Every Little Part of Me

Julie Berthelsen was born in Aarhus in 1979 to a Greenlandic mother and a Danish father. When she was a few months old her parents split up, and her mother took Julie and her sister first to Qeqertarsuaq and then to Nuuk. There her mother met the Greenlandic musician and later politician Per Berthelsen, a founder of the pioneering rock band Sumé, who became Julie's stepfather. She grew up surrounded by music, and from 1994 she sang backing vocals in his band. She recorded backing parts for local bands, formed her own group, Nuna, in 1998, and spent a year at a Norwegian folk high school studying music and theatre. Then, at nineteen, she went back to Aarhus to study medicine. She was still a medical student in 2002 when she entered Popstars, the talent show on Danish channel TV 2. She finished second, but went on to become more popular and successful than the winner. Every Little Part of Me, her debut single, became her breakthrough in 2003 and sold 30,000 copies. The album Home spent thirty weeks on the Danish chart, two of them at number one, sold 90,000 copies and earned her three Danish Music Awards in 2004, including best Danish female singer and best new Danish name. In May 2004 she sang at Christiansborg Palace for the wedding of Crown Prince Frederik and Mary. Her path, from backing singer in her stepfather's pioneering Greenlandic band to the top of the Danish charts, links two generations of music from Nuuk.