Regina Belle, Rutgers Graduate and Grammy Winner, Inducted Into R&B Hall of Fame
It would have been easier for Regina Belle to skip the recording session that ended up earning her a Grammy award.
“It was hard to get excited about singing because I had bronchitis that day,’’ she said. “I was also on tour, so I came in to record the song and then was off to Tokyo to perform for three weeks.”
The Rutgers University graduate is glad she made the effort. The duet with Peabo Bryson on the pop version of “A Whole New World,” the theme to the Disney movie Aladdin, pushed Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” out of the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and won the 1993 Grammy Award for best pop performance by a duo or group with vocal.
“It put me in a class I could not have fathomed,” Belle said.
On Oct. 6, for that achievement and countless others across a four-decade career spanning R&B, gospel and jazz, Belle will be inducted into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame.
“Being in the same company as people I have revered my entire life feels surreal,” said Belle, who will be inducted alongside artists including Jeffrey Osborne, Kenny Lattimore, Candi Staton and Ginuwine. “Parts of me say that I haven’t done enough, but someone must disagree, and that’s fine with me.”
Belle has recorded more than 10 albums, with hits including “Make it Like it Was,” “If I Could,” “Baby Come to Me” and “This Is Love.” Most recently, she contributed some songs to a jazz album by saxophonist/flautist Najee, which is being produced by Barry Eastmond and is set for release next year.
Her career began in 1985, when she went on tour with the Grammy Award-winning group The Manhattans. But following her dream meant that the Englewood, N.J., native had to leave Rutgers about three classes short of earning her bachelor’s degree.
“My family was livid, confused and disappointed in my choice,” she said.
Belle resumed her education in 2013, working remotely because she was on tour and helping her husband, John Battle — a Rutgers graduate, retired NBA basketball player and pastor — minister to his congregations at several churches in Georgia. She decided to lead by example after two young parishioners told her they planned to start working after high school because “college isn’t for everybody.”
“This deeply alarmed me, because it felt more like a worth statement rather than a plan or a choice,” Belle said.
She told the women she would complete her degree if they started theirs. Today, one is a graduate and an entrepreneur in the mobile massage business. The other left college a few credits shy of a degree and is writing books of poetry.
“I’m also proud to say that all five of my children have been to college, with two graduates among them,” Belle said. “I believe that, even if you don’t graduate, it’s an experience everyone should achieve.”
Her own coursework in Africana studies at Rutgers “informed many of my questions about society, racism and the African diaspora,” Belle said, “and I have concluded that love, strength and persistence are just a few of the characteristics that give African Americans the prevailing power to continue to stand. Ultimately, I do my best to express that in my music and my overall presentation onstage.”
Earning her bachelor’s degree in 2015 from Rutgers-New Brunswick’s School of Arts and Sciences gave Belle the confidence to pursue an advanced degree, graduating second in her class in May 2024 with a master of divinity from the Interdenominational Theological Center. That experience helped her face the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic and the death during that time of her father and brother — celebrity songwriter Bernard Belle — after she had served as a caregiver to them both.
“The responsibility was enormous, and many asked: ‘Why add on with more studies?’” Belle recalled. “My answer was simple: I need to make some sense out of all of this. I had no idea that learning could be such a great source of release and distraction, all at the same time. It was truly what I needed.”
Belle believes that her experiences at Rutgers also laid the foundation for her induction into the R&B Hall of Fame. In the 1980s, she recalls gaining confidence and a sense of direction from her membership in a Rutgers organization of African American students, lessons given by her jazz, voice and academic professors and the support she received from deans, her roommates and her family.
“I go to the R&B awards,” she said, “with a great banner of wisdom, knowledge and unlimited life experience.”
