This Date in History: Tracy Chapman, Singer, and Lyricist born

From African American Registry

Tracy Chapman was born on this date in 1964. She is a Black lesbian and bisexual singer-and-songwriter. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Chapman began playing guitar and writing songs as a child.

She was accepted into “A Better Chance,” the national resource for identifying, recruiting, and developing leaders among academically gifted nonwhite students. This opportunity enabled her to attend Wooster School in Connecticut and Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. Chapman began street-performing and playing her guitar in coffeehouses in Cambridge, Massachusetts, during college.

Before graduating from college, she released her first album, Tracy Chapman (1988), which was critically acclaimed. Soon after performing at the televised Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute concert in June of the same year, the album went multi-platinum and won four Grammy Awards. Besides 10,000 Maniacs and R.E.M., Chapman’s liberal politics proved enormously influential on American college campuses in the late ’80s”. Her follow-up album, Crossroads, was less commercially successful. In 1992, she released Matters of the Heart, and in 1995, New Beginning (which sold over 3 million copies in the U.S.) included the hit single “Give Me One Reason,” which won the 1997 Grammy for Best Rock Song.

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Did you know?

When Luke Combs covered Chapman’s song “Fast Car” in 2023, it won the CMA Song of the Year award, making Chapman the first Black songwriter to earn it.

Learn more about Tracy Chapman’s life.