^Sitti started about 7 or 8 years ago singing jazz standards (and konting bossa) sa mga hotel lounges. she was managed by gary trinidad back then. come 05, together with warner music. they recorded the album Cafe Bossa. it was recorded sa loob ng isang CR (yup. sa isang restroom), ng isang pasada lang. siguro warner did not want to put too much "bet on the pot" dahil hindi siguro ganun ka-assured na magki-click ang bossa. for a while there had not been any bossa nova recording done sa local scene. sino ba dati? bong peņera? jackie magno?
tapos, yun na. the album cafe bossa hits gold in 3 months and platinum in 5 yata; double platinum before 06 ended. but sitti continued her usual gigs. tapos naglipana na yung "pang-bossa" ng ibang record companies. sitti did a live gig in 06 na naging record album. this made double platinum in a few months after being released. she still did her typical gigs and syempre raket sa kung saan meron. then the album "my bossa nova" later 07, which also made double platinum. then she got boy abunda as her manager. then gigs abroad. pakonti-konting gigs nalang. last month kaka-release lang nung new album nya. all four recorded albums were done by warner.
with that info, you should be able to pretty much figure out who or what made Sitti popular. there should be a lot of answers to that question and most of them would probably be correct.