Early Life
Rudolph was born in Gainesville, Florida. She is the daughter of soul singer Minnie Riperton and composer/songwriter/producer Richard Rudolph. Her father is an Ashkenazi Jew, and her mother was African-American. Her paternal grandfather was Sidney Rudolph, a philanthropist who once owned all of the Wendy's and Rudy's restaurants in Dade County, FL. Her parents moved to Los Angeles when she and her brother Marc were very young, and they grew up primarily in the Westwood section.
Rudolph was in the studio with her mother on the day Riperton recorded "Lovin' You", Near the end of the track, Riperton can be heard singing "Maya, Maya, Maya" to Rudolph. Riperton incorporated this into her performance of the song on The Midnight Special. Riperton died on July 12, 1979, at age 31, from breast cancer, just shy of Rudolph's seventh birthday. Rudolph's godmother was R&B singer Teena Marie.
Read more about this topic: Maya Rudolph
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Very early in our children’s lives we will be forced to realize that the “perfect” untroubled life we’d like for them is just a fantasy. In daily living, tears and fights and doing things we don’t want to do are all part of our human ways of developing into adults.”
—Fred Rogers (20th century)
“The danger lies in forgetting what we had. The flow between generations becomes a trickle, grandchildren tape-recording grandparents’ memories on special occasions perhaps—no casual storytelling jogged by daily life, there being no shared daily life what with migrations, exiles, diasporas, rendings, the search for work. Or there is a shared daily life riddled with holes of silence.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)