Faith Evans

Faith Evans, born on June 10, 1973, in Lakeland, Florida, is a multifaceted American singer, songwriter, and actress. Raised in New Jersey, she moved to Los Angeles in 1991 to pursue her dream of a recording career. Evans began her journey in the music industry as a backing vocalist for R&B artists Al B. Sure! and Christopher Williams. By the age of twenty, she made a significant leap by signing with Sean Combs' Bad Boy Records, becoming the label's first female artist in 1994.

Her career took off with an uncredited feature on the Notorious B.I.G.'s hit single "One More Chance," leading to the release of her debut album, "Faith," in 1995. The album received critical acclaim and moderate commercial success, paving the way for her future projects. In 1997, she collaborated with 112 on the poignant single "I'll Be Missing You," which won a Grammy Award and made history as the first hip hop song to debut at the top of the Billboard Hot 100.

Evans continued to build her legacy with her subsequent albums, "Keep the Faith" in 1998 and "Faithfully" in 2001, both of which garnered further critical praise and solidified her place in the music industry. After parting ways with Bad Boy Records in 2003, she signed with Capitol Records, releasing her fourth album, "The First Lady," in 2005, which peaked at number two on the Billboard 200. Despite a brief hiatus, she returned with her sixth album, "Something About Faith," in 2010, followed by "Incomparable" in 2014, amassing over twenty million records sold worldwide throughout her career.

Beyond her musical achievements, Evans is known for her marriage to rapper Christopher "the Notorious B.I.G." Wallace, whom she wed on August 4, 1994. Their tumultuous relationship was marked by the East Coast–West Coast hip hop rivalry and ended tragically with Wallace's unsolved murder in 1997. In addition to her music career, Evans made her acting debut in the 2000 film "Turn It Up" and authored her memoir, "Keep the Faith: A Memoir," in 2008, which won an African American Literary Award for Best Biography/Memoir in 2009.