Crystal Waters, whose career took off in 1991, is an American house music icon and Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter whose deep, expressive vocals and era-defining club anthems helped bring house music into the mainstream. Born in Deptford, New Jersey, in 1961, she grew up in a musical family — her father Junior Waters was a respected jazz musician, and her great-aunt was the legendary Ethel Waters — before attending Howard University, where her love of songwriting and performance took root ahead of her turn toward the emerging house scene.

Her breakthrough came with the smash "Gypsy Woman (She's Homeless)" (1991) — a socially conscious house anthem built around the unforgettable "la da dee la da da" hook. The song reached No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100, went gold in the U.S., and topped dance charts globally, becoming one of the defining early-'90s house tracks and helping cross the genre over into mainstream pop. It appeared on her debut studio album Surprise (1991), which produced additional hits including "Makin' Happy."