Mariah Carey (; born March 27, 1969) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Referred to as the "Songbird Supreme" by Guinness World Records, she is noted for her five-octave vocal range, melismatic singing style, improvisation skills, her signature use of the whistle register, and songwriting. Carey has been dubbed the "Queen of Christmas" due to the popularity of her 1994 song, "All I Want for Christmas Is You". She was the first artist to have their first five singles reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100, from "Vision of Love" to "Emotions".

Carey rose to fame in 1990 with her eponymous debut album under the guidance of Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola in 1990, who married her in 1993. She gained further worldwide success with the albums Music Box (1993) and Daydream (1995). Their singles include "Hero", "Without You", "Fantasy", "Always Be My Baby", and "One Sweet Day", which topped the US Billboard Hot 100 decade-end chart (1990s) and was the longest running number one song of the decade. After separating from Mottola, Carey adopted a new urban image and incorporated more elements of hip hop with the album Butterfly (1997). She left Columbia in 2001 after eleven consecutive years of US number-one singles and signed a $100 million record deal with Virgin Records.

Following Carey's highly publicized physical and emotional breakdown and the failure of the film Glitter (2001) and its soundtrack, Virgin bought out her contract and she signed with Island Records the following year. After a comparatively unsuccessful period, Carey returned to the top of the charts with The Emancipation of Mimi (2005), which became the best-selling album in the US and the world's second best-selling album of 2005. Its second single, "We Belong Together", topped the US Billboard Hot 100 decade-end chart (2000s). Carey's subsequent ventures included appearing in the films Precious (2009), The Butler (2013), A Christmas Melody (2015), The Lego Batman Movie (2017), being an American Idol judge, starring in the docu-series Mariah's World (2016), performing at multiple concert residencies, and publishing her memoir The Meaning of Mariah Carey (2020).

Carey is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, with over 220 million records sold worldwide. In 2008, she was named one of Time's annual 100 most influential people in the world. Billboard named her the "top-charting female solo artist", based on both album and song chart success in 2019. She was ranked as the fifth greatest singer of all time by Rolling Stone in 2023 and placed second in VH1's list of the 100 Greatest Women in Music. She holds the record for the most Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles by a solo artist (19), a female songwriter (18), and a female producer (15). Carey is the highest-certified female artist in the United States and 10th overall, with 74 million certified album units. Carey has won 5 Grammy Awards, 19 World Music Awards, 10 American Music Awards, 15 Billboard Music Awards and eight Guinness World Records. She is an inductee into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and is credited for inspiring several generations of pop and R&B artists, and for merging hip hop with pop music through her crossover collaborations.