Faith Evans is a singer-songwriter, record producer, actor, and writer from the United States. She was the first woman to sign with Puff Daddy’s Bad Boy Entertainment in 1994, and both of her first two records were given the Platinum Award.
In 2003, Evans signed with Capitol Records, and in 2005, “The First Lady” came out. This album was the most popular R&B hip-hop record on the “Billboard” chart. Faith is also known as the wife of Christopher Wallace, who was killed in 1997 and went by the name “The Notorious B.I.G.”
“I’ll Be Missing You,” a tribute song she made with Puff Daddy and 112, won Evans a Grammy in 1998. It was also number one on the “Billboard” Hot 100 and R&B lists, as well as in the UK, New Zealand, Australia, and the Netherlands.
Early Life
Faith Renée Evans was born in Lakeland, Florida, on June 10, 1973. Helene, her mother, was a singer. Richard Swain, her artist father, left Helene before Faith was born. Six months later, Helene and Faith moved to Newark, New Jersey.
Helene’s cousins Johnnie Mae and Orvelt Kennedy raised Evans while Helene worked on her singing career. While Faith was living with them, the Kennedys took in more than 100 foster children.
A few years later, Helene moved in with the Kennedys because Evans didn’t want to move. Faith grew up in a Christian home, and when she was 2 years old, she started singing at church.
She went to University High School in Newark, where she played in many jazz bands, and graduated in 1991. Evans went to Fordham University in New York City to study business, but she dropped out a year later to have a daughter, Chyna, whose father is a music producer named Kiyamma Griffin.
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Faith Evans Career
Music Career From (1973- 2007)
In 1993, Faith went to Los Angeles and started working as a backup singer for singer Al B. Sure! Later, in 1994, Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs, a singer, saw her and asked her to be the first female artist on his record label, Bad Boy Entertainment.
After she signed a deal with Bad Boy Records, Combs asked her to help with the song “My Life” by adding backing vocals and writing. The Hitmen, her first record, came out on August 29, 1995.
You Used to Love Me and Soon as I Get Home, two of her songs, were huge hits right away. Also, 1.5 million copies of the record were sold, which made it certified platinum.
After her ex-boyfriend Wallace died, she made a song about him called “I’ll Be Missing You.” It went to number one all over the world and was also the first number-one song on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1997.
Keep the Faith, her second record, came out in 1998. The album did well in the marketplace and got good reviews from music reviewers.
Faithfully was her third record, which came out in 2001. Also, her album reached number two on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and number 14 on the Billboard 200 album chart.
In 2004, Faith’s deal with Bad Boy Records ended, and he signed a deal with Capitol Records. She was also the first R&B star of her time to do it. Later, she started working on The First Lady, her fourth record, which came out in April 2005.
The album reached number one on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and number two on the Billboard 200. This made it her best-charting record to date.
Music Career From (2008-2021)
After taking a break for a few years, she came back in 2010 with her own record label, Imprint. Faith hired the best people to help her start her own record label from the ground up.
She started recording songs with different acts, like Keyshia Cole, Raekwon, Redman, and Snoop Dogg, for the label’s first album.
She put out her fifth record, Something About Faith, on her own label in October 2010. The record debuted at number one on the Independent Albums chart and reached its highest point at number fifteen on the Billboard 200.
In 2012, she joined the group of the show R&B Divas: Atlanta and also became a co-executive producer. As she and the rest of the cast work on making an album called R&B Divas, the show gives an inside look at how singers balance their music jobs with their personal lives.
She left the show at the end of the second season, but she was nominated for a Grammy for Best R&B Album. Faith said in August 2013 that she had started making her sixth record, Incomparable.
The record came out in August 2014 and went straight to number 17 on the U.S. Independent Albums chart and number 27 on the U.S.
In 2016, she said that she was working on a record called The King & I with her late husband, Notorious B.I.G., that would be released after his death.
In May 2017, the record came out. Faith was on season six of The Masked Singer in 2021. During the Group A finals, she was revealed.
Career in Acting
As a teenager, she was in a few stage plays, but her first part was in the 2000 music drama Turn It Up, where she played a supporting role.
However, the movie didn’t do well at the box office and reviewers didn’t like it. In 2003, she was in a movie called The Fighting Temptations, which was a romance comedy.
In the movie, she plays a single mother who sings in a bar. The movie also did well at the box office and got mixed reviews from reviewers. Faith was in the situation comedy Half & Half in 2004.
Career in Writing
Keep the Faith: A Memoir, which was about her life, came out in August 2008. The book goes into depth about the singer’s life and talks about how her relationship with her late husband, the Notorious B.I.G., was controversial.
Also, after the book came out, it was in New York’s Top 20 Best Sellers list for two weeks in a row. The 2009 African American Literary Award for Best Biography or Memoir went to her book.
Personal Life
Faith Evans has gotten married three times. She was first married to the rapper The Notorious B.I.G. in 1994. On March 9, 1997, he was killed in Los Angeles in a drive-by shooting.
Then, in 1998, she got married to Todd Russaw, who ran a record company. She had two boys, Joshua and Ryder, from her second marriage. Evans and Russaw were caught in 2014 and charged with possessing cocaine and marijuana.
Faith and Todd Russaw split up in 2011 when they got a divorce. In July 2018, she got married to Stevie J., who makes music. In May 2020, after two years, she was arrested for beating Stevie in their home in LA.
Even though she was charged with a crime of violence against a family member, the charges were later dropped. According to the source, Stevie filed for a divorce on November 8, 2021.
