photo by steed media service

When Cheri Dennis was 7-years-old, her father taught her a lesson she’d never forget. After Dennis complained about being terrorized by the neighborhood bully, her father forced her to fight her adolescent tormentor and learn a lesson about toughness, “He was like, ‘You’re not coming in the house if you don’t go outside and fight that girl,’ ” says the sultry Bad Boy songstress and Cleveland native.

Signed to Bad Boy in 2001 after an impromptu audition for Diddy at a nightclub, Dennis had a hit single in 2005 with “I Love You,” but her solo debut did not see the light of day until this year. Now some 2,190 days later, Dennis is over being frustrated.

“Being in a male-dominated field, I think that you have to get tough skin early on,” she says. “When I first got signed [there were] certain situations that made me cry, but at this point I don’t think that [the industry] could ever make me feel the way it made me feel in the beginning just because I’ve learned so much.”

Dennis poured all of the lessons she learned — in life and love — into her new album, hence the title, In and Out of Love. “Giving up was not an option and I had been there so long it was like I would have hated to ... not follow through to the end and see what could be,” she says. Finally, the wait is over. -gavin philip godfrey

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