The Making of Mariah
Click on the see what it took to craft her dynamic career.
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The Making of Mariah Carey\r - While Long Island, New York, native Mariah Carey has had the type of Hall of Fame career that breeds envy — millions of records sold, international stardom, Grammy Awards, and record breaking hit singles — don't think for one second the pop icon lucked up on her achievements. It took hard work, supreme talent and some ingenious career moves to get Carey to the top of her game. Today the ageless beauty celebrates her 42nd birthday, so BET.com takes a look back at the components that went into crafting Carey's dynamic career.\r \r(Photo by Stuart Wilson/Getty Images)
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The Voice\r\r - Mariah Carey appeared on the music scene in 1990 with her self-titled debut. The record stayed atop the charts for 11 consecutive weeks and won Grammy awards for Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. The album showed off Carey’s five-octave vocal register and produced four number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100, including "Vision of Love." This feat made her the first artist since the Jackson 5 to have their first four singles reach number one. This was only the beginning of Carey’s record-breaking career.\r(Photo: Courtesy Columbia Records)
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The Performer\r - With a raw, stripped-down sound, Carey showed off her vocal chops and put naysayers, who claimed she was just a studio artist, to rest with her 1992 performance on MTV Unplugged. She performed several hits from the Mariah Carey album but it was a last minute addition — a cover of the Jackson 5’s 1970 chart topping single “Ill Be There” — that scored her both critical acclaim and an unexpected hit. Sony released the track as an EP and it went on to sell 3 million copies.\r(Photo: Courtesy MTV Networks)
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Genre Bender\r - Who could forget when Carey burst on the scene with none other than rap’s grimiest emcee, Ol’ Dirty Bastard? Their 1995 hit "Fantasy (Remix)” shocked the pop world with their unlikely collaboration and established a new industry standard mixing the genres of hip hop and pop. Carey went on to make sweet music with other hip hop artists like Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Nas and Mobb Deep and clearly influenced starlets like Taylor Swift, who recently hit up T.I. to join her onstage for a show in Atlanta. (Photo: Scott Gries/Getty Images)
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The Smile\r - Though Mariah has sold millions of records since her start in the industry, the R&B diva didn’t become a brand ambassador until much later in her career, beginning in 2006 with Intel, the computer software company and a year later striking a deal with Elizabeth Arden for her own fragrance, “M.” The fragrance sold so well that Carey continued creating signature scents — she now has 13. The most recent, a trio of scents called Lollipop Splash. And just last month, Carey was named global ambassador of Jenny Craig after losing 70 pounds after giving birth to twins Roc and Roe.\r(Photo: Courtesy Elizabeth Arden)
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