Monifah

Raised amid a musically inclined household in Spanish Harlem, R&B diva Monifah received early encouragement from relatives to appear in multiple stage musicals. Her vocal experience soon led to a recording contract with MCA, which issued her debut self-titled album in 1995. The next year brought the R&B-chart success of her single “I Miss You (Come Back Home).” That May, MCA’s Uptown subsidiary released her second album, Moods...Moments. The Top Ten single “Touch It” propelled 1998’s Mo’hogany to become her strongest commercial performer, and two years later she issued Home.