In one of her best songs, “Again,” a Top 10 hit in 2005, Faith Evans, a survivor in the most real sense, more or less assessed her life and responded to her detractors.
“If I had to do it all again, I wouldn’t take away the rain, ’cause I know it made me who I am,” she sang. “I’ve learned much from my mistakes. That’s how I know He is watching me.”
And as for the media, she said, “The media tried to say I had a habit, I couldn’t manage and I am throwing my life away. But everything ain’t what it seems just because it’s on TV, ’cause they speculate and exaggerate for a better story.”
In a way, Evans was throwing down the gauntlet. Moreover, the song sounded really good with the Florida-born-Newark-raised songstress in top vocal form.
IT WAS but one of a long string of major hits for Evans, including “I Love You,” “Never Gonna Let You Go,” “Love Like This,” “Soon as I Get Home,” “All Night Long” (featuring Puff Daddy),” “You Gets No Love” and, of course, she was on Whitney Houston’s “Heartbreak Hotel” (along with Kelly Price) and she duetted with Puff Daddy on “I’ll be Missing You” (also featuring 112).
Evans says there is a lot to be learned about her by way of the songs she sings.
“I’m really an inner spirit that only makes itself known through the music,” she said. “A lot of people think I’m an introvert, or quiet and moody. I’ve even heard some people say that there’s a certain mystery of darkness about me. But I’m not that way. I’m just really into what I do.”
One of the drawbacks of being Faith Evans, although it is (slowly) subsiding, is that she will forever be known as much for having been married to the rap star the Notorious B.I.G., also known as Biggie Smalls, as for her music. They married in 1994 and remained so until 1997, the year he died.
THERE was a whole lot of “mess” involved in that overall situation that was covered ad nauseum in the press and gossiped about incessantly.
So for that reason we will not dwell on that here, other than to let Faith Evans have the first and last word on the subject.
“I’ve certainly had to go through trying to change the fact that I was always identified as the widow of Notorious B.I.G.,” she said. “I’m never going to be able to get away from having been married to him, but that’s not what identifies me.
“My life has been complicated on many levels. There are a lot of misconceptions about who I really am. Big will always be a part of my life, but I’m still on Earth, so I have to live my life for now and the future.”
FAITH RENÉE EVANS was born on June 10, 1973. She got her first break in the music industry as a background singer for such artists as Al B. Sure and Christopher Williams, prominent figures in R&B in the ’90s. Sean Combs (Puff Daddy, P. Diddy) made her the first female signing to his Bad Boy Entertainment record company in 1994.
She subsequently recorded the highly successful album “Faith,” followed by “Keep the Faith,” “Faithfully” and “The First Lady.” The first two were certified Platinum (a million copies sold) and the latter two Gold (500,000 copies sold). She also had a holiday album titled “A Faithful Christmas.”
Capitol Records bought Bad Boy in 2007. After a lengthy hiatus (four years), Evans’ fifth (non-holiday) album, “Something About Faith” (2010), was released. Then there was another four-year hiatus, followed by the release of “Incomparable.”
R&B was not prominent in the home Evans was brought up in.
“My childhood was limited to mostly gospel music,” she recalled. “My grandparents, who raised me, were pretty old-fashioned in their religious ways, so it was like, church, church, school, school.”
Evans is also an actress, although at this point her résumé is not lengthy, but it includes the film “The Fighting Temptations,” starring Cuba Gooding Jr. and Beyoncé Knowles, and the TV sitcom “Half & Half.”
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