Faith Evans booking

Category / genre: Hip Hop & Rap, R&B Soul

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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.