June 10: singer-songwriter, record producer, actress and author Faith Evans is 40-years-old today.

 

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Faith Renée Evans was born on June 10, 1973, in Lakeland, Florida. Both her parents were musicians. Raised in New Jersey, Evans relocated to Los Angeles in 1993 so she could start a career in music.

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. There, she collaborated with several label mates such as Mary J. Blige and Carl Thomas and released three platinum-certified studio albums between 1995 and 2001, including Faith, Keep the Faith and Faithfully.

In 2003, she signed a new contract with Capitol Records. Her first album released on the label, The First Lady- which came out in 2005 became her highest-charting album at the time, reaching the top of the US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums charts. That same year she released a holiday album A Faithful Christmas. Evans released her fifth album Something About Faith on the independent label Prolific/E1 Music in 2010.

In addition to her music career, Evans is probably best known as the widow of New York rapper Christopher "The Notorious B.I.G." Wallace, whom she married on August 4, 1994, a few weeks after meeting at a Bad Boy photo shoot. Their marriage resulted in Evans' involvement in the East Coast–West Coast hip hop rivalry, dominating the rap music news at the time, and ended with Wallace's murder in a unsolved drive-by shooting in Los Angeles on March 9, 1997.

A 1997 tribute single featuring Puff Daddy and the band 112, named "I'll Be Missing You,” won Evans a Grammy Award in 1998.

Evans is also an actress and a writer. She made her screen debut in the 2000 musical drama Turn It Up by Robert Adetuyi. 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.

In 2012, Evans became a cast member of TV One reality show R&B Divas -Atlanta alongside Nicci Gilbert, Syleena Johnson, Keke Wyatt and Monifah. Evans also co-executive produces the show. The album R&B Divas Atlanta, was released on October 2, 2012. Proceeds from the album benefit the Whitney E. Houston Academy of Creative & Performing Arts.

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For more about Faith, visit her Website at –

http://www.faithevansmusic.com/

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