Adeaze is an R&B duo from New Zealand. Comprised of brothers Nainz and Viiz Tupa'i, the brothers of Adeaze have pursuing their love of music since they were 4 and 5 respectively.

Nainz and Viiz were brought up in the church and...

After 7 formed in 1988 and was comprised of brothers Melvin and Kevon Edmonds and Keith Mitchell. The Edmonds brothers are older siblings of Kenneth 'Babyface' Edmonds. Keith Mitchell was actually marketed as the cousin ...

Alicia J. Augello-Cook was born in Harlem, New York in 1981, and is known to the world as Alicia Keys. Her parents are Teresa Augello, a woman of Irish and Italian descent, and Craig Cook, a man of Jamaican heritage. Alicia Keys' parents...

Anthony Hamilton was born in 1971 in Charlotte, North Carolina. He left North Carolina in 1993 and moved to New York City where he signed onto Uptown Records.

During the 1990s, he struggled to make an impact on the industry. He...

Kenneth 'Babyface' Edmonds was born in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1958. He is the 5th in a family of six sons and attended North Central High School.

Babyface got his nickname when playing in a funk band with Boots...

The Philadelphia quartet, Boyz II Men also seen as Boyz 2 Men, Boys II Men and Boys 2 Men, formed at the High School of the Creative and Performing Arts in 1988. It star...

Brian McKnight was born in Buffalo, New York. He had strong musical roots, singing in the church choir and acting as a bandleader in high school. While in his early teens, he began penning instrumentals. He formed his ow...

Color Me Badd came out of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in the early 1990s and was comprised of members Bryan Abrams, Mark Calderon, Kevin Thornton and Sam Watters. The group was discovered by Kool & The Gang's Robert Bell in ...

Donnell Jones was the son of a pastor and spent a lot of his childhood acting out in church. At eleven, his mother bought him a keyboard and he taught himself to play. With his father's influence as a gospel singer, Jone...

Dru Hill was founded by Tamir 'Nokio' Ruffin in Baltimore in 1992. The group consisted of himself, lead singer Mark 'Sisqo' Andrews, Larry 'Jazz' Anthony and James 'Woody' Green. The group got their chance at success in ...

Eric Benet Jordan was born in 1966 in Wisconsin. His mother's maiden name is his middle name. Growing up, Benet was immersed in music as his father loved classical music and shared the experience with his son.

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Gregory Abbott, born in 1954 in New York, traces his roots back to Venezuela, his mother's homeland, and Antigua, his father's. During his early years, Abbott's mother taught him how to play piano and encouraged him to d...

Hi-Five formed in 1990 in Waco, Texas and was comprised of members Tony Thompson, Roderick Clark, marcus Sanders, Russell Neal, and Toriano Easley. They were signed to Jive Records who helped them release their first alb...

Jaheim Hoagland was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey in 1978. He had a rough life early on, when his father died when Jaheim was only two years old. Growing up, Jaheim lived in public housing projects and depended on music to keep him u...

The bad boy group Jodeci was made up of two sets of brothers: Cedric 'K-Ci' and Joel 'Jo Jo' Hailey and Dalvin and Donald 'DeVante Swing' DeGrate. All four members of the group had strong ties with the Pentecostal church...

Joe Thomas grew up in Opelika, Alabama and was the son of two preachers. He grew up singing in the choir, playing guitar and eeven directing the choir at his church.

Because of his roots in the church, Joe was in...

Luther Vandross Jr. was born in 1951 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York. When Vandross was eight, his father died of diabetes. At thirteen, Vandross and his family moved to the Bronx. At roughly the same time,...

Maxwell is an R&B neo-soul singer who was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1973. Maxwell is actually the singer's middle name, but he has kept his first and last name private in order to protect his family. His father died ...

Mint Condition formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the late 1980s. Comprised of members singer Stokley Wiliams, bassist Ricky Kinchen, guitarist Homer O'Dell, pianist Larry Waddell and keyboardist Jeffrey Allen, the grou...

Monica Denise Arnold was born on October 24, 1980 in Atlanta. As a child, Monica sang in church like her mother.

Despite her young age, Monica came to prominence at fourteen in the year 1995 when producer Dall...

New Edition started in 1978 and originally comprised of Bobby Brown, Michael Bivins and Ricky Bell. The guys lived in the Orchard Park housing projects in Boston, Massachusetts. The group met a local manager named Brook ...

Portrait came out of L.A. onto the R&B scene in 1992 riding on the end of the New Jack Swing era. The group's self-titled debut album was released in the same year and featured two hits on the charts. 'Honey Dip' reached...

Prince Rogers Nelson was born in 1958 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Throughout his music career, he has been known as Prince, The Artist Formerly Known as Prince, and simply The Artist. His...

The group Shai was formed by students at Howard University in Washington D.C. Three of its members, Marc Gay, Carl Martin and Darnell Van Rensalier were members of the fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha and the fourth was a good...

Silk came out on the scene in 1992 and is comprised of members Timothy Cameron, Jimmy Gates Jr., Jonathen Rasboro, Gary Jenkins and Gary Glenn. The popular singer, Keith Sweat had been the one to discover the group.

Mark 'Sisqo' Andrews was born in Baltimore, Maryland and formed a group with friends that became known as Dru Hill. The group released two platinum LPs in the late 90s, in large part to the lead singer Sisqo's presentati...

Toni Braxton was born in 1966 in Severn, Maryland. She is the oldest of six children and went to Glen Burnie High School. Her father was a clergyman, and as such, Braxton's first experience was singing with a church choi...

Antonio 'Tony Rich' Jeffries was born in 1971 in Detroit, Michigan. He is one of those tragic talented artists who was caught in the spotlight for one brief shining moment, and then forgotten about by the general public....

Tony! Toni! Tone! formed in Oakland, California and was composed of D'Wayne Wiggins on lead vocals and guitar, his brother Raphael Wiggins (Rapael Saadiq) on lead vocals and bass and cousin Timothy Christian on drums.

U.N.V. or, Universal Nubian Voices, was a male quartet that came onto the scene in 1993 out of Lansing, Michigan with their debut album, Something's Goin On. The group was comprised of brothers John Pow...