- Rapture · 1986
- Giving You the Best That I Got · 1988
- The Songstress · 1983
- The Best of Anita Baker · 1986
- Rapture · 1986
- The Best of Anita Baker · 1986
- Rapture · 1986
- The Best of Anita Baker · 1988
- Rhythm of Love · 1994
- Giving You the Best That I Got · 1988
- Compositions · 1990
- The Best of Anita Baker · 1986
- Giving You the Best That I Got · 1988
Essential Albums
- How does a quietly released album win two GRAMMY® Awards and shift more than eight million copies? By being faultless. Anita Baker’s 1986 offering, Rapture, is a classic soul masterpiece, shot through with jazzy instrumentation and perfectly restrained vocals. “Sweet Love” was her first pop hit, rich with funky piano stabs, a tightly coiled bass groove and Baker’s deep, powerful vocal. “Caught Up in the Rapture” is even more seductive, as the simplicity of the production provides a sumptuous undercurrent for her so-smooth styling.
Albums
Music Videos
- 1994
Artist Playlists
- A legendary diva with a gift for sultry slow jams.
Compilations
More To Hear
- Music by Patti LaBelle, Anita Baker, and Luther Vandross.
About Anita Baker
One of the leading figures of the Quiet Storm movement, Anita Baker brings sophistication, emotion and powerhouse vocals to every song she sings. Born in Toledo, Ohio, in 1958, Baker grew up in Detroit, where she sang in a gospel choir while listening to vocal greats like Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald. She joined the soul group Chapter 8 in 1975, and although they were successful in Detroit, they had an abortive record-business experience that led to Baker turning away from music for a while. Eventually Otis Smith, a legendary R&B executive who had worked with Chapter 8, approached Baker about recording for his upstart label, and she released her debut full-length, The Songstress, in 1983. That got the attention of Elektra Records, which signed her and issued her breakout album, Rapture, in 1986. Rapture combined Baker’s delivery with lush production on romance-minded tracks like “Sweet Love” and “Caught Up In the Rapture”, establishing her as one of R&B’s superstar ’80s vocalists. She built on that reputation with the albums that followed, including 1988’s Giving You the Best That I Got and 1994’s Rhythm of Love. Contract disputes and studio setbacks limited Baker’s recorded output until 2004, when she released the concert album A Night of Rapture Live and the studio album My Everything; in the years since, she’s toured tirelessly, playing festivals like the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival as well as more intimate theatres, asserting her vocal power and passion to audiences around the world.
- HOMETOWN
- Toledo, OH, United States
- BORN
- 26 January 1958
- GENRE
- R&B/Soul