Stephanie Mills

About

Stephanie Dorthea Mills (born March 22, 1957) is an American singer, songwriter and musician. She rose to stardom as Dorothy Gale in the original seven-time Tony Award winning Broadway run of the musical The Wiz from 1974 to 1979. The song “Home” from the show later became a Number 1 U.S. R&B hit and her signature song.
During the 1980s, she had five Number 1 R&B hits, including “Home”, “I Have Learned to Respect the Power of Love”, “I Feel Good All Over”, “(You’re Puttin’) A Rush on Me” and “Something in the Way (You Make Me Feel)”. She won a Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for her song “Never Knew Love Like This Before” in 1981. Her albums What Cha Gonna Do with My Lovin, Sweet Sensation and Stephanie went gold or platinum, all through 20th Century Fox Records. In 2025, Billboard named her one of the “75 Best R&B singers of All Time”.

Stephanie Mills was born to Joseph and Christine Mills and raised in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Mills was raised Baptist and sang gospel music as a child at Brooklyn’s Cornerstone Baptist Church.

Mills began her professional career at age nine, appearing in the Broadway musical Maggie Flynn. After…