Faith Evans

Musical artist

Birth name Faith Renee Evans

Born July 10, 1973

Origin Lakeland, Florida, United States

Genre/s R&B, soul

Occupation/s singer, songwriter, actress

Years active 1992-present

Label/s Bad Boy (1995-2003)

Capitol (2005-present)

Website Official website

Faith Renee Evans (born June 10, 1973 in Lakeland, Florida) is a Grammy Award-winning R&B singer/songwriter. She has sold nearly 8 million albums and singles worldwide.

Early life

Evans was born in Florida to an Italian-American father and an African-American mother. Her father was a musician who left when she was very young. She was raised in Newark, New Jersey by her aunt, Johnnie Mae, and her mother, Helene, who had Evans when she was 18. Evans began singing at church at age two and later sang in school musical productions. She was an honor student in high school and won a full scholarship to Fordham University. However, she dropped out after one year of college to pursue a singing career.

Early career

At 19, she had a child named Chyna with musician and producer Kiyamma Griffin, from whom she later split. Griffin helped Evans get work as a session singer with Al B. Sure, who she met through producer Sean "Puffy" Combs. Combs liked Evans's sound and signed her to his fledgling label Bad Boy Records. She co-wrote and sang backup on Mary J. Blige's My Life. The breadwinner of the label was a Brooklyn rapper The Notorious B.I.G.. He and Evans met at a Bad Boy photoshoot and married only ten days after meeting in August 1994. She was first featured as a guest artist in Biggie's 1994 hit, "One More Chance (remix)."

Faith album coverEvans soon released her debut album in the Fall 1995. The self-titled CD, Faith, became a hit based on the songs "Soon as I Get Home", "You Used to Love Me" and "Ain't Nobody".

The album was certified Platinum and sold just under a million copies, with 903,000 copies sold according to Nielsen Soundscan. By that time the rap war between Biggie and rapper Tupac Shakur had intensified, which turned personal for both after Shakur alleged that he had slept with Evans. Evans, who was pregnant with Biggie's child, was outraged because she said she had only met Shakur for a recording.

The rivalry turned ugly after Shakur's tragic death in September 1996 in Las Vegas. Some had speculated Biggie may have taken part in his murder, as well as the 1994 shooting of Shakur in New York. By the time of the birth of their son, Christopher Jr. or C.J., in late 1996, the couple's marriage had fallen apart due to the hip-hop rivalry and rumors of Biggie's philandering, most notably with female rappers Lil' Kim and Charli Baltimore.

Evans was present at a Soul Train music awards party Biggie attended on the night of March 8th in Los Angeles, California. Unfortunately, it would be the last time Evans would hear from her husband. A few hours after she left the club, in the early hours of March 9, 1997, news had spread that Biggie was gunned down in a hail of gunshots by an unidentified assailant. Evans was devastated when she heard the news of his death and went through a deep depression.

Puff Daddy helped get Evans out of her gloom to record a tribute song titled "I'll Be Missing You". The song, which featured Puffy, Evans, and Bad Boy Records group 112, reached the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in 1997 and stayed there for eleven weeks. The song won Puffy and Evans a Grammy Award for Best Rap Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group.

Keep the Faith & Faithfully

Faithfully album coverAfter re-marrying and having a third child, Joshua, Evans released her long-awaited follow-up, Keep the Faith in 1998. Unlike the solemn approach to her first album, this album spoke of optimism, good times, and love. Among its biggest hits include the CHIC-sampled track "Love Like This", the P. Diddy helmed "All Night Long", and Babyface lent her a number-one R&B hit song with "Never Gonna Let You Go". Outside of her own albums, Evans found another hit that year with Whitney Houston and Kelly Price on the song "Heartbreak Hotel". That album would also be certified Platinum and sell just under a million. As of December 2005, Keep The Faith has sold 924,000 copies.

Evans released her third album, 2001's Faithfully, which included "You Gets No Love" and "I Love You". For the album's promotion, Evans went through a transformation in her physical appearance. Always a heavy-set woman, Evans shed over fifty pounds and presented a sexier image that was present for the videos to "I Love You" and "Burnin' Up". Fatman Scoop also sampled her vocals on the song "Be Faithful" in 2003, which reached number one in the UK. Although the album wasn't as big of a success as her first two, it would end up being certified platinum as well with about 837,000 units sold.

Afterwards, Evans kept a low profile until late-2004 when she and husband Todd Russaw were arrested for drug possession and driving under the influence. She and Russaw were sentenced to three years' probation and paid a fine.

The First Lady

The First Lady album coverAfter a rut of bad news, Evans rebounded with a record that many of her fans have proclaimed as her strongest record to date, The First Lady (released on April 5, 2005). After finding success with her Twista collaboration, "Hope", Evans released her first song of new material in three years with "Again", a biographical account of her life struggles (its second verse mentioned the 2004 drug incident). The First Lady came out commemorating her tenth anniversary in the industry and her first record on Capitol Records after leaving Bad Boy in 2003. With the help of "Again" reaching the top ten of Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart, and appearances on David Letterman, BET and MTV the album entered the Billboard 200 at number two with 157,000 copies sold in its first week, marking the largest first-week total of her career. The First Lady was certified gold for sales of over 500,000 copies within weeks of release. The second single, "Mesmerized", saw Faith going with a 70's retro-funk soul vibe. The track failed to crack top fifty R&B despite numerous remixes; however a dance remix by the Freemasons went on to hit number one on the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart.

At the end of the year she released her fifth studio album, A Faithful Christmas, a Christmas collection of new material and covers of seasonal classics, that saw her making lots of appearances on holiday TV programming. In early 2006, Faith Evans' third single, "Tru Love" (produced by Jermaine Dupri and Bryan Michael Cox), gradually gained ground on urban/urban AC radio, becoming her eleventh solo R&B hit.

Source: Wikipedia

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