About Nona Gaye
Nona Marvisa Gaye (born September 4, 1974) is an American singer, former fashion model, and screen actress. The daughter of soul music legend Marvin Gaye and granddaughter of jazz great Slim Gaillard, she began her career as a vocalist in the early 1990s, moving into acting in the 2000s, most notably in The Matrix film series.
Born into a mixed heritage of African-American, Irish, and questionable descent of either Afro-Cuban or Greek, Gaye was born in Washington, D.C., the only daughter of singer Marvin Gaye and second wife Janis Hunter Gaye. She is Marvin's second child - her older brother Marvin III (sometimes referred to as Marvin Gaye, Jr.) was from Gaye's first marriage to Anna Gordy, older sister of Motown Records founder and label executive Berry Gordy, while her younger brother Frankie was born within a year after her. As a baby, Nona was brought out on stage by her father during a concert. At eight, she formally introduced her father on Soul Train during a tribute episode to the singer.
Nona released her first album, Love for the Future, on Atlantic Records in 1992, a month after her 18th birthday. The album featured the top 20 hit "I'm Overjoyed" as well as "The Things That We All Do for Love." The following year, Nona was named one of People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People. She signed to Ford Modeling Agency in 1994, and became the new face of Armani.
For three years, Gaye both collaborated with and dated singer-songwriter Prince (his stage name at that time being an unpronounceable symbol). During this time, she recorded at least four known songs with him. A duet, "1000 Hugs and Kisses" and solo track, "Snowman" are currently unreleased, but have made their way into circulation amongst fans. Another duet, "Love Sign", was released on the 1-800-NEW-FUNK compilation album in 1994, along with another track with no Prince contribution, "A Woman's Gotta Have It". Gaye provided backing vocals on "We March" for Prince's 1995 album, The Gold Experience, and on the title track to the Girl 6 soundtrack, released in 1996. Gaye has candidly admitted that during this time she had a long personal battle with drug abuse which she successfully kicked in 1996.
In addition to these projects, she starred in a Prince-produced European TV special called The Beautiful Experience, consisting of a loose storyline to promote new material from Prince (most of which would be released at some point over the next few years). She was also mentioned on the track "Return of the Bumpsquad", on the New Power Generation album, Exodus, as wanting "to sell her tape", indicating a possible album's worth of material with Prince.
