Minnie Ripperton Breast Cancer

The 1975 hit song was composed by Minnie and husband Richard Rudolph as a lullaby to their daughter, Maya Rudolph, now actress and comedian, when she was a baby. Showcasing Minnie’s five-octave vocal range, “Lovin’ You” was the singer’s most famous song.

According to Wikipedia, Minnie sang “Maya, Maya, Maya” toward the end of an unedited version of the chart-topping tune. When the soul singer was diagnosed with breast cancer and was told that she had about six months to live, she included her son, Marc (whose nickname is Ringo), when she sang “Lovin’ You” in her last concert performances: “Maya, Maya, Ringo, Maya.”

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Minnie died at the young age of only 31 in 1979. The epitaph on Minnie’s headstone in an LA cemetery is the opening line from her popular song: “Lovin’ you is easy ’cause you’re beautiful.”

“It’s so nice, especially being on the receiving end as the child of that [song tribute],” Maya, now an actress, said in a recent interview.

As a regular on “Saturday Night Live” for 10 years, Maya parodied celebrities, including Whitney Houston, Oprah Winfrey, Beyonce and Donatella Versace.

In remembrance of the late great Ripperton, Maya and others put together a 10K race to raise money for…

… breast cancer. “Every year here in LA on or around my Mom’s birthday we have a run that raises money for breast cancer research and helps to raise awareness in the black community as well as in anyone else who shows up,” explains Rudolph. “It’s fun. And people can find other Minnie Riperton fans there as well as young and old people or people who just love to run.”

Here’s a walk down memory lane with the original “Loving You”