Faith Evans
By All Music Guide
By All Music Guide
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. A high school honor student, she sang in her schools musical productions before winning a full scholarship to Fordham University. After just one year, though, she left college to put her jazz and classical training to use in the field of contemporary R&B. It didnt 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. Blige, Pebbles, Al B. Sure!, Usher, Tony Thompson, and Christopher Williams. Thanks to her work on Bliges 1994 sophomore effort, My Life, Evans met producer/impresario Sean Puffy Combs, who signed her to his Bad Boy label. 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. (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.
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. She and Biggie also had a son, %Christopher Wallace Jr., in late 1996; however, by that point, their marriage had already become strained. Biggie had publicly taken up with rapper Lil Kim and rumors had been spreading about an Evans liaison with Biggies rival 2Pac (alluded to on 2Pacs venomous Hit Me Off). The couple had unofficially separated when Biggie was shot and killed in March 1997. A grief-stricken Evans was prominently featured on the Puff Daddy tribute single Ill Be Missing You, which with its cribbed Police hook zoomed to the top of the charts and became one of the years biggest hits.
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 Houstons Heartbreak Hotel and Eric Benets Georgy Porgy. She began dating and eventually married record executive Todd Russaw, who took an active role in helping manage her career. 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 Cant Believe was nominated for a Grammy. It was her last album for Bad Boy, however; Evans moved to Capitol in 2005 for The First Lady.
