Melanie Brown was born in Harehills, Leeds, West Yorkshire, to a white English mother, Andrea, and a black Nevisian father, Martin. She studied performing arts at Intake High School, in Leeds, before entering the entertainment industry. For a time she worked as a dancer in the holiday resort Blackpool, Lancashire.

After seeing an advertisement for an audition in a newspaper, Brown started her music career in a band known as Touch. The group left the original management team and eventually teamed up with music manager Simon Fuller. Here, she and the other girls were launched on the world as the Spice Girls. After worldwide success in the group she embarked on a solo music career in 1998. Her first solo album, with Virgin Records, was somewhat of a success, including a number one hit. However, it did not sell or chart very well. In 2005, she released a second solo album which did not attract much attention.

In 1996 Brown, along with Melanie Chisholm, Geri Halliwell Emma Bunton and Victoria Beckham(at that time Victoria Adams), shot to fame as a member of the Spice Girls with the release of "Wannabe". The debut album, Spice, shot to number one all over the globe, including the U.S.. Because of the fact that she was often to be found in leopard print clothing and big wild hair and having a loud attitude, Brown received the nickname "Scary Spice" from Top of the Pops Magazine (each member of the group was given a humorous nickname in a small piece titled "Spice Rack"). The Spice Girls were popular in the late 1990s, selling over thirty-five million albums in just two years. They went on to become one of the best-selling girl groups of all time, selling more than fifty-five million records worldwide. They had nine UK number-one singles and two number-one albums. After a third album release, Forever (UK number-two), the members went their separate ways, and Brown developed a solo career.

For her debut solo album, Brown worked with producers such as Sisqo, Teddy Riley, and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis (Janet Jackson Prince), with whom she was also working on the Spice Girls' third album, Forever.

In September 2000, she said that she heard the first single release from the album, "Tell Me". The track debuted at #4 in the UK charts with about 40,000 copies sold in its first week. It finally sold approximately 100,000 copies, making it the 158th "best seller" of 2000. The album, Hot, released one month later on 3 October, was not a success and garnered mediocre reviews. It sold a disappointing 7,419 copies in its first week and charted at a weak #28, before quickly falling out of the charts.

Following the release of "Feels So Good", rumours began that if her next single flopped she would be dropped by her record company, Virgin Records. In May, Brown performed a small set at the London G-A-Y Astoria club, her only solo gig until 2004. A third single was released in June 2001, "Lullaby", a pop number dedicated to her daughter. It was accompanied by a very simple video shot in Morocco and featured Brown with Phoenix Chi. The media criticised Brown for using her child in the music video and single artwork, labelling her Desperate Spice and insinuating that she was exploiting her child as a marketing tool. The single entered and peaked at a disappointing #13, and Virgin duly dumped Brown from their label.

In April 2004, Brown was approached to take part in the musical Rent. She played the role of Mimi, a drug-addicted young girl, and achieved positive reviews, but not from the show's fanbase. A few weeks after Brown finished her Rent stint, she played her second and last solo gig to date in a New York club, performing some songs from the musical and showcasing some new material she had written. As the songs received positive feedback, Brown decided to release them a year later through an independent label, Amber Café.

The only single from the album, "Today", saw a UK release in June 2005. Brown had stated it was just a gift to her fans, and minus a few small appearances no promotion was made. "Today" entered the singles chart at #41, selling around 1,000 copies in its first week.

The album, LA State Of Mind, was released on 27 June 2005 in two formats: as a regular CD and as a Limited Edition with a 30 minute DVD documentary detailing Brown's life in LA. The album fared even worse than its lead single, selling just 670 copies in its first week and charting at #453.

After several years of speculation, Brown reunited with the other Spice Girls for a reunion tour that began in December 2007 and concluded in February 2008. The tour was a major success, and also coincided with a greatest hits album, documentary and promotion.

Brown is now busy recording tracks for a new album she expects to have ready for release late 2008. "It's an R&B-pop kind of thing, a cross between early Pink and Destiny's Child Urban pop. That's what I do best, where I come from, what people know me for, I've recorded four songs so far with some really great people," she says. One of the producers behind the album is Rodney Jerkins, aka Darkchild, who previously worked with Brown on the Spice Girls' final studio album, Forever, in 2000. Brown revealed in June 2008 that she had completed ten tracks and will be working with Missy Elliott and Lil' Kim.