Mariah Carey is an American singer, songwriter, record producer and actress. Known as the "Supreme Songbird" by the Guinness Book of World Records, she is considered one of the greatest singers in the history of music and is noted for her songwriting, five-octave vocal range, melismatic singing style, and use of characteristic of the whistle register. An influential figure in popular music, Carey is credited with influencing vocal styles, fusing hip-hop with pop through his collaborations and popularizing remixes. She has also been nicknamed the "Queen of Christmas" for the enduring popularity of her Christmas music, particularly the 1994 song "All I Want for Christmas Is You", which is the best-selling Christmas song by a female artist.

Carey was born on March 27, 1969, in Huntington, New York. Her name is derived from the song "They Call the Wind Maria", originally from the 1951 Broadway musical Paint Your Wagon. She is the youngest of three children born to Patricia (née Hickey), a former opera singer and vocal coach of Irish descent, and Alfred Roy Carey, an aeronautical engineer of African-American and Afro-Venezuelan lineage. The last name "Carey" was adopted by her Venezuelan grandfather, Francisco Núñez, after he emigrated to New York. Patricia's family disowned her for marrying a black man. Racial tensions prevented the Carey family from integrating into their community. While they lived in Huntington, their neighbors poisoned the family dog and set fire to their car. After her parents' divorce, Carey had little contact with her father, and her mother worked several jobs to support the family. Carey spent much of her time at home alone and began singing at age three, often imitating her mother's take on Verdi's opera Rigoletto in Italian. Her older sister Alison moved in with their father while Mariah and her elder brother Morgan lived with their mother.

Carey's enduring popularity as a musician has received extensive recognition, with Anne Branigin from The Root commenting: "There's longevity, then there's Mariah Carey". When reviewing her fifteenth studio album, Caution, Eddino Hadi wrote, "In the last three decades since she made her debut, many female pop stars have scaled the heights that Carey has reached but very, very few have matched her longevity". She is the first artist to reach number-one on the Billboard Hot 100 in the physical, digital and streaming eras. Carey's music has been recorded, performed or sampled by a variety of artists such as Aretha Franklin, Patti LaBelle, Dolly Parton, Luciano Pavarotti, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Shania Twain, Michael Ball, Ariana Grande, Bryson Tiller, Drake, Fifth Harmony, and Sigala. The 2019 film Always Be My Maybe was a play-on-words of Carey's 1996 single "Always Be My Baby", which was used as the movie's theme song.

Carey began dating Tommy Mottola while recording Mariah Carey, and they were married in New York City on June 5, 1993, during a half-million dollar ceremony at Saint Thomas Church. The newlyweds moved into a custom-built mansion referred to by Carey as "Sing Sing" located on a 51-acre estate in Bedford, New York, alluding to her feeling imprisoned there. After the release of Daydream and the success that followed, Carey began focusing on her personal life, which was a constant struggle at the time. Their relationship began to deteriorate due to their growing creative differences in terms of her music, as well as Mottola's controlling nature. They announced their separation on May 30, 1997, and their divorce was finalized by the time Mottola remarried on December 2, 2000. In 1998, their home together was sold for $20.5 million to Nelson Peltz and burned down in 1999.