Jamie Foxx

Singer, actor

As an Academy Award winner, multi-Grammy nominated singer, and all-around entertainer, Jamie Foxx appears to have done it all. Foxx first made a name for himself for his outrageous comedic performances on In Living Color and The Jamie Foxx Show, and moved into dramatic film roles for Any Given Sunday, Ali, and his Oscar-winning performance in the biopic Ray. Foxx proved to be a triple threat when his sophomore album went platinum in 2005. Sharing vocals with everyone from Ludacris and Kanye West to Mary J. Blige and Gladys Knight, Foxx disproved the actor-turned-singer curse with the hit multi-award winning album Undeniable.

Foxx was born Eric Morlon Bishop Jr. in 1967 in the small town of Terrell, Texas. His grandparents, Mark and Esther Talley, adopted and raised him after his parents split up when he was just seven months old. His grandparents gave him a strong Baptist upbringing, including what turned out to be influential and inspirational music at the New Hope Baptist Church. "My grandmother raised me to be a southern gentleman," Foxx told William Booth of the Washington Post. "We weren't rich, but we weren't poor either. Money didn't matter, couldn't replace the summers we had." As a teenager he had paying jobs as a piano player and musical director at the church. He excelled in sports, playing tennis, running track and serving as quarterback at Terrell High School. His first foray into music outside of the church was his high school R&B band, Leather and Lace.

Music Scholarship

A music scholarship enabled Foxx to venture outside his small world of Terrell and travel to California, where he studied classical piano and music theory at the U.S. International University in San Diego. Foxx was introduced to a diverse group of students and to opportunities that didn't exist in Terrell. Foxx had a comedic bent, doing impressions for his friends and making everyone laugh. But one night in 1989, on a dare from a girlfriend, he got on stage at an open mic comedy night. Everything changed after that. The next year he changed his name to Jamie Foxx and worked the stand-up circuit.

His comedic timing and personality were far bigger than the small clubs he gigged at. Amid small acting bits on TV, from 1991 to 1994 Foxx became part of the infamous cast of the sketch-comedy show In Living Color. The hugely popular show gave Foxx the opportunity and popularity to return to his first love—that of music. In 1994 Foxx released his first solo R&B album, Peep This. "I was gonna be Lionel Richie, I had the hair and everything," he joked to Booth. Issued by the now-defunct label Twentieth Century Fox Records, the album shot up to number 12, and the single "Infatuation" hit number 36 on the Billboard R&B singles chart.

Foxx was the star of his own popular comedy show, The Jamie Foxx Show, from 1996 to 2001. During that time he also had movie roles in 1997's Booty Call and 1999's Any Given Sunday. His dramatic acting skills were further put to the test in 2001's Ali and in the 2004 hit films Collateral and Ray. In 2004 Foxx got back into music, lending his smooth R&B vocals to rapper Twista's number one hit song "Slow Jamz" (which also appeared, slightly altered, on Kanye West's breakthrough album The College Dropout). Foxx's acting credentials soared to new heights when he took on the role of Ray Charles in Ray, the blockbuster biopic that hit theaters that year. Foxx's dead-on take of the musical legend won him an Academy Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role. Foxx was also nominated for another Oscar that year for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role for Collateral, in which he played opposite Tom Cruise. Before filming Ray, Foxx was able to spend time with Ray Charles before he died, and it was that meeting that inspired Foxx to get back to his musical roots. "I'll remember how simple he was—there was no "star" thing," Foxx said in an interview with Rolling Stone's Austin Scaggs after Charles died. "He told me, ‘Y'know Jamie, if you can play the blues, baby, you can do anything.’"

Returned to Music

Ready to get back into music, in 2005 Foxx appeared on rapper 50 Cent's "Build You Up" and sang on the chorus of Kanye West's number one song "Gold Digger." Fox told Shaheem Reid on MTV News.com, "You look at Kanye's records and they are fabulous, but when me and him go together, they were #1 records." In addition, Foxx was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Male R&B Vocal Performance category for his performance of "Creepin'" on So Amazing: An All-Star Tribute to Luther Vandross.

It was time now to get to work on Foxx's own record, with a little help from his friends. As opposed to how quickly Peep This was put together, Foxx wanted his second record to be as legitimate and honorable as possible. He brought in songwriters and producers who were at the top of their games. "I've got some real writers and producers this time and a real record label that has the money," he told Gail Mitchell in Billboard. "I waited 11 years because I didn't want to be out there looking goofy." For his sophomore album, Foxx needed to balance classic soul R&B with modern hip-hop panache. "It's something I've been toying with for a long time," he said to Mitchell. "How do you capture the club crowd with R&B while still keeping it hip-hop, young and with a bounce to it? That's the way we wrote a lot of the songs." Foxx co-wrote six of the album's songs and invited Mary J. Blige, Ludacris, Common, The Game, Kanye West, Twista and producers like Timbaland and Babyface to help on the project.

To close out 2005, J records issued Foxx's sophomore album, Unpredictable. By its second week it was a number one record. Foxx made history when he became only the fifth actor to have both an Oscar and a number one U.S. album at the same time. The title track of the album featured rapper Ludacris, and the video was directed by famed hip-hop director Hype Williams. "The result is a canny mix of R&B and hiphop, with several songs evincing an utterly of-the-moment minimalist vibe," wrote Jonathan Van Meter in Vogue. Foxx himself admitted to Van Meter, "The record definitely has a sense of me singing to someone. All the songs are geared toward a woman listening." Unpredictable went to the top of the charts—going platinum—at the same time as "Gold Digger," giving Foxx increased attention in all of the entertainment fields.

For the Record …

Born Eric Morlon Bishop Jr. on December 13, 1967, in Terrell, TX; children: Corinne. Education: Attended U.S. International University in San Diego.

Comedic actor gained fame for performances on In Living Color, 1991-94; released debut album, Peep This, Twentieth Century Fox Records, 2004; acted in The Jamie Foxx Show, 1996-2001; won Academy Award for role in the dramatic film Ray, 2004; acted in Collateral, 2004; signed to J Records, released sophomore album Unpredictable, 2005; acted in films Jarhead, 2005; Dream Girls, 2005; Miami Vice, 2005.

Awards: Academy Award, Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, for Ray, 2004; American Music Award, Favorite Male Soul/R&B Artist, 2006; BET Award, Best Duet/Collaboration, for "Gold Digger," 2006; Soul Train Music Awards, Best Male R&B/Soul Album, for Unpredictable, 2007.

Addresses: Record company—J Records/Arista, 6 West 57th St., New York, NY 10019, website: http://www.jrecords.com. Website—Jamie Foxx Official Website: http://www.jamiefoxx.com.

In 2005 Foxx had a dramatic role in the army film Jarhead and the following year starred in a remake of Miami Vice and the musical Dreamgirls. At the 2006 Grammy Awards, Unpredictable was up for three awards. Although he didn't take any home that evening, he won two BET Awards for Best Duet/Collaboration for Kanye West's "Gold Digger" and Video of the Year for the same song. He was nominated for two American Music Awards, taking one home for Favorite Male Soul R&B Artist. In the spring of 2007 he won a Soul Train Music Award for Best Male R&B/Soul Album for Unpredictable. On September 14, 2007, Foxx's star quality was given one of the highest honors when he received his own prestigious star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Selected discography

Peep This, Twentieth Century Fox Records, 1994.

(Contributor) So Amazing: An All-Star Tribute to Luther Vandross, J Records, 2005.

Unpredictable, J Records, 2005.

Sources

Periodicals

Billboard, December 17, 2005.

Vogue, January, 2006.

Washington Post, August 6, 2004.

Online

"Jamie Foxx: The man who played Ray on his secret desires: to serenade Mariah Carey and make music with Kenny G," Rolling Stone,http://www.rollingstone.com/news/qa/story/8946748/Jamie_foxx (September 23, 2007).

Jamie Foxx Official Website, http://www.jamiefoxx.com (September 23, 2007).

"The Metamorphosis of Jamie Fox," MTV.com, http://www.mtv.com/bands/f/foxx_jamie/news_feature_012806/ (September 23, 2007).

—Shannon McCarthy