Foxy Brown

In 1997, Brown formed the New York City-based hip hop group The Firm alongside rappers Nas, AZ and Cormega. The group released a self-titled album in 1997 which peaked atop the Billboard 200 but received a mixed reception. Brown followed this with her sophomore release, Chyna Doll (1999), which saw continued commercial success and debuted atop the Billboard 200, making her the second female rapper to do so. Her third studio album, Broken Silence (2001), peaked at number five on the same chart and earned a Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance nomination for one of its songs. Since parting ways with Def Jam, Brown has cancelled the majority of her releases including Ill Na Na 2: The Fever and Black Roses. Following years of legal issues and a lack of output, Brown released the mixtape Brooklyn's Don Diva (2008).

• Name — Foxy Brown • Alias — * Fox Boogie • King Fox • Queen Nefertiti • Ill Na Na • Birth Name — Inga DeCarlo Fung Marchand • Born — 6 September 1978 • Birthplace — Brooklyn, New York City, U.S. • Occupation — Rapper • Years Active — 1994–present • Discography — Foxy Brown discography • Genre — East Coast hip-hop • Label — * Black Hand • Platinum Camp • Black Rose • Bad Boy • Koch • S. Carter • Rush • Def Jam • Violator • Past Member Of — * The Firm

Marchand is a Trinidadian-American of Dougla (mixed Afro-Trinidadian and Indo-Trinidadian) and Chinese-Trinidadian descent. She was born in Brooklyn, and grew up in its neighborhood of Park Slope alongside her two older brothers. Her parents divorced when she was four, and her family moved in with her maternal grandfather. She later attended Brooklyn College Academy.

While still a teenager, Brown won a talent contest in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. Members of the production team Trackmasters who were working on LL Cool J's Mr. Smith album were in attendance that night and were impressed enough to invite Brown to rap on "I Shot Ya." She followed this debut with appearances on several RIAA platinum and gold singles from other artists, including remixes of songs "You're Makin' Me High" by Toni Braxton. Brown was featured on the soundtrack to the 1996 film The Nutty Professor on the songs "Touch Me, Tease Me" by Case and "Ain't No Nigga" by Jay-Z. She became an instant sensation due to being very talented and rapping provocatively at such a young age. The immediate success led to a label bidding war at the beginning of 1996, and in March, Def Jam Records won and added the then 17-year-old rapper to its roster.

In 1996, Brown released her debut album Ill Na Na to strong sales. The album sold over 128,000 copies in the first week, and debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard 200 album charts. The album was heavily produced by Trackmasters, and featured guest appearances from Jay-Z, Blackstreet, Method Man, and Kid Capri. The album was platinum and launched two hit singles: "Get Me Home" (featuring Blackstreet) and "I'll Be" (featuring Jay-Z). Following the release of Ill Na Na, Brown joined fellow New York-based hip hop artists Nas, AZ, and Cormega (later replaced by Nature) to form the supergroup known as The Firm. The album was released via Aftermath Records and was produced and recorded by the collective team of Dr. Dre, the Trackmasters, and Steve "Commissioner" Stoute, then of Violator Entertainment. An early form of The Firm appeared on "Affirmative Action" from Nas' second album It Was Written. A remix of the song and several group freestyles were on the album Nas, Foxy Brown, AZ, and Nature Present The Firm: The Album. The album entered the Billboard 200 album chart at No. 1. In March 1997, she joined the spring break festivities hosted by MTV in Panama City, Florida, with performers including rapper Snoop Dogg, pop group The Spice Girls, and rock band Stone Temple Pilots. Later, she joined the Smokin' Grooves tour hosted by the House of Blues with the headlining rap group Cypress Hill, along with other performers like Erykah Badu, The Roots, OutKast, and The Pharcyde, the tour set to begin in Boston, Massachusetts in the summer of 1997. However, after missing several dates in the tour, she left it.

Upon leaving Def Jam Recordings after her disappointment in the cancelled promotion of her studio album Ill Na Na 2: The Fever, Brown began recording in late 2004. Months later, she reunited with Jay-Z, performing dates on the Best of Both Worlds Tour. After re-signing with Def Jam under his regime, Brown and Jay-Z began work on Black Roses with production by The Neptunes, Kanye West, Timbaland, Trackmasters, and Dave Kelly. Brown confirmed guest appearances by Barrington Levy, Dido, Luther Vandross, Mos Def, Baby Cham, Spragga Benz, Shyne, Big Daddy Kane, Rakim, KRS-One, Roxanne Shante, and Jay-Z, although it was uncertain whether all would make the final cut for the album. In November 2004, Brown announced that the title for her upcoming album would be Black Roses, explaining "My best friend Barrington Levy has a song called 'Black Roses.' He's been traveling all over the world and never seen a black rose in no other garden. When he found his black rose, he knew that shit was special. Y'all niggas can have all the female rappers in the world, but there's only one black rose. I feel that's me." Brown also announced that she would be the first artist signed to Jay-Z's upcoming imprint record label S. Carter Records. Rather than launching the imprint, though, Jay-Z became the new president of Def Jam Records, where he signed Brown as one of the first artists on his new roster. In December 2005, Brown announced she had experienced severe and sudden hearing loss in both ears and she had not heard another person's voice in six months. Brown put Black Roses aside during this time. In June 2006, Brown said her hearing had been restored through surgery and she was planning to resume recording. Her label did not set a release date, but hoped the album would be out by the end of 2006. They were unsure if the title Black Roses would be kept. In November 2006, there was speculation that Jay-Z was disappointed in Foxy Brown's "lack of productivity on the album" and was planning to drop her from the Def Jam label. The planned December 2006 release of Black Roses was cancelled. On May 22, 2007, Black Hand Entertainment announced a management deal with Brown, with Chaz Williams as her manager. No release date was set for Black Roses, but Brown said the album was nearly complete. Two days later, a release date of September 6 was announced. On August 14, Black Hand Entertainment announced that Brown would leave Def Jam to launch an independent record label, Black Rose Entertainment, distributed by Koch Records. The street album Brooklyn's Don Diva, was scheduled with a release date of December 4, but was delayed until the following year. Brooklyn's Don Diva was ultimately released as a street album on May 13, 2008, after many delays triggered by her prison sentence. It contains two previously unreleased songs from her shelved album Ill Na Na 2: The Fever. The album peaked at No. 83 on the Billboard 200 chart, No. 8 on the Independent Albums chart, and No. 5 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart.

In January 2011, Brown released the diss track "Massacre", a response to Lil' Kim's "Black Friday". On August 14, 2012, Foxy appeared as a special featured guest on Nicki Minaj's Pink Friday Tour in New York City. Rapper AZ later hinted in an interview that Brown was working on new material with Minaj. In August 2018, Brown made her first official guest appearance since 2009 on "Coco Chanel" from Nicki Minaj's fourth studio album Queen. According to media sources, Brown is back to work on her upcoming fourth studio album. In 2019, Brown remixed Casanova's "So Brooklyn". A visual album, King Soon Come was also slated for release in 2019, but has since been delayed indefinitely. In August 2020, Brown reunited with her group The Firm for the song "Full Circle" from Nas' album King's Disease.

In 1998, Brown was featured in commercials for Mistic's "Living Delicious" sparkling water drink campaign. Hoping to take more control over her career during this time, she also launched her own label, Ill Na Na Entertainment, in a joint venture with Def Jam Recordings. In 1999, in promotion of her album Chyna Doll, Brown collaborated with Avirex to produce exclusive merchandising, which was advertised in the liner notes of the Chyna Doll album and in the music video for Brown's song "I Can't". Following the rise of collaborations between hip hop artists and high fashion designers, Brown was named a spokeswoman for Calvin Klein and modeled in their jeans campaign. That year, she was also a muse to John Galliano for Dior. In 2002, in promotion of both the show and her comeback single Stylin', Brown was featured in commercials for The Real World: Las Vegas. In 2004, Brown launched "Champagne and Ice", her luxury fur collection distributed by Alexis & Gianni.

Brown's lyrics have been described to be "raunchy" and "over-the-top" with "skimpy clothes to match." Her music is often centred around themes such as "fashion, sex, and the mafia" and is described as "intriguingly seductive" and having "a contemporary edge with a sleek and sexy soundscape." Her work for her debut album was described as "a heroine straight from the pages of a James Bond novel," selling over a million copies with the support of major male artists such as Nas and AZ. Brown's voice has been described as a "husky flow" with "dancehall swagger". Although her work was compared to rapper Lil' Kim, David Opie of Highsnobiety wrote: Just because they were both the 'First Ladies' of their respective crews, doesn't mean that Foxy or Kim were identical by any means, and it was hugely misogynistic to suggest otherwise...In an industry that still actively mocks vulnerability and weakness, hip hop needs more rappers who are willing to open up in this way, and the fact that Foxy did so such a long time ago speaks volumes about her artistry.

• Illustration — 2007 mug shot Brown has a substantial history of assault and menacing. On September 7, 2007, New York City Criminal Court Judge Melissa Jackson sentenced Brown to one year in jail for violating her probation that stemmed from a fight in 2004 with two manicurists in a New York City nail salon. On September 12, representatives of the rapper disputed claims by her lawyer that she was pregnant. On October 23, 2007, Brown was given 76 days in solitary confinement due to a physical altercation that took place on October 3 with another prisoner. According to the prison authorities, Brown, the next day after the incident, was also verbally abusive toward correction officers and refused to take a random drug test. Prison authorities reported on November 27 that she was released "from solitary confinement...for good behavior", and Brown was finally released from prison on April 18, 2008. On July 22, 2010, Brown was arrested and charged with one count of criminal contempt, which is a class E felony (the least severe), for violating an order of protection. The charge stems from an incident during the evening of July 21, 2010, in which it was claimed that Brown swore at, then mooned her neighbor Arlene Raymond, at whom she had thrown her BlackBerry, in 2007. Following the BlackBerry incident, Raymond sought and received a restraining order against Brown. Following her arrest, Brown appeared in court where she pleaded "not guilty" to the charge and was released on a $5,000 bail. If convicted, she faced up to seven years' imprisonment. On July 12, 2011, the charges were dropped.

From 1997 to 1999, she was engaged to fellow rapper Kurupt. In 2000, she announced that she was suffering from depression. She subsequently entered drug rehabilitation at Cornell University Medical College to receive treatment for opioid addiction, stating that she could no longer record or perform without resorting to morphine. Around 2001, she was engaged to Spragga Benz. Her uncle, Federico de la Asuncion, was one of 265 fatalities in the crash of American Airlines Flight 587 on November 12, 2001. Brown suffered hearing loss from May 2005 to June 2006. She opted for a hearing aid, and while recording music, had someone tap beats on her shoulder. In 2013, reports surfaced online claiming Brown had confessed to having a sexual relationship with Jay-Z and made disparaging remarks about him. In an interview with Combat Jack, Brown denied these reports, stating: "He never said not one bad thing about me. So when that false story came out about me talking about him, it's like, why would I say those things about him?" On January 13, 2017, she gave birth to her first child, a girl.

• Ill Na Na Tour (1997–1998) • Chyna Doll Tour (1999–2000) • Foxy Brown Tour (2002)

• Smokin' Grooves Tour (1997) • No Way Out Tour (1997) • Get Up On A Room (1999) • Out4Fame Germany Tour (2015)

• Reasonable Doubt Tour (1996) • Survival of the Illest Tour (1998) • The Black Album Tour (2003) • Best of Both Worlds Tour (2004) • Pink Friday Tour (2012)