'''Mariah Carey''' (born March 27 1970) is an American pop and R&B singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Carey made her debut in 1990 under the guidance of Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola and became the first recording act to have her first five singles top the U.S. ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart. Following her marriage to Mottola in 1993, a series of subsequent hit records established her position as Columbia's highest-selling act. According to ''Billboard'' magazine, she was the most successful artist of the 1990s in the United States.
[Shapiro, Marc. ''Mariah Carey'' (2001). pg. 145. UK: ECW Press, Canada. ISBN 1-55022-444-1.] Carey took full creative control over her image and music following her separation from Mottola in 1997, and she introduced elements of hip hop into her album material. 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 and the poor reception of ''
Glitter'', her film and soundtrack project. Carey later signed with Island/Def Jam and, after an unsuccessful period, returned to the forefront of popular music in 2005. She has accumulated thirty-one nominations for various Grammy Awards, five of which she has won.
In 2000 the World Music Awards named Carey the best-selling female artist of all time, and she has recorded the most U.S. number-one singles for a female artist. In addition to her commercial accomplishments, she is well-known for her melismatic singing voice, vocal range, power (see vocal belting) and technical ability. Some critics have said that Carey's efforts to showcase her vocal talents have been at the expense of communicating true emotion through song.
Biography
Carey was born in Huntington, Long Island, New York. She is the third and youngest child of Patricia Hickey, a former opera singer and voice coach of Irish American extraction, and Alfred Roy Carey (formerly Nuñez), an aeronautical engineer of African-American and Venezuelan descent.
[Shapiro.] As a multiethnic family, the Careys endured racial slurs, hostility, and sometimes violence, causing the family to frequently relocate throughout the New York and Rhode Island areas. The strain on the family led to the divorce of Carey's parents when she was three years old.
[Shapiro, pg. 19–20.]Carey had little contact with her father, and her mother worked several jobs to support the family. Spending much of her time at home alone, she turned to music as an outlet. She began singing at around the age of three, performing for the first time in public during elementary school, and was writing
