Teena Marie (innate Mary Christine Brockert in March 51956) is an R&B singer/songwriter/producer. She occurs as protegé lately funk legend Rick James, and is notable when one of a pack successful Caucasian R&B performers.

Fallowing signing using Motown Records in 1976 as a backup singer, Teena hooked up by using James for her first album coroneted Uncivilized & Peaceful, freed within 1979. Legend has got it that thanks to James refusing to act using Motown diva Diana Ross, Marie found her number 1 successes using songs rather "I'm A Sucka For Your Love" & "Deja Vu (I've Been Here Before)" to title two or three.

When a initial counsel of James, Marie decided to make her have albums starting using a 1980 gold album, Lady T (her nickname; and of which yielded a hit only "Behind the Groove") & as punishment by having Chains in the Fire (which featured her number one popular Top 40 only, "I Need Your Lovin'"). Inside 1981, she released her right-selling album in Motown titled It Must Be Magic. Giving a hit songs, "Square Biz" (one of the most sampled singles in music history; it was also used as the theme song for the 1998-2004 version of the game show Hollywood Squares), "Portuguese Love", and the title track, the album became her first platinum success. She as well scored her virtually all notable hit alongside her old wise man Rick James that equivalent month, by using their duet, "Fire And Desire", off James' staggeringly successful 1981 album, Street Songs.

Even so, profits did non mean Marie was satisfied or even was stable financially. Fallowing learning that she didn't receive a money she experienced earned recording quaternion albums for Motown, Marie decided to leave that label and afterwards sued it for with restricted her artistic control. A law was mass produced following, The Brockert Initiative, popularly known as "The Teena Marie Law", which became the precedent for creative person shopping for control of their careers.

When Marie left Motown around 1982, she signed with Epic Records and released a construct album Robbery in 1983, which featured the singles, "Shadow Boxing" & "Casanova Brown". A latter was allegedly all about her real-life romance by using wise man Rick James. Within 1984, Marie released her biggest-selling album, Star Child. It yielded a top Ten pop hit, "Lovergirl" and a top Fivesome R&B single, "Out On A Limb".

Within 1986, Marie released the rock and roll concept album titled Emerald City. It wasn't when successful when her predecessors & within 1987 she returned to her R&B and funk roots releasing the platinum album, Naked to the World. That album contained her just #1 only in any Billboard chart, "Ooh La La La", which reached the top of the R&B Singles chart.

Fallowing her 1990 album, Ivory, Marie was dropped from her Epic Records label. She freed, in an independent label, an album highborn Passion Play in 1994 and then devoted most of her instance to her girl, Alia Rose. When you took a 1990s, Marie's classic R&B, soul and funk records were either sampled by hip-hop artists or covered by R&B divas. Marie herself is seen when something of a pioneer within helping to bring hip-hop to a mainstream by becoming one of the number one & sole creative persin of her instance to rap on one of her singles--the said "Square Biz", in which she claimed she wwhen when poetic as Nikki Giovanni and Maya Angelou. Inside 1996, the Fugees paid tribute to her by sampling the chorus of her 1988 hit "Ooh La La La" for their own hit, "Fu-Gee-La".

Fallowing a Xiv-season sabbatical leave from either a national spotlight, Marie returned to her musical career by sign language by using the Classics imprint of the successful 2000s hip-hop label Cash Money Records. She freed her comeback album, La Dona, in 2004. It became the gold profits on the basis of the Al Green-sampled "Still In Love" & the duet by owning Gerald Levert, "A Rose By Any Other Name". Marie was nominated for the 2005 Grammy for Best R&B Female Vocal Performance for "Still In Love".

Marie besides appeared as a judge on the hip-hop reality series The Road to Superstardom with Missy Elliott.