The rapper had recently been released from prison and had signed to Death Row Records, which was embroiled in an ugly beef with Bad Boy Records in New York - the label home of both Evans and the Notorious BIG. In October 1995, while Evans was working in Los Angeles, she was invited to record with Tupac Shakur.
Faith would go on to sell more than one million copies in the US alone and be certified platinum by the RIAA. The album was produced by the in-house Bad Boy production team The Hitmen, headed by Combs himself, and yielded four singles, the first two of which, "You Used to Love Me" and "Soon as I Get Home," were gold-certified hits. She had written, or co-written, every song on the album except one (a cover of Rose Royce's "Love Don't Live Here Anymore"). Evans was ensconced in a Brooklyn studio working on her first album Wallace was away on tour - and, it would later transpire, was not being faithful to his wife.Ī year after she was married, Evans released her debut solo album, Faith, in August 1995. Their marriage did not get off to the ideal start: they hardly saw each other. And we didn't even have plans for a household setup."Įvans was 21 years old. "Smoking weed on the way to our wedding and stopping for greasy french fries on the way home. "It wasn't the most traditional way to start a life together," she wrote in Keep the Faith. After the ceremony, they stopped to eat at a diner, before Biggie returned to Brooklyn and Evans headed to Jersey to pick up Chyna from her preschool nursery. The ceremony was on August 4th in Rockland County, upstate New York the bride wore a sleeveless white dress, the groom wore jeans and Timberlands. In the summer of 1994, Evans met another up-and-coming artist, Christopher Wallace, aka the Notorious B.I.G, at a photo shoot for Bad Boy - and within a mere eight days of knowing each other, they were married. That year, she became the first female artist to get signed by Bad Boy Records. Blige, and songs for Usher's self-titled debut album, released in 1994. Through Combs, Evans co-wrote lyrics for Mary J. This got her noticed by a young impresario, Sean "Puffy" Combs, who had set up a label, Bad Boy Records, in 1993. She found regular session work, earning $2,000 per week singing background vocals on demo tapes for R&B artists including Al B Sure and Christopher Williams. The young family moved to LA for a while, but the relationship didn't work out, and Evans returned to Newark as a single mom, moving back in with Mae and Bob Kennedy. Soon after, she had her daughter, Chyna, with the music producer Kiyamma Griffin.
#Faith evans you been on my mind full
First Lady of Bad Boy RecordsĪfter graduating from high school in 1991, Evans attended Fordham University in New York City on a full scholarship to study marketing but dropped out after a year. It was her first brush with the world of hip hop. Its organizer, Sister Wilson, had some music-industry contacts and landed Evans a minor role in a Boogie Down Productions video for the 1989 single "You Must Learn," in which she played a student. When Evans was 14, she sang in a touring gospel group, The Spiritual Uplifters, which performed in New York, Philadelphia and Connecticut. Between her aunt and her mom, she was exposed to everything from Jimi Hendrix to Joni Mitchell to 1980s house acts like Gwen Guthrie, CeCe Rogers and Colonel Abrahams. She did the same at her Aunt Hope's house in Linden, Jersey, a few miles away from the Kennedys' home. Evans became obsessed with her mom's record collection on visits to Florida, rifling through albums by Donna Summer, Earth Wind and Fire and Anita Ward.
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