When Evans was 14, she sang in a touring gospel group, The Spiritual Uplifters, which performed in New York, Philadelphia and Connecticut. Between her aunt and her mom, she was exposed to everything from Jimi Hendrix to Joni Mitchell to 1980s house acts like Gwen Guthrie, CeCe Rogers and Colonel Abrahams. She did the same at her Aunt Hope's house in Linden, Jersey, a few miles away from the Kennedys' home. 'Unfortunately,' Evans wrote, 'some of the characters in and out of the house were just as suspicious as the people my grandparents were trying to protect me from on the street.'Įvans became obsessed with her mom's record collection on visits to Florida, rifling through albums by Donna Summer, Earth Wind and Fire and Anita Ward. The Kennedys did their best to shelter Evans from some of the harsher realities of life in 1970s Newark, which was suffering economically in wake of the 1967 riots. She often referred to them as her grandparents, rather than have to explain to people her complex family story. They were a kind-hearted couple that fostered a lot of children, and Evans went to live with them in their bustling house in the Weequahic area of Newark. With Helene under pressure from the demands of being a young single mother, two older cousins, Mae and Bob Kennedy, offered to look after Evans. He is white, hence Evans' light complexion, but as she wrote in Keep the Faith, 'I was raised 100 percent Black and have always considered myself a Black woman.' Evans' father, Richard Swain, was out of the picture by the time she was born.

Her mom, Helene, was 18 years old, 'barely out of high school', and living in Dade City, Florida, with her twin sister, Hope, and their younger siblings, Missy and Morgan. I knew I'd found my calling.'Įvans had been living in Newark since before her first birthday. She recalled the moment in her 2008 memoir, Keep the Faith: 'After seeing the reaction of my first audience, I knew I would be a singer.

She overcame her nerves to belt out 'Let the Sunshine In,' from the musical Hair, to the congregation of her local place of worship, Emanuel Baptist Church, in Newark. The first time Faith Evans sang in public, she was three years old.

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