About Mariah Carey
Mariah Carey : 0:01 born March 27, 1969) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Referred to as the "Songbird Supreme" by Guinness World Records, she is known for her five-octave vocal range, melismatic singing style and signature use of the whistle register. As an influential figure in music, she was ranked as the fifth greatest singer of all time by Rolling Stone in 2023.
Carey rose to fame in 1990 with her self-titled debut album and became the only artist to have their first five singles reach number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. She achieved an international success with the best-selling albums Music Box and Daydream , before adopting a new urban image with hip hop-inflected sounds, following the release of Butterfly . With eleven consecutive years of US number-one singles, Billboard ranked Carey as the most successful artist of the decade. Following a career decline and the failure of her 2001 film Glitter, she returned to the top of the charts with The Emancipation of Mimi , one of the best-selling albums of the 21st century.
Carey's public and personal life, including her diva persona, high-profile relationships and public breakdown in 2001, has received widespread media coverage. She has also been dubbed the "Queen of Christmas" due to the enduring popularity of her holiday music, particularly Merry Christmas , the best-selling holiday album, and its single "All I Want for Christmas Is You", which is the best selling holiday single by a female artist of all time. Outside of music, she has acted in major roles in the films Tennessee , Precious , The Butler , A Christmas Melody , and The Lego Batman Movie . Appearing on multiple television series, Carey served as an American Idol judge and starred in the docu-series Mariah's World. She published a memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, in 2020.
Carey is one of the best-selling music artists, with over 220 million records sold worldwide. She was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress, and The Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame. Her accolades include 5 competitive Grammy Awards and a Grammy Global Impact Award, 10 American Music Awards, 19 World Music Awards and 20 Billboard Music Awards. Carey's high-charting singles include "One Sweet Day" and "We Belong Together" – Billboard's most successful songs of the 1990s and 2000s, respectively. She holds the record for the most Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles by a solo artist , a female songwriter , and a female producer , spending a record 93 weeks atop the chart. Carey is the highest-certified female artist in the United States and 10th overall, with 75 million certified album units.
Carey was born on March 27, 1969, in Huntington, New York. Her name is derived from the song "They Call the Wind Maria", originally from the 1951 Broadway musical Paint Your Wagon. She is the youngest of three children born to Patricia , a former opera singer and vocal coach of Irish descent, and Alfred Roy Carey, an aeronautical engineer of both African-American and Afro-Venezuelan lineage. The last name "Carey" was adopted by her Venezuelan grandfather, Francisco Núñez, after he emigrated to New York. Patricia's family disowned her for marrying a black man. Racial tensions prevented the Carey family from integrating into their community. While they lived in Huntington, their neighbors poisoned the family dog and set fire to their car. After her parents' divorce, Carey had little contact with Alfred, and Patricia worked several jobs to support the family. Carey spent much of her time at home alone and began singing at age three, often imitating her mother's take on Verdi's opera Rigoletto in Italian. Her older sister Alison moved in with their father while Mariah and her elder brother Morgan lived with their mother.
During her years in elementary school, she excelled in the arts, such as music and literature. Carey began writing poetry and lyrics while attending Harborfields High School in Greenlawn, New York, where she graduated in 1987. Carey began vocal training under her mother's guidance. Though she was a classically trained opera singer, Patricia Carey never pressured her daughter to pursue a career in classical opera. Mariah Carey recalled that she had "never been a pushy mom. She never said, 'Give it more of an operatic feel.' I respect opera like crazy, but it didn't influence me." In high school, Mariah Carey was often absent because of her work as a demo singer. This led to her classmates giving her the nickname Mirage. Working in the Long Island music scene gave her opportunities to work with musicians such as Gavin Christopher and Ben Margulies, with whom she co-wrote material for her demo tape. After moving to New York City, she worked part-time jobs to pay the rent and completed 500 hours of beauty school. Carey moved into a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan with four female students as roommates. She landed a gig singing backup for freestyle singer Brenda K. Starr.
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