Faith Evans

Faith Evans

Faith Renée Evans (born June 10, 1973) is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, occasional actress and author. Born in Florida and raised in New Jersey, Evans relocated to Los Angeles in 1993 for a career in the music business. After working as a backing vocalist for Al B. Sure and Christopher Williams, she became the first female artist to be contracted with Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs' Bad Boy Entertainment recording company during 1994, for which she collaborated with several label mates such as Mary J. Blige and Carl Thomas and released three platinum-certified studio albums between the years 1995 and 2001, including Faith (1995), Keep the Faith (1998) and Faithfully (2001).

During 2003, she ended her relationship with the company to contract with Capitol Records. Her first album released on the label, The First Lady (2005) became her highest-charting album then, reaching the top of the US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, while the holiday album A Faithful Christmas, released the same year, would became her last release on the album as the company was bought during 2007. Following a longer hiatus, Evans releasd her fifth album Something About Faith on the indepdendent label Prolific/E1 Music in 2010.

Other than her recording career, Evans is mostly known as the widow of New York rapper Christopher "The Notorious B.I.G." Wallace, whom she married on August 4, 1994, a few weeks after meeting at a Bad Boy photoshoot. The turbulent marriage resulted in Evans' involvement in the East Coast–West Coast hip hop rivalry, dominating the rap music news at the time, and ended with Wallace's murder in a yet-unsolved drive-by shooting in Los Angeles on March 9, 1997. A 1997 tribute single featuring Puff Daddy and the band 112, named "I'll Be Missing You", became Evans' best-selling song to date and won her a Grammy Award during 1998.

Also an avocational actress and writer, Evans made her screen debut in the 2000 musical drama Turn It Up by Robert Adetuyi. Her autobiography Keep the Faith: A Memoir was released by Grand Central Publishing during 2008 and won a 2009 African American Literary Award for the Best Biography/Memoir category.