Ruth Jacott was born in Suriname and at nine, moved with her family to The Netherlands, where at 17 she took part in a talent contest, after which she received many offers to perform.

She dropped out of the Hilversum Conservatory and began her career with The Vips and bands like The Skymasters, the VARA-Dansorkest and the Metropole Orkest.

She landed key roles in Dutch and German-language productions of Cats and A Night at the Cotton Club, touring The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland.

One year later, she sang the duet "Tegyo Makandra" with Hans Vermeulen, in commemoration of a plane crash in Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname.

In July, she had a big hit together with Paul de Leeuw with the duet "Blijf bij mij" (Stay with me).

With the charity single Buseruka, written together with listeners of Dutch radio station 3FM, she was able to collect donations for UNICEF and Oxfam Novib projects in Rwanda.

Her album Vals verlangen (False desire) went gold and in October, she performed at Amsterdam's Carré Theater which was filmed by TV network RTL 4 and recorded for CD release.

In 2008, Jacott played the title role in the musical Billie Holiday about the legendary African American singer.

On 23 March 2009, the single Jammer, maar helaas (Too bad) was released from her Latin double-CD Passie (Passion), which followed on 20 April 2009.

In 2016, she participated in the song-exchange-programme Ali B op volle toeren; Jacott was paired to rapper I Am Aisha who reworked Vrede.