[maRiaH caRey]

mariah carey was born on march 27, 1970, in long island, new york. her parents, patricia and alfred, separated when she was two and divorced the following year. mariah recalls a semi-nomadic childhood punctuated with racial violence perpetrated against her family as the result of her irish/black-venezuelan heritage. "my family had their dogs poisoned, cars blown up, my brother was beaten up," she details. she also remembers years of poverty, during which her mother worked multiple jobs to make ends meet. "i never had any financial security. i dreamed of possessing things," she remembers. busy though she may have been, it was patricia—a trained opera singer—who first noticed mariah's talent while rehearsing the role of maddalena in verdi's rigolettos. hearing her daughter mimic her singing, on pitch and in italian at age three, patricia began teaching mariah how to develop her skills.

mariah's high school years were spent ditching classes so that she and friend ben margulies could write songs and dream of the day when mariah would become a famous singer. at night, the two would record the songs they'd written in a makeshift studio in the back of margulies' father's workshop. while her head may have been in the clouds, her feet were planted firmly on the ground, taking five hundred hours of beauty school during her junior year in high school. "i'm into make-up," she chides, "and good at doing my own." early jobs included sweeping hair at a salon—which she quit after one day because company policy dictated she change her name to "echo"—waiting tables and checking coats, but mariah was destined for much bigger things. upon graduating from high school in 1987, mariah moved to new york to pursue her ambitions of becoming a professional singer. working at restaurants to pay the rent, mariah continued her work with margulies on a demo tape. mariah recounts, "after i would waitress until one or two in the morning, i would work in the studio until eight o'clock in the morning writing songs, doing demos…we worked very hard trying to get a record deal."

in 1988, a friend of mariah who played drums for brenda k. starr encouraged her to audition to sing back-up. "i didn't really want to do it," explains mariah, "but then i thought, 'well, it's got to be better than what i'm doing now'." mariah has fond memories of working with starr and the two became fast friends. in fact, it was while accompanying starr to an industry party that mariah had her first big break. a copy of her demo, on it's way to the hands of a record producer, was intercepted by sony record executive tommy mattola and mariah carey's rising star sky-rocketed.

carey's self-titled debut revealed a high-octane voice that broke sound-barriers, as well as sales records. having just suffered the embarrassment of milli vanilli and with rumors speculating that artists such as janet jackson and paula abdul were singing over tapes in their concerts, the music industry was in search of real talent—big talent. riding the wave of this new trend were artists such as whitney houston, anita baker and en vogue; at it's crest was mariah carey. racking up as many song writing credits as baker, and matching whitney houston's vocal pyrotechnics, mariah was mistakenly labeled an enigma— white girl with a black girl's voice. all of this contributed to a media hype that was almost unparalleled. mariah carey went on to sell over six million copies, dominating the charts for twenty-two weeks, scoring two #1 singles and winning the singer a slew of grammies. carey's following two albums, emotions and unplugged performed just as well, but even more impressive was her 1993 wedding to mottola.

styled after the wedding ceremony of princess diana and prince charles, mariah seemed the '90's answer to cinderella—brandy and whitney hadn't done their thing, yet—but the critics were quick to judge. two decades her senior, mattola, who was married when the two began their romance, was accused of being an aging man suffering a mid-life crisis and using his power to recapture his fleeting youth. mariah, on the other hand, was said to be a star-eyed vixen using her girlish wiles to climb her way to the top on the back of her rec exec hubby. not in agreement with the press, however, were an army of flower girls, an eight-piece orchestra, a batallion-sized boys choir and a small nation of a-list guests including barbara streisand, robert deniro and bruce springsteen. with her career in place and a new husband on her arm, mariah took up the cause of inner-city youth, donating large quantities of time and money to what would be renamed "camp mariah". a refuge for urban youth who rarely, if ever, got to experience nature, camp mariah exposed needy children to a world they may otherwise never have encountered.

domesticity in no way slowed mariah's climb to the top of pop diva-dom. 1993's music box and 1994's merry christmas racked up hits and chart time in the same vein as her earlier work. in 1995, daydream earned carey six grammy nominations and revealed several layers of the barbie-doll-cum-diva that her public had never seen. an eleven-minute remix of "fantasy" by david morales dominated the queer club circuit for months, taking her music to places it had never been and establishing her as a dance remix diva second only to janet jackson. meanwhile, newly-formed friendships with the likes of dirty ol' bastard, xscape and da brat, fueled rumors that carey was a hip-hop repunzel, locked away in a ten million dollar manhattan mansion by day, escaping into new york's seedy underbelly at night. regardless of whether the stories were true, carey's popularity was on the rise. with a fan-base that stretched from teenage girls to adult contemporaries to hard-bodied homosexuals, mariah became one of the most powerful women in the music industry with career sales topping eighty million units.

as 1997 rolled on, mariah saw her professional image evolve, even as she watched her marriage dissolve. a divorce from mottola, announced only days after a public denial of marital problems, was followed almost immediately by the release of butterfly. the album's first single, which features of video depicting mariah as a captive of italian mafia thugs in a palacial estate, only fanned the flames of gossip surrounding the pop royalty's separation. while many were quick to say "i told you so", carey remained cool, choosing to take the high road, saying little about what caused their split. "i don't want to go into it, because i respect him and i want the best for him," she stated in a december 2002 cnn.com article, "and i hope he's happy in his life, now." perhaps the most definitive statement she made about the break-up was that things changed from the way they were in the beginning. "i had my own apartment. i was independent. i was still connected to my past. i had more of my friends from when i was growing up, around me," she explained. mariah seemed to handle her personal trauma well and grow stronger as both a person and a performer because of it.

1999 saw the release of #1's, a compilation of carey's number one hit singles—sixteen in total—which also included a cover tribute of brenda k. starr's "i still believe." carey was quick to indicate that she did not consider this a greatest hits album as she, like so many other musicians, lament that many of her personal favorites were never released as singles. at this time, rumours continued to circulate that carey was desirous to begin an acting career, with project details varying between a female-driven, 007-ish action flick and a psuedo-biopic depicting the rise of a young, aspiring singer who hitches her wagon to that of an up-and-coming producer. in 2001, carey released glitter, the soundtrack to her upcoming film of the same name. released on 010911—the day the world trade center was bombed by al-qaeda terrorists—the album met with a mediocre reception from critics but, to her ever-dedicated fans, both it and the film represented another rung on the professional ladder.

unfortunately, carey's label, virgin records, didn't see it that way. disappointed by the success of both glitter the album and glitter the movie, virgin bought carey out of her contract to the tune of twenty-eight million dollars. having soared to unparalleled heights of fame and fortune by the age of thirty, carey now found herself without a husband, without a hit, without a label and without the media's faith in her competence after she checked herself into a hospital for "extreme exhaustion". fortunately, what carey did have—nine hit albums, sales in excess of one hundred fifty million, the support of her fans and, most importantly, faith in herself—far outweighted any fleeting deficiencies. in december of 2001, carey reminded the world of that fact with the release a greatest hits collection that was closer to her heart, then drove the point home with a two-disc remix collection. then, almost exactly one year after being released from her virgin records contract, carey released her island/def jam debut, charmbracelet. the intensely personal lead single, "through the rain," capitalized on the emotional themes and soaring voclas that had established her as a legendary artist, while its follow-up, "boy" mimicked her more recent hip-hop collaborations.

2003 saw carey return to both the stage and philanthropy, with a september 18th concert at radio city music hall. everything from front-row seats to autographed memorabilia were auctioned online, with proceeds benefitting vh1's save the music campaign, which provides funding to public schools for music programs. a rigorous touring schedule has not, however, prevented carey from striving to expand her artistic endeavors. rumours have it that the former mrs. mottola is shopping an autobiographic collection of recollections and poetry to new york publishers.

as a singer and a woman, mariah carey is undeniably a diva. rising from poverty and obscurity, she has used her natural talents to scale the cliffs of the music industry. clearly more impressive, however, is her constant desire to give something back and her ability to dodge the mud slung by the media with dignity and style.