Tracy Chapman

Tracy Chapman is an American singer-songwriter whose four-decade music career has produced four Grammy Awards (1989 Best New Artist; 1989 Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "Fast Car"; 1989 Best Contemporary Folk Album for Tracy Chapman; 1997 Best Rock Song for "Give Me One Reason") — making her one of the foundational documents of late-1980s and 1990s American folk-revival music. She was born Tracy Chapman on March 30, 1964, in Cleveland, Ohio, into an African-American working-class family. Her father Herbert Chapman left the family when Tracy was four, and her mother Hazel Winifred Chapman was a homemaker who raised her on her own through working multiple low-wage jobs.

Her early-career breakthrough came across her 1986 student-coffeehouse performances at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, where her fellow student Brian Koppelman heard her perform and introduced her to his father Charles Koppelman of SBK Publishing. Her education at Tufts University (B.A. in Anthropology and African Studies, 1986) launched her early-career career path. Her 1986 SBK Publishing songwriting contract and her subsequent 1987 Elektra Records signing launched her 1988 commercial breakthrough.

Her April 5, 1988 first commercial album Tracy Chapman — released by Elektra Records — sold over 20 million copies worldwide and produced the singles "Fast Car" (which peaked at number six on the Billboard Hot 100), "Talkin' 'bout a Revolution," "Baby Can I Hold You," and "For My Lover." The album won the 1989 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. Her June 11, 1988 performance of "Fast Car" at the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute Concert at Wembley Stadium in London — broadcast to over 600 million viewers across 67 countries — launched her international commercial breakthrough.

Her 1995 fourth commercial album New Beginning — released by Elektra Records — sold over 5 million American copies and produced her single "Give Me One Reason" (which peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100, won the 1997 Grammy Award for Best Rock Song, and remains her highest-charting Billboard Hot 100 single). Her parallel cover of Luke Combs's 2023 country-music re-recording of "Fast Car" produced her later February 5, 2024 Grammy Awards performance with Combs — at which Chapman won the 2024 Country Music Association Song of the Year Award (the first African-American woman ever to win the CMA Song of the Year Award).

Her name Tracy began as a unisex Old French place-name (Trasey, Normandy). Tracy was the most-popular American girls' name through the 1970s.