Mario

Mario Dewar Barrett, known as Mario, is an American R&B artist who also writes songs and dances. He grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. He landed a record deal with J Records as a teenager, and his debut album Mario arrived in 2002. Its single Just a Friend 2002 broke into the top five of the Billboard Hot 100, and the follow-up Turning Point (2004) brought the chart-topping Let Me Love You, a track that stayed at number one for nine weeks, drew a Grammy nomination and took two Billboard Music Awards. Later albums included Go (2007), D.N.A. (2009) and the independent Dancing Shadows (2018). He also built a screen career, appearing in Step Up (2006) and Freedom Writers (2007), taking part in the sixth season of Dancing with the Stars, and acting in Empire from 2018 to 2020. He played Benny in the live television musical Rent (2019), and in 2024 he was runner-up on The Masked Singer.