Sofia Carson is a multi-platinum, dance-oriented pop vocalist, actress, and activist. After appearing in Disney projects like the Disney Channel film series The Descendants, she was featured on singles including 2016's "Love Is the Name" with J Balvin and DJ Alan Walker's "A Different World" in 2018. Along with her philanthropic work with UNICEF, Make-A-Wish, and the Ryan Seacrest Foundation, Carson was named global ambassador to the Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation in 2019. She released her eponymous full-length debut in early 2022, a few months before charting on the Billboard 200 with her soundtrack to the Netflix movie Purple Hearts, in which she played a struggling singer/songwriter. That same year, she sang "Applause," Diane Warren's Oscar-nominated theme to the film Tell It Like a Woman, before teasing her album Act 1: The Fall with 2024's "I Hope You Know."

Born Sofia Daccarett Char in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida in 1993, Carson grew up the daughter of Colombian immigrants. At age three, she began taking dance lessons, and in 2001, she made her stage debut as Dorothy in a Miami stage production of The Wizard of Oz. The following year, she studied dance and vocal performance at the University of Miami's summer theater program. During high school, Carson continued her dance and vocal studies. She then enrolled at UCLA, majoring in communications and French.

As an actress, Carson made her professional debut in 2014 as Chelsea on the Disney Channel series Austin & Ally. The following year, she joined the cast of MTV's Faking It and appeared as Evie in the popular Disney Channel original movie The Descendants, for which she also sang on the soundtrack. In 2016, she starred in the Disney Channel's version of Adventures in Babysitting. That same year, she made her solo pop singing debut with the single "Love Is the Name," featuring J Balvin, on Hollywood Records. The Descendants 2 arrived in 2017 and again featured songs from Carson, including "Ways to Be Wicked." A year later, she was featured on Norwegian DJ Alan Walker's single "Different World." In 2019, Carson was named the first global ambassador to the Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation. Also that year, she returned for The Descendants 3 and starred as Ava Jalai in the Freeform television series Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists.

Carson's focus on pop singles increased over the next two years with the release of tracks like "Miss U More Than U Know" featuring R3HAB and 2021's "Fool's Gold," the latter of which made a Top 40 showing on the Billboard Pop Airplay chart. In 2021, she issued the EP Leave Your Heart on the Dance Floor, and in March 2022, she released her debut album, Sofia Carson.

Using songs she co-wrote with Justin Tranter (Julia Michaels, Demi Lovato), Skyler Stonestreet, and others, she went on to chart in the bottom half of the Billboard 200 later that year with her original soundtrack to the movie Purple Hearts. It co-starred Carson and Nicholas Galitzine (Camila Cabello's Cinderella). The soundtrack featured the single "Come Back Home," which cracked the singles chart in places like Switzerland, Canada, and the U.K. while hitting the Top 30 of the Billboard Digital Songs Sales chart in the U.S.

Also in 2022, she released "Applause," the Diane Warren-penned theme to the anthology film Tell It Like a Woman, which earned an Oscar-nomination for Best Original Song. Both Carson and Warren performed the song at the awards ceremony in March 2023. A single, "I Hope You Know," arrived in January 2024 as the first track released off from Carson's album Act 1: The Fall. ~ Matt Collar