The anniversary of Biggie’s death was last month. And during all the tributes to the Notorious B.I.G., I kept hearing Faith Evans’ voice. She’s coming to the UK for her ‘The King and I’ album tour so I thought this would be a brilliant opportunity to learn more about this amazing lady.
Faith Renée Evans (born June 10, 1973) is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. Born in Lakeland, 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 contract with Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs’ Bad Boy Entertainment recording company in 1994, and she collaborated with several label mates like Mary J. Blige and Carl Thomas and released three platinum-certified studio albums between 1995 and 2001, including Faith (1995), Keep the Faith (1998) and Faithfully(2001).
In 2003, she signed to Capitol Records and her first album on the label, The First Lady (2005) became her highest-charting album at the time, reaching the top of the US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums charts, and the holiday album A Faithful Christmas, released the same year, would become her last release before the company was bought in 2007. She took a break, followed by signing to an independent label Prolific/E1 Music and released her fifth solo album Something About Faith in 2010.
As well as recording Faith is also known as the widow of New York rapper Christopher “The Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace. A whirlwind romance started after a Bad Boy photo shoot and they married on 4th August 1994. They were both young, and in the 90s R’n’B was the highlight of the music industry and they were thrown into spotlight so the marriage probably wasn’t as smooth sailing as hoped. There were also issues with East Coast-West Coast hip hop rivalry dominating the rap music news at the time. The marriage ended but Faith and Chris remained on speaking terms. Unfortunately, Chris was involved in an unsolved drive-by shooting in Los Angeles on 9th March 1997. Faith, Puff Daddy and the band 112 recorded the tribute single “I’ll Be Missing You” in memory of Notorious B.I.G, and the track won Faith a Grammy Award in 1998. Faith is also an actress who made her screen debut in the 2000 musical drama Turn It Up by Robert Adetuyi. She also writes and her autobiography Keep the Faith: A Memoir was released by Grand Central Publishing in 2008 and won a 2009 African American Literary Award for the Best Biography/Memoir category.
I can’t wait to see Faith when she comes to the UK! Watch for more info about her tour on my Facebook Twitter and Instagram.
