Mario

Refined contemporary R&B artist Mario debuted in his mid-teens with the Top Ten pop hit "Just a Friend 2002." The deeply impassioned (and on-key) update of Biz Markie's humorous 1989 hit ignited a career highlighted by a string of high-performing albums for Clive Davis' J label. Most successful of all was the platinum, Grammy-nominated Turning Point (2004), the source of his similarly successful "Let Me Love You," which also topped the Billboard Hot 100 and provided the breakthrough for song co-writer Shaffer Smith, later known as Ne-Yo. After nearly a decade without releasing...