Mariah Carey

Mariah Carey is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Dubbed the "Songbird Supreme," she is known for her five-octave vocal range, melismatic style, and signature whistle register. Carey is recognized as one of the best-selling music artists in history, with estimated record sales exceeding 220 million. She holds the record for the most Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles by a solo artist, with 19 chart-topping tracks.

Carey was born on March 27, 1969, in Huntington, New York. She is the youngest child of Patricia Hickey, an opera singer and vocal coach, and Alfred Roy Carey, an aeronautical engineer. Raised amid racial tensions and her parents' divorce, she began singing at age three. While attending Harborfields High School, she wrote lyrics, received vocal training from her mother, and worked as a demo singer. After graduating in 1987, she moved to New York City, attended beauty school, and sang backup for Brenda K. Starr.

In 1988, Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola signed Carey after listening to her demo tape. Her 1990 debut album, Mariah Carey, topped the Billboard 200 for eleven consecutive weeks and spawned four US number-one singles, beginning with "Vision of Love." Her second album, Emotions (1991), made her the only artist whose first five singles reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. In 1992, she proved her live performance capabilities on MTV Unplugged, yielding another number-one single with "I'll Be There."

Carey married Mottola in 1993 and released Music Box, which became her global best-seller. In 1994, she co-founded Camp Mariah and released Merry Christmas; its lead single, "All I Want for Christmas Is You," became a major holiday standard. With 1995's Daydream, Carey embraced R&B and hip-hop influences. The album produced chart-topping singles "Fantasy" and "One Sweet Day," the latter holding a record 16 weeks at number one. That same year, she secretly co-created the alternative rock album Someone's Ugly Daughter under the band name Chick.

Carey continued her hip-hop-infused musical direction on Butterfly (1997) and Rainbow (1999). Following a career decline, she achieved a major comeback with The Emancipation of Mimi (2005). Outside of recording, Carey appeared in films such as Glitter (2001), Precious (2009), The Butler (2013), and The Lego Batman Movie (2017). She served as an American Idol judge in 2013 and released a number-one memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, in 2020.

Carey's accolades include 5 Grammy Awards, a Grammy Global Impact Award, 10 American Music Awards, 19 World Music Awards, 14 Billboard Music Awards, the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award, and four RIAA diamond certifications. Named Billboard's Artist of the Decade for the 1990s, she was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and ranked fifth on Rolling Stone's 2023 list of the greatest singers of all time.