. He was in a band at the hotel, and he said, 'You know, they've been looking for a female singer. 'And that night I went there and sang, and they just loved it. Ans that's how I got started on the north coast. I was lucky, because a lot of tings could happen to a person my age, not knowing where I am going to sleep. But thay didn't know I was so young, because I looked mature.

"I stayed there for a year and a half, and then I got this other job with a one man band, and every night we were at a different hotel in Ocho Rios, Montego Bay, or Negril. I sang R&B, pop, house......everything. But because it were for tourists, some hotels wouldn't let you do reggae. So I left the hotels and started singing with the City Heat band, touring in Jamaica." She quit that band a couple years later when Handel Tucker, a producer suggested that she record some original material. However, her first single "Change of Heart," failed to take off, so she accepted an offer to tour Europe and the U.S. with Shabba Ranks. "I would sing the songs he recorded with the female singers, so I didn't get to sing by myself," she says. "But the whole experience was a lot of fun."

King had previously recorded some demo tracks, which by chance came to the attention of Colombia Record's Maxine Stowe. "I left Shabba, not knowing what I was going to do, and out of the blue Maxine called me." She said, 'we're interested in doing something with you.' That's how I ended up doing "Stir it Up." And two days later she called me and said, Guess what? We accepted it for this movie. So that's how it got on Cool Runnings. Again I was lucky, and so I ended up doing the album. Everything went so quickly."

After the release of her original version of "Stir it Up" on the Cool Runnings soundtrack, Diana King hit the road as a part of the Cool Runnings tour. Her stunning stage presence and soul shaking vocals were a highlight at the NCAA Half-Time reggae performance, broadcast on ABC television. She was recently a featured performer at the 11th Annual Princess Grace Foundation Award Dinner, held at the Plaza Hotel in New York.

She is one of the most gifted female vocalists to emerge out of Jamaica and has the potential to penetrate international barriers with a voice that cuts straight through the heart, crooning, rapping and belting her passionate message in the universal language of love.