Soon after, she had her daughter, Chyna, with the music producer Kiyamma Griffin.
Faith evans albums hits full#
First Lady of Bad Boy RecordsĪfter graduating from high school in 1991, Evans attended Fordham University in New York City on a full scholarship to study marketing but dropped out after a year. It was her first brush with the world of hip hop. Its organizer, Sister Wilson, had some music-industry contacts and landed Evans a minor role in a Boogie Down Productions video for the 1989 single "You Must Learn," in which she played a student. When Evans was 14, she sang in a touring gospel group, The Spiritual Uplifters, which performed in New York, Philadelphia and Connecticut.
Between her aunt and her mom, she was exposed to everything from Jimi Hendrix to Joni Mitchell to 1980s house acts like Gwen Guthrie, CeCe Rogers and Colonel Abrahams. She did the same at her Aunt Hope's house in Linden, Jersey, a few miles away from the Kennedys' home. It was her last album for Bad Boy, however Evans moved to Capitol in 2005 for The First Lady.Evans became obsessed with her mom's record collection on visits to Florida, rifling through albums by Donna Summer, Earth Wind and Fire and Anita Ward. In 2001, Evans released her third album, Faithfully, a more up-tempo record that received her strongest reviews to date it also produced hit singles in "You Gets No Love" and "I Love You," and her duet with Carl Thomas on "Can't Believe" was nominated for a Grammy. A grief-stricken Evans was prominently featured on the Puff Daddy tribute single "I'll Be Missing You," which with its cribbed Police hook zoomed to the top of the charts and became one of the year's biggest hits.br /br /Evans' sophomore effort, Keep the Faith, followed in 1998 and spun off several R&B hits over the next year, including "Love Like This," "All Night Long," and the Babyface-produced R&B number one "Never Gonna Let You Go." In the meantime, she worked with Aaron Hall, Tevin Campbell, and DMX, among others, and also made high-profile guest appearances on two 1999 hits, Whitney Houston's "Heartbreak Hotel" and Eric Benet's "Georgy Porgy." She began dating and eventually married record executive Todd Russaw, who took an active role in helping manage her career. The couple had unofficially separated when Biggie was shot and k**ed in March 1997. Biggie had publicly taken up with rapper Lil' Kim and rumors had been spreading about an Evans liaison with Biggie's rival 2Pac (alluded to on 2Pac's venomous "Hit Me Off"). She and Biggie also had a son, Christopher Wallace Jr., in late 1996 however, by that point, their marriage had already become strained. (some accounts say at a photo shoot, others a phone conversation) and married him after a courtship of just nine days shortly thereafter, she guested on a remix of his smash single "One More Chance."br /br /Over the next couple of years, Evans continued her behind-the-scenes work, performing and writing for records by the likes of Color Me Badd and LSG. In 1995, Evans released her debut album, Faith, which went platinum on the strength of the hit R&B singles "You Used to Love Me" and "Soon as I Get Home." The same year, she met fellow Bad Boy artist the Notorious B.I.G. Thanks to her work on Blige's 1994 sophomore effort, My Life, Evans met producer/impresario Sean "Puffy" Combs, who signed her to his Bad Boy label. Sure!, Usher, Tony Thompson, and Christopher Williams.
It didn't take her long to find work, and over the next few years, she sang backup and wrote songs for artists like Hi-Five, Mary J. After just one year, though, she left college to put her jazz and cla**ical training to use in the field of contemporary R&B. A high school honor student, she sang in her school's musical productions before winning a full scholarship to Fordham University. Evans was an active session singer and songwriter before signing her own solo deal and marrying Biggie, and while she never matched the level of his stardom, she continued to come into her own as a vocalist in the years after his untimely d**h.br /br /Evans was born on June 10, 1973, and grew up in Newark, NJ, where she began singing in church at the mere age of two. In spite of the fact that Faith Evans carved out a recording career in her own right, her name will forever remain linked in the minds of many to her late husband, the Notorious B.I.G.