In spite of the fact that
Faith Evans carved out a recording career in her own right, her name will forever remain linked in the minds of many to her late husband,
the Notorious B.I.G. Evans was an active session singer and songwriter before signing her own solo deal and marrying
Biggie, and while she never matched the level of his stardom, she continued to come into her own as a vocalist in the years after his untimely death.
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 school's 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 didn't 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
Blige's 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
Biggie's rival
2Pac (alluded to on
2Pac's 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 "I'll Be Missing You," which with its cribbed
Police hook zoomed to the top of the charts and became one of the year's 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 Houston's "Heartbreak Hotel" and
Eric Benet's "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 "Can't 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. ~ Steve Huey, Rovi
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