Mariah the Scientist

Mariah the Scientist distinguishes herself in today's R&B landscape by weaving intimate stories into scenarios that feel both screen-worthy and familiar, all carried by her smoothly smoldering delivery. The Atlanta native first surfaced in 2018 after posting an EP to SoundCloud, which promptly drew major-label interest and led within a few years to several RCA releases: Master (2019), Ry Ry World (2021), and the four-track Buckles Laboratories Presents: The Intermission (2022). She later shifted to Epic for To Be Eaten Alive (2023), which promptly became her initial Billboard 200 appearance and reached the chart's upper half on the strength of the restrained slow jam "From a Woman."

Born Mariah Amani Buckles, she sang only for herself at first and chose to pursue music seriously once she began composing her own songs. After finishing suburban Atlanta high school a year ahead of schedule, she relocated to New York and enrolled in biology studies at St. John's University. A recording session in Queens produced a pair of tracks that drew favorable reactions from friends, prompting her to finish To Die For, a six-track EP that appeared on SoundCloud in January 2018. Early the following year she signed with RCA, then prepared her major-label debut with production input from Play Picasso and WondaGurl. That August brought Master, a compact ten-track set spotlighting the combative "Beetlejuice" and the retaliatory daydream "Reminders." July 2021 saw the arrival of Ry Ry World, another concise album that included the romantic requiem "2 You" and the mutual-dependency ballad "Always n Forever" (with Lil Baby).

She exited RCA after Buckles Laboratories Presents: The Intermission appeared in March 2022. Far from an afterthought, the four-track EP included one of her most widely heard songs up to that time, "Spread Thin." By year's end she had taken the Coachella stage, served as an opening act for Coldplay (whose music she first encountered in childhood through her father), and issued the independent single "Bout Mine," another WondaGurl collaboration. Her move to Epic was revealed the next October alongside "From a Woman," which preceded To Be Eaten Alive by a couple of weeks. The resulting third album also featured labelmate 21 Savage along with Vory and Young Thug.