Lopez, Jennifer

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JENNIFER LOPEZ

Born: Bronx, New York, 24 July 1970

Genre: Pop, R&B

Best-selling album since 1990: J.Lo (2001)

Hit songs since 1990: "If You Had My Love," "Waiting for Tonight," "Jenny from the Block"

Jennifer Lopez, actor/dancer/singer, and one of the most versatile and driven stars of the late 1990s, became Hollywood's highest-paid Latina actress the same year she released an album that entered the charts at number one. Lopez, who is of Puerto Rican descent, is the most successful member of a 1990s wave of Latin pop stars that includes Ricky Martin and Enrique Iglesias. Her enduring success is due in large measure to her memorable videos, frequent appearances in films and tabloids, and careful recording production techniques that veil the limitations of her singing.

Lopez has pursued a career in acting since her childhood. At sixteen she appeared in the film My Little Girl (1986), though other early credits were limited to stage appearances. Her major break came in 1990, when she became a "Fly Girl" on In Living Color, a groundbreaking, controversial comedy show written primarily for African-American audiences. As a Fly Girl, Lopez's role was to dance between comedy sets and between commercial breaks. The dancers' gyrating moves brought hip-hop culture into mainstream American living rooms as Lopez became the group's most prominent face.

After Fox Television canceled In Living Color, Lopez appeared in a number of television shows and films. The most significant musically was her starring role in Selena (1997), a biopic about the murdered Latina pop sensation Selena Quintanilla. Lopez's notable star turn assured her emergence as the Latina star of the 1990s. A year later she starred alongside George Clooney in Out of Sight (1998), a well-regarded film that cemented her status as a serious actor in Hollywood.

Two years after Selena, Lopez launched her career as a pop star. Her first album, On the 6 (1999), was named after the train line that Lopez rode into Manhattan from the Bronx early in her career. The album was an immense success, yielding two singles, "If You Had My Love" and "Waiting for Tonight." "If You Had My Love" topped the American charts for over a month. The quality of On the 6, like that of Lopez's follow-ups, was boosted by high-profile producers such as Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs, Track Masters, and Emilio Estefan Jr. It also includes cameo raps by Fat Joe and Big Punisher and a duet with Marc Anthony on "No Me Ames." The album's combination of genres—R&B, rap, and Latina pop—makes it difficult to identify a distinctive Lopez sound, an advantage in her cannily commercial crossover strategy. Lopez has labeled her sound "Latin Soul."

The album's success coincided with the tabloid sensation over Lopez's relationship with Combs. A New York native like Lopez, Combs was responsible for producing some of the 1990s' most successful R&B and rap acts. On December 27, 1999, Combs and Lopez were together at a Manhattan nightclub when three people were injured during a shooting. Combs and Lopez were arrested with two members of Combs's entourage. Lopez was released almost immediately, and Combs was later acquitted, but the incident's fallout led Lopez to guard her public image more carefully.

Lopez's second album, J.Lo (2001), is essentially a remake of On the 6. The recording lacks the freshness and sense of play of its predecessor but still contains a few hit singles, most notably "Love Don't Change a Thing." The video from that track, along with hits such as "I'm Real" and "Play," helped the album reach the top spot on U.S. album charts. Lopez's climb to the top spot coincided with her starring role in the film The Wedding Planner (2001).

Let's Get Loud, Lopez's first musical television special, aired on NBC on November 25, 2001. It was the number one program in its time slot in the United States and also found a huge international audience. The forty-four-minute performance was recorded in Puerto Rico and featured all of Lopez's best songs performed with expensive props, elaborate costumes, and high-energy dancing.

This Is Me . . . Then (2002) finds Lopez attempting to get back to her musical roots as she belts out love songs to her fiancé, movie actor Ben Affleck. The record attempts to invoke the fun that marked On the 6, but it lacks that recording's marriage of edgy production and pop surfaces. The first single from the album, "All I Have," featuring rapper LL Cool J, was a smash international hit and a popular video. Like her previous album, the release of This Is Me . . . Then coincided with the premiere of Maid in Manhattan (2002), a successful movie starring Lopez. Other tracks on This Is Me . . . Then such as "Jenny from the Block," "I'm Glad," and "Still" made less of an impression on listeners and fans.

Jennifer Lopez emerged in the mid-1990s as a promising actor and dancer. Her career as a singer started in 1999 and quickly propelled her to celebrity heights never achieved by a U.S. Latina performer. Her music and sexually charged videos capture what so many fans find captivating about Lopez: her combination of sweet soulfulness and Latin urban rhythms.

Spot Light: On the 6

Jennifer Lopez once described her sound as "Latin Soul," but, at their best, Lopez's pop albums draw on a wider, distinctly 1990s range of influences. On the 6, her first and best album, is a highly-polished mix of ballads, raps, high-energy dance songs, and rhythmically dense "tropical remixes." Although Lopez takes writing credits on a few tracks, On the 6, like all her subsequent recordings, features an all star lineup of writers and producers, including Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs, Gloria Estefan, and Emilio Estefan, Jr. A few tracks feature lyrics sung in Spanish to Latin rhythms. Lopez's music is at its best when her songs are upbeat and soar beyond the limits of her passable voice. The smash hit "Waiting for Tonight," has remained a staple on dance floors. It begins with Latin-inspired drumming and soon takes off into an infectious and updated disco beat. Less successful are Lopez's ballads such as "Should've Never" and "Could This Be Love." On these tracks her thin vocals only expose the songs' sugary, trite lyrics. Nevertheless, On the 6 remains an example of 1990s pop at its most infectious and versatile.