AFTER BIGGIE: FAITH EVANS HAS A NEW Love, A NEW Baby, A New Career - singer

Ebony, April, 1999 by Kevin Chappell

FIRST Faith Evans changed her life--then she changed her tattoo. Both were very slow, very painful and very necessary. The first meant rising above the rampant rumors and gossip that came with the passing of her husband, rapper Christopher Wallace (The Notorious B.I.G.). The second meant modifying what was once a symbol of her undying love for the 6-foot-3, 315-pound man who make a living rapping about girls and guns. The heart-shaped tattoo with the letters "B.I.G." arched across the top was one of the last reminders of their life together--but also one of the last obstacles to her rebirth.

After two prayer-filled and tear filled years, her heart-shaped tattoo has been redesigned into a rose, and her life has blossomed. The 26-year-old singer with the seductive brown eyes and picture-perfect smile has emerged, not as "rap's most famous widow," but as a more complex, more mature, happier woman with a new attitude, a new baby, a new album and a new man.

"Since it is a reality that he's never going be here on this Earth, I'm trying to live my life for now," she says of her high-profile marriage that ended when Wallace was gunned down after an awards show in Los Angeles in 1997. "I can't get caught up in the past. My life isn't over. It's still going on. It didn't stop when our relationship ended. Big will always be a part of my life. But I'm still on this Earth, so I have to live my life for now and the future."

As she sits down for a rare interview in her New Jersey home, she admits that her strength has even surprised her. "I would have never thought I would have been able to get through such a situation," she says. "There have been several different situations in my life in the past few year's. I was able to get through all of those things and still have my sanity. I'm fine. I'm probably more stable-minded now than I was before. I just try to chill, be calm and not get stressed out."

But she says that the passing of Wallace, from whom she had separated before his death, hasn't gotten any easier to take. The murder, believed to be gang-related, has yet to be solved, and people continue to misinterpret the relationship she had with the gangsta rapper. "He was a really cool guy," she says. "He was funny. He was really smart, very intelligent, which attracted me. He was charming. He just had a certain way with words. His presence, maybe it was just the way he walked into the room. People seem to think he was mean, but he wasn't at all. He was really nice."

She says prayer and the prayers of others helped her through her toughest periods. But even today, there are low points. "It seems like since then, I think a lot. I find myself just zoning out," she says. "I try my best to deal with it, do things right, live right, be positive, and stay happy. That's the mission I'm on now."

Her mission has been made much easier since she met Todd Russaw, a 30-year-old record company executive she was introduced to after she separated from Wallace, but before his death. Pregnant with Biggie's child and living with rapper Missy Elliott in a Manhattan apartment at the time, Faith says, "Todd would call for [Missy] or come by the apartment to work on her album. Right after I had my baby, he sort of revealed that he was a little attracted to me. Our first date was actually supposed to be the weekend that Big died. Todd was really strong as a man for not being scared, for not wanting to be around me for the sake of everything else that came along with me--all of the attention, all of the issues, all of the situations."

Those issues and situations--from her rumored relationship with rapper Tupac Shakur to Biggie's publicized forays with rapper Li'l Kim, and the subsequent deaths of Tupac and Biggie--have been well documented.

Having completed recording work for such artists as Mary J. Blige and Al B. Sure!, Evans created a stir throughout the rap music world when she married Biggie in 1994, only nine days after meeting him at a party. She says she loved him, and he said he loved her. But the naysayers panned the union, saying it was little more than a publicity stunt aimed at furthering their careers.

In 1995, as Biggie's career was exploding, Evans was also making a name for herself as a singer, releasing her first album, Faith. But Wallace's death left her future uncertain. It was during this time that her relationship with Todd Russaw grew.

Until now, Faith has never talked about her new love, instead choosing to keep their relationship under raps. She says they both want it that way. "He is very into being family, being a unit and doing things together," she says of Russaw, the father of her third child, 9-month-old Joshua. "I admire that. I always wanted that. Growing up I always wanted a boyfriend and saw myself in the future with a husband like that. He's really good with the kids."

She says Todd, whom she plans to marry this summer, has taught her about the music business, and about what it will take to elevate her "to a level I want to be at as an artist and a businesswoman. He has so many ideas. He's very business-minded."