Eve Singer
This multitalented celebrity really has done it all: although she’s most known (professionally, anyway) as a rapper, Eve (born Eve Jihan Jeffers but better known as Eve, E-V-E, Gangsta from her high-school years as part of the music group DGP, or Eve of Destruction as a soloist) is also a singer/songwriter, actress, and fashion designer. Eve was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on November 10, 1978, and developed an interest in and love for music—particularly singing—early on. She sang in a number of choirs, at first, and then created the female singing group DGP (or Dope Girl Posse), which first did covers of Color Me Badd and En Vogue, and then eventually became a rap group. Perhaps to take a break from singing, perhaps to pay the bills while she pursued a real career in music, or perhaps in an attempt to “diversify her career,” Eve worked as a stripper for awhile; but then friend and rapper Ma$e encouraged her to get back into the music industry, which prompted her to record a number of singles in 1998 and 1999—“Eve of Destruction” and “What Ya Want”; she also appeared on a remix of friend and musician DMX’s single “Ruff Ryders Anthem.” Eve hadn’t achieved much success up to this point, so she ended up working with Blackstreet, The Roots, Janet Jackson, and others and in 1999 released her debut hip-hop album, Let There Be Eve…Ruff Ryders’ First Lady, which ended up as a major success, hitting the highly coveted number-one spot on the Billboard 200—the only other female hip-hop artist to accomplish this was Foxy Brown.
Eve released Scorpion, her follow-up album produced by Dr. Dre, in 2001. Like its predecessor, Scorpion was an instant smash hit; it included the single “Let Me Blow Ya Mind” with Gwen Stefani and the album, which eventually went platinum, also hit the number-two spot on the Billboard Hot 100 and garnered Eve a Grammy Award. Her third album (Eve-Olution, released 2002), however, even though it included a duet with Alicia Keys (in “Gangsta Lovin’”), was not nearly the commercial success as experienced by her first two. So what do celebrity singers do when their career either seems to be going downhill or is up in the air? Why, attempt to act, of course! In 2003, Eve signed on to UPN for Eve, a T.V. series about a fashion designer named Shelly; perhaps surprisingly, the show lasted for three seasons! However, Eve has also appeared on film: She played J.J. in XXX (2002), starring Vin Diesel; as Terri in the two Barbershop movies, alongside Ice Cube, Cedric the Entertainer, and Sean Patrick Thomas; The Cookout; and The Woodsman, co-starring Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick, and Benjamin Bratt. In addition to her new career as an actress, Eve decided to continue in music as featured guest vocalist or rapper in other musicians’ (including Mary J. Blige, Stefani, Amerie, Kelly Rowland, and others) singles. She also branched out further to include the title “fashion designer” amongst her list of accomplishments, possibly inspired by her character on the show Eve; she ended up starting her own clothing line, “Fetish.”
Her overall success in her professional life was briefly interrupted, however, by a DUI arrest (what’s with female celebrities getting arrested for drunk driving?) in spring 2007 after crashing her car, a silver Maserati, into a divider on Hollywood Boulevard. Eve ended up in the slammer overnight (she was visited by Sean Penn, for some reason), and was let out on a whopping $30,000 bail and instructed to wear a booze-detecting anklet for 45 days, attend 10 AA meetings, and attend a three-month educational program. Eve is reportedly now working on her fourth album with Timbaland, Dr. Dre, and others, with possible guests such as Shakira; Here I Am is set for release in mid-October 2007. |
