First Love (Karina Pasian album)

First Love is the debut studio album by Dominican-American R&B singer Karina Pasian. It was released by Def Jam on August 19, 2008 in the United States. The album debuted and peaked at number 57 on the US Billboard 200 and produced the singles "16 @ War" and "Can't Find the Words." First Love sold 9,000 copies in its first week. On December 3, 2008, it was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary R&B Album but lost to Mary J. Blige's Growing Pains (2007).

Background
In 2006, after a bidding war between Bad Boy Records, Interscope and Def Jam, Pasian signed with the latter. The singer recorded over 70 songs for the album, including a collaboration with John Legend called "Promise" that didn't make the album.

Critical reception
AllMusic editor Andy Kellman found that material on First Love was "age-appropriate, a rare thing from a teenaged major-label artist in 2008 [...] Still, the album is as needed as Keke Palmer's So Uncool and Tiffany Evans – proud and smart, real and relatable, packed with substance." DJBooth.net felt that Pasian's "musical maturity" was stopping First Love "from becoming a great album. It’s as if she spent so much time proving to the world that she’s not just a teenage girl at times forgets how to be a teenage girl [...] It’s no surprise then the best song on the album comes when Karina embraces her age, but does so with in a deeply moving way."

Commercial performance
First Love debuted and peaked at number 57 on the US Billboard 200 in the week of September 6, 2008, with first week sales of 9,000 physical copies. It also reached number 11 on Billboard's Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. By December 2008, the album had sold a total of 28,408 copies.