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CeCe Peniston

American singer

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 10, 2026
Entity authorityQ467129 ↗
Source-derived summary

Cecilia Veronica "CeCe" Peniston (; born September 6, 1969) is an American singer and former beauty queen. In the early 1990s, she scored five number one hits on the U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play. Her signature song "Finally" reached the No. 5 US Hot 100 and No. 2 in the UK.

Peniston has performed at private engagements for Aretha Franklin's private birthday party in Detroit, Michigan, Pope John Paul II in Rome at the Vatican (as a member of the gospel band Sisters of Glory) and the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, during both of his inauguration ceremonies in Washington, D.C. She was the first foreign female entertainer to perform in post-apartheid South Africa. According to Peniston, her vocal range vacillates between "five to seven octaves".

In February 2011, Peniston signed a record deal with West Swagg Music Group/Bungalo Records, with full distribution through Universal Music Group Distribution, and announced release of a new solo album 15 years after her last studio set (I'm Movin' On from 1996 on A&M Records). By the end of the year, however, only three digital singles had been issued including a new song called "Stoopid!", and two cover versions of her prior hits, "Keep On Walkin'" and "Finally".

In December 2016, Billboard magazine listed her among the 100 Top Dance Club Artists of All Time (as the 52nd).

Life & career

Early life and education

Peniston was born in Dayton, Ohio, but spent the majority of her formative years in Phoenix, Arizona, where she was raised from the age of nine.

Editorial summary

“CeCe Peniston” enters the record as american singer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what CeCe, Peniston and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1969, 2011, 1996, 2016—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1969-09-06. Its strongest next move is a source search built around CeCe, Peniston and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“CeCe Peniston” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, CeCe, Peniston and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q467129. VIAF identifies the subject as 59276323. The Library of Congress control number is n2004069949. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1969, 2011, 1996 and 2016.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “CeCe Peniston”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow CeCe Peniston primary sources, CeCe Peniston archive and CeCe research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “CeCe Peniston”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “CeCe Peniston” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.