Faith Renée Evans is an American R&B singer, songwriter and actress. Born in Lakeland, Florida and raised in New Jersey, she relocated to Los Angeles in 1991 in pursuit of a recording career. She first performed as a backing vocalist for R&B singers Al B. Sure! and Christopher Williams, and by the age of 20, signed with Puff Daddy's Bad Boy Records as the label's first female artist in 1994. Following her uncredited appearance on labelmate the Notorious B.I.G.'s single "One More Chance", she released her debut studio album, Faith (1995) to critical acclaim and moderate commercial reception. Evans then guest performed alongside 112 on Puff Daddy's 1997 single "I'll Be Missing You," which won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group and became the first hip hop song to debut atop the Billboard Hot 100. Her second and third albums, Keep the Faith (1998) and Faithfully (2001) peaked at numbers six and 14 on the Billboard 200, respectively, and saw further critical praise.
Martina Gillian Topley-Bird is an English singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist who first gained fame as the featured female vocalist on trip hop pioneer Tricky's debut album, Maxinquaye (1995). She also worked with him on his subsequent albums, Nearly God and Pre-Millennium Tension. In 2003, Topley-Bird released her debut solo album, Quixotic, which was critically praised and earned her a Mercury Prize nomination.
The Infamous Mobb Deep is the eighth and final studio album by American hip hop duo Mobb Deep, which is composed of Havoc and Prodigy. The album was released on April 1, 2014, by Prodigy's Infamous Records and Sony's RED Distribution. The Infamous Mobb Deep is a double album that consists of one disc of new original music and another of unreleased tracks from the recording sessions from their second studio album The Infamous (1995). The album had been in development since 2011, but was delayed by a feud that occurred between Havoc and Prodigy during 2012. However, they shortly reconciled.
Raymond Scott, better known by his stage name Benzino or Ray Benzono, is an American urban media proprietor, television personality, rapper and record producer. Benzino produced records and co-owned The Source magazine.
Loud Records, LLC. is a record label founded by Steve Rifkind and Rich Isaacson in 1991. Rifkind served as the chief executive officer while Isaacson served as the president of the label.
112 is an American R&B group from Atlanta, Georgia. Discovered by record production duo Tim & Bob, the group signed with Puff Daddy's Bad Boy Records, an imprint of Arista Records to release their eponymous debut studio album (1996). The following year, they guest performed alongside labelmate Faith Evans on Puff Daddy's 1997 single "I'll Be Missing You," which won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group and became the first hip hop song to debut atop the Billboard Hot 100. The group then released their second and third albums Room 112 (1998) and Part III (2001); the latter peaked at number two on the Billboard 200. The group's fourth album, Hot & Wet (2003) served as their final release with Bad Boy until signing with Def Soul to release their fifth album Pleasure & Pain (2005), which saw continued commercial success. The albums spawned the Billboard Hot 100-top 20 singles including their debut, "Only You" as well as "Cupid," "Anywhere", "Love Me", "It's Over Now," and the Grammy Award-nominated "Peaches & Cream."
Albert Johnson, better known by his stage name Prodigy, was an American rapper and record producer.
Kejuan Waliek Muchita, better known by his stage name Havoc, is an American rapper and record producer. He was one half of the hip hop duo Mobb Deep with Prodigy.
The Infamous is the second studio album by the American hip hop duo Mobb Deep. It was released on April 25, 1995, by BMG, RCA Records and Loud Records. The album features guest appearances by Nas, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, and Q-Tip. It was largely produced by group member Havoc, with Q-Tip also contributing production while serving as the mixing engineer. Most of the leftover songs from the album became bonus tracks for Mobb Deep's The Infamous Mobb Deep album (2014).
Case Woodard is an American singer, songwriter, record producer and actor. He is best known for the 1990s hits "Touch Me, Tease Me", "Happily Ever After" and "The Best Man I Can Be" with Ginuwine, R.L. and Tyrese, as well as the early 2000s hits "Missing You" and "Livin' It Up" with Ja Rule. The latter two earned him two Grammy Award nominations.
Rap-A-Lot is a hip hop record label co-founded by James Prince and Cliff Blodget in 1986. Smoke-a-Lot Records is a subsidiary.
Faithfully is the third studio album by American singer Faith Evans. It was released by Bad Boy Records on November 6, 2001, in the United States. A reflection of her musical studies, Evans was inspired by a variety of classic R&B, pop, rock, and jazz artists such as Chicago, S.O.S. Band, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sarah Vaughn during the production of Faithfully. The result, a sample-heavy album, which the label described as "old school flavored", features production by Mario Winans, Buckwild, Vada Nobles, Michael Angelo Saulsberry, the Neptunes, Battlecat, and others, with material ranging from ballads to dance tracks that built upon the contemporary R&B, funk music and hip hop genres.
Mobb Deep was an American hip hop duo from Queens, New York formed in 1991. Consisting of rappers/songwriters/record producers Prodigy and Havoc, they are considered to be among the principal progenitors of hardcore East Coast hip hop. Mobb Deep became one of the most successful rap duos of all time, having sold over three million records. Their best-known albums are The Infamous (1995), Hell on Earth (1996) and Murda Muzik (1999), and their most successful singles were "Shook Ones " and "Survival of the Fittest." They were known for their dark and hardcore delivery.
H.N.I.C. is the debut solo studio album by American rapper Prodigy. Originally scheduled for a summer 2000 release, the album was ultimately released on November 14, 2000.
The Almighty RSO was an American hip hop group from Boston, Massachusetts. Members included MCs E-Devious, Ray Dog, Tony Rhome and DJ Deff Jeff.
The Prodigy are an English electronic dance music band formed in Braintree, Essex, in 1990 by producer, keyboardist, and songwriter Liam Howlett. The original line-up also featured dancer and vocalist Keith Flint, dancer and live keyboardist Leeroy Thornhill, dancer Sharky, and MC and vocalist Maxim. They are pioneers of the breakbeat-influenced genre big beat, and describe their style as electronic punk.
"You Could Be My Boo" is the lead single from The Almighty RSO's second album, Doomsday: Forever RSO. It was produced by Crazy C and featured R&B singer Faith Evans. "You Could Be My Boo" became Almighty RSO's only charting single, having made it to #49 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks and #10 on the Hot Rap Singles. The song used a sample of Yo-Yo's verse the remix version of "I Wanna Be Down " by Brandy, which features MC Lyte, Queen Latifah and Yo-Yo herself, which was released two years earlier.
Something About Faith is the sixth studio album by American singer Faith Evans. It was released on Prolific Music Group on October 5, 2010, in the United States. Distributed by E1 Music, the album marked Evans' first independent release, following her departure from Bad Boy in 2003 and her subsequent but short-lived engagement with Capitol Records in 2005. Evans who co-wrote and produced on the majority of Something About Faith, consulted a variety of collaborators to work with her on the album, including duo Carvin & Ivan, Chucky Thompson, Mike City, and Salaam Remi, as well as singer Keyshia Cole, and rappers Redman, Snoop Dogg and Raekwon.
Hit Machine was an Australian compilation album series produced and skewed by Festival Records, Mushroom Records BMG and Columbia Records, available in only Australia. It competed with 100% Hits, which started two years before, during its existence. It was released every three months and are mainly the biggest Top 40 hits of the season. It commenced in 1993 and ran 28 versions until 2000, where it was replaced by the So Fresh series. The replaced series uses the season-named format and includes songs from artists under Universal Music, which was previously included in 100% Hits series. Festival Records was folded to Warner Bros. Records, which managed the 100% Hits and NOW series with EMI. Sony Music Australia and Warner Bros. Records released digitally remastered versions of the entire Hit Machine series from 2015.
Cordae Amari Dunston, known mononymously as Cordae, is an American rapper. He began his career as a member of the hip hop collective YBN.
