Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (born March 28, 1986), better known by her stage name Lady Gaga, is an American pop singer-songwriter. Raised in New York City, Gaga – the eldest of two – primarily studied at the Convent of the Sacred Heart. A college drop out at 17, Gaga briefly attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts before withdrawing to focus on her musical career and starting to perform in the rock music scene of Manhattan's Lower East Side.

By the end of 2007, Gaga was signed with Streamline Records. Employed as a songwriter for the record company, she captured the attention of recording artist Akon who – recognizing her vocal abilities – signed her to his own label Kon Live Distribution. Gaga came to prominence following the release of her debut studio album The Fame (2008), which achieved both critical and commercial success for its revival of synthpop.

Introducing her to universal popularity, its first two singles "Just Dance" and "Poker Face" were international number-one hits while the album itself reached the top of nine record charts worldwide – including the Billboard Dance/Electronic Albums chart where it stayed for 106 non-consecutive weeks – and accomplished positions within the top fifteen elsewhere. The album's successors The Fame Monster (2009) and Born This Way (2011) achieved similar enormity in success; the former allowing her to embark on a eighteen-month-strong worldwide concert tour The Monster Ball Tour just months after having finished The Fame Ball Tour. Further international chart-topping singles like "Bad Romance", "Telephone", "Alejandro" and "Born This Way", her involvement with humanitarian causes and LGBT activism, in addition to her outré, flamboyant and ever-changing contributions to the music industry through fashion, performance and music videos have cemented her place as a global figure in popular music and culture.

Influenced by glam rock singers such as David Bowie and Freddie Mercury, as well as dance-pop artists like Michael Jackson and Madonna, Gaga is revered as the Queen of Pop who is among the best-selling music artists worldwide and the best-selling digital artists in the United States while her singles are some of the best-selling worldwide. Gaga's numerous achievements include 4 Guinness World Records; 5 Grammy Awards; several MTV awards; 1 American Music Award; 3 number-one singles in the United States; 2 consecutive appearances on Billboard magazine's Artists of the Year (scoring the definitive title in 2010); regular placements on lists composed by Forbes; and an appearance on the Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world. In a career spanning a mere three years, Gaga has sold an estimated total of 13 million albums and 51 million singles.

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