Mariah Carey

The best-selling female performer of the 1990s, Mariah Carey was born March 27, 1970 in Long Island. She is an American pop and R&B singer-songwriter, record producer and actress. She made her recording debut in 1990 under the guidance of Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola, and became the first recording artist to have her first five singles top the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Following her marriage to Mottola in 1993, a series of hit records established her position as Columbia's highest-selling singer. Following her separation from Mottola in 1997, Carey introduced elements of hip hop into her album work, too much initial success, but her popularity was in decline when she left Columbia in 2001, and she was dropped by Virgin Records the following year after a highly publicized physical and emotional breakdown, as well as the poor reception given to Glitter, her film and soundtrack project. In 2002, Carey signed with Island Records, and after a relatively unsuccessful period, she returned to the forefront of pop music in 2005 publishing her tenth album “The emancipation of Mimi.” By spring 2007, she had begun working on her eleventh album, “E=MC².”

Two weeks before the album's release, on April 2, 2008, "Touch My Body" became Carey's eighteenth number-one single on the Hot 100, pushing her past Elvis Presley into second place for the most number-one singles among all artists in the rock era. Carey is now second only to The Beatles who have twenty number-one singles. On April 30, 2008, Carey married actor/rapper Nick Cannon, at Carey's private estate on Windermere Island in the Bahamas. Carey was named the best-selling female pop artist of the millennium at the 2000 World Music Awards.

She has recorded the most number-one singles for a solo artist in the United States (eighteen), where, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, she is the third best-selling female recording artist. In addition to her commercial success, Carey has earned five Grammy Awards, and is well-known for her vocal range, power, style, and use of the whistle register.

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