April 5, 2023 • 35 mins
On today's episode it's time to dance! We finish discussing Jennifer's incredible music career and jump into Jennifer's very first love, dancing! From being inspired by Rita Moreno to her time as a Fly Girl on 'In Living Color'', today we have all of the moves and steps J-LO took to becoming a dance icon!
Lilliana Vázquez and Joseph Carrillo are the hosts of Becoming an Icon with production support by Juan Carlos Arenado, Josie Meléndez, Daniela Sarquis, and Santiago Sierra of Sonoro Media in partnership with iHeart Radio's My Cultura Podcast network. If you want to support the podcast, please rate and review our show.
Follow Lilliana Vázquez on Instagram and Twitter @lillianavazquez
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So when we last left Jennifer, our girl was stuck
like me in an extra extra SMARTE T shirt. I
met more of a creative sense. But thank you for
that image, Joseph. After the album Rebirth came out, she
made other records and some movies, but she seemed lost.
That fuigo that Jlo had when she came out, well
it was totes missing. This is when many stars can
(00:24):
fade away. They break out, have a ton of success,
but when they lose their magic, they can't find it again.
Dare I say that's what separates the iconic. You're not wrong.
On today's episode, we continue with Jlo's music career, her reinvention,
and how she learned to dance again. I'm your host
(00:48):
Liliana Vasquez and I'm Joseph Carrillo and this is Becoming
an icon a weekly podcast where we give you the
rundown on how today's most famous Latin X stars have
shaped pop culture and given the world some extrassleble. Sit
back and get comfortable because we are going in the
(01:09):
only way we know how, with ba and a lot
of opinions, as we relive their greatest achievements on our
journey to find out what makes them so iconic. After
(01:29):
the album Rebirth came out, she married Mark Anthony, went
on her first tour with her then husband, released a
few more albums, and embarked on her most important role yet,
Mama j Low. Now, if you think about it, she
had done so much at such a high level, and
the one thing she hadn't done was become a mother yet.
(01:53):
And it was something that she really wanted. And I
was so excited to see her do this with Mark Anthony.
And let me tell you why. I know that she
was head over heels in love with Ben and she
loved the dancers and whatnot, but there was just something
so special about her making little boutiqua babies with Mark Anthony.
(02:17):
I just loved this for her and I felt like,
at this time in her life, it's what she needed.
She needed these little twin babies. And they kept it
a secret until their final show in Miami where they
announced it to the world. Now, if you ask people
that were watching Dale at the time, it was the
worst kept secret ever, because when you're pregnant with twins,
people know pretty early. I just remember there was a
(02:40):
big thing with People magazine and money involved and it
was something really crazy. Yeah, so it was a huge,
big deal. You know, things are not like this anymore
because now we live in like Instagram and everything is instant.
But back then the way we saw celebrities baby pictures
were on the cover of People magazine and at the time,
(03:02):
People allegedly paid six million dollars for the first photos
of twins Emmy and Max. She had a boy and
a girl, and it was a big deal back then,
and it was a very top secret. I remember she
was in Long Island with Mark Anthony and again she
was rumored to have basically like bought up this whole
(03:25):
giant delivery suite at this hospital. No one was allowed
to set foot in the space until she checked in,
And because obviously when you're having a baby, you never
know when you're going to have it, they had to
pay for weeks and weeks of holding this room for
her until she could get in there. And it was
top secret, tons of security. Can you imagine Jennifer Lopez
about to deliver babies. It was American Royalty. When Jayla
(03:48):
left the Spotlight to become a mother, it really allowed
her to reset and refocus, to figure out what she
wanted most out of her music, and with this new focus,
she made a lot of changes. In two eleven, she
reinvented herself once again and became a judge on American Idol.
(04:08):
It was a huge shift for her and a true
turning point in her career because I think Idol really
humanized her. I felt it really gave us a chance
to show that she was not just a singer and
a performer and an actress, but she was an actual
person with feelings. It definitely made her more accessible, if
(04:30):
that's the rec I do you know, when you ask
a lot of people about this moment in time, a
lot of people think that Idol really saved her career because,
like you said, people saw her as a mom, not
just this diva superstar blinged out on a yacht in
a bikini. She said that in the process of trying
(04:53):
to build this perfect life in a family life, she
felt kind of lost and she lost who she was
as an artist, but that Idol was the thing that
gave her purpose and it really helped launch the next
chapter of Jennifer's career. She had her first headlining concert
tour in the middle of all of this. In twenty twelve,
(05:13):
I know, and I also think that for her creatively,
being around all of those aspiring singers, well, it made
her want to get back out there, make her own
music again. Dance again. The album that gave us on
the floor. That's the Jalo I love. That's the Jalo
we need, the one we can shake our as too.
(05:36):
And this next musical step in her career was by design.
Jalo had taken a very smart and strategic step in
her music. Instead of making full albums, she just started
making singles with some of the world's hottest performers. She
released We Are One, the official song for the twenty
fourteen FIFA World Cup, along with pit Pole, So I
(05:58):
Know he is. You know, it's so funny because she
was sitting in front row watching Ricky Martin sing Cup
of Life at the Grammys and then here she was
now with her own FIFA song. I mean, something was
definitely going on. She was modeling her career and that
was just the beginning. The bangers just kept coming and coming.
(06:19):
She had Ain't Your Mamma God. I love that song. Mama,
you can actually say that. I can say that Mama Elanio,
which Elanio was Juice the Nettle featuring Kalid and Cardi
B Juice and more Juice. Basically, Jayla was working with
the hottest names in music, turning out hit after a
(06:42):
hit and looking better and happier than ever. Yeah, so
much so that she took her act to Vegas for
an incredible residency. It was called All I Have, And
let me tell you, she gave us all she had
on that stage. It was all good. Did she leave
it there all she had left it? Or I mean
I wish you would have left at least a sequin
(07:03):
or something on this stage and I could have taken it.
It was so good. It was a Planet Hollywood. She
just shine, you know what it was that theater. Planet
Hollywood is the perfect size venue. So Britney Spears did
her residency there as well. Yes, I saw her there
three times because I'm obsessed Brittany. So that theater is
(07:24):
the perfect scale for Brittany, for j Lo, because I
felt intimate but still big. And let me just tell you,
the costumes were law. Oh I bet she just gave
you look after look after look. I need to go
backstage and understand how the quick changes work, because there's
no way that she can shove all of those feathers
under some little coat and then pop out like an ostrich.
(07:46):
It was so good. But here's the thing, you guys.
That was only the beginning of all of the fabulous
things to come. So what is the crowning achievement of
the twenty year career filled with the super Bowl in Miami.
In February twenty twenty, Lopez co headlined the Super Bowl
halftime show in Miami alongside Shakira. The performance included an
(08:11):
appearance by her child's Emmy, Jay Baldman and residence So
Noo Icon Bad Bunny. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. This
would have been a long time coming for j Low.
For so long, she'd been fighting for her voice to
be heard, and it finally felt like it was happening.
Her team did feel it was a little shady to
(08:31):
have two Latino women do the jobs that is usually
given to just one performer, but they didn't let that
hold them back, no, not for one second, because this
was a chance to bring together the Latino community, or
should I say, the Latino game. They even made a
mission statement with a power point and everything all official
(08:55):
and shit true that their mission was to make a
statement to a divided declaring the importance of kindness, compassion,
and above all, inclusivity. They wanted to be a reminder
that we are always stronger, always better when we do
things together. Super Bowl twenty twenty, take me back, this
(09:15):
was pre COVID days. I was ware were there. I
remember that. I remember I had to help you find
a makeup arket. You did you help me find a
makeup artist in Miami on Super Bowl weekend. You know
we're probably gonna touch on super Bowl twenty twenty a
lot when we talk about Shakira in a future episode.
But let's focus on j Lo right now, because, in
(09:36):
her words, okay, the most important part of the show
wasn't all the crazy outfits and let the hustlers move
on the pole. For her, the most important part of
the show was let's get loud with all the little
girls in the light of cages. She wanted this moment
to say something bigger. She wanted it to say that immigrants,
(09:57):
all people deserve to be in the US, and that
no cage can contain anyone. And then you have a
transition to board in the USA. So while we think
of Jlo as these songs that we can just shake
our ass to in the club. Here she was using
these songs and iconic Jalo hits with iconic Americana songs
(10:19):
by Bruce Springsteen to really send this massive message on
a global scale. I thought it was really powerful, and
I think it's not what people would have expected from her.
You're absolutely right, But I was just there for that
pole dancing. I know you got really deep, but I
got to go back to that scandal because it was
just that was fucking jalo, a fifty year old woman
on that pole, and I was here for that. I mean,
(10:42):
that is what I think we all love about Jennifer Lopez,
I think, and that's what the documentary Halftime really showed.
There's a duality to her, and there's a duality to
all people, right, everyone's everyone. It's sure, of course she
can have this sane bod that makes us envious and
it defies the laws of aging in physics. But she's
(11:06):
also a mom, and she's Puerto Rican and she grew
up in the Bronx and she cares about her community,
and for so long people didn't let that side of
her exist because they felt, well, you can't be in
like glittery unit chard shaking that ass, but also have
important things to say. She was feeding us the American
dream and telling us everybody should be able to have this. Yeah,
(11:28):
exactly so, to all the haters out there, j Loo
got the last word. This performance was not just widely praised,
but it is currently the most watched Super Bowl halftime
show to date. There's no denying that she's a musical icon,
(11:50):
no doubt, and when you hear her music most of
the time, it makes you want to twerk. Bounce on Todd,
drop it, drop it low girl, drop it, drop it
low girl. Joseph, it is finally time to shake your ass. Yeah,
we're going all the way back to the beginning to
(12:10):
tell you the origins of Jlo and how she danced
her way into the spotlight. When you think about what
made Jlo famous, what's the very first thing that comes
to mind? Duh? Her killer body? Okay, fair? What's the
(12:31):
second thing, Joseph, Wait a minute, her dancing. Yes, So,
we can't go through Jalo's career and not discuss the
foundation of her entire career. They were literally her first
steps to superstart them. Jlo's parents were your typical Latin parents,
(12:51):
strict but also supportive. Can you relate to that sentiment? Absolutely?
I would say that my parents were even strict and
very lightly supportive. It's just it was a hard balance
both of my parents or my mom is an immigrant.
My dad was born in Puerto Rico, a spent his
whole life in Puerto Rico, very Latino, very new to
the US. When he moved here, it was a totally
(13:13):
new world for him, and I think how they grew
up really played a role in how they parented me.
They parented me the way that their parents parented them.
But I guess the question is, what is it about
Latino parents and tough love? Why do those two things
go hand in hand all the time. My mom was
really really supportive, and my dad just didn't really say much.
(13:34):
They were very strict in how they wanted me to
approach education and obviously how I was going to approach
going on to college. But they were supportive. They just
weren't supportive of creative thing, anything that was outside of education.
They were like, why do you need to do that,
Why do you need to play sports, Why do you
need to have friends? Just focus on your education, get
a full ride, go to college and become a lawyer.
(13:54):
That was really what they wanted for me, and they
both pushed that agenda because it wasn't something that they
had And I feel like that's what happens. Our parents
try to use us as vehicles to what they find successful,
the success that maybe they couldn't get to in their
opportunities here in the US. I feel like that has
a lot to do with it. I think it's true.
I have four older brothers, and I think as the
(14:18):
youngest one out of all of them, the fifth I
got away with everything. Your mom was like, I'm done.
This one can raise himself. I think a lot of
times when you talk to first generation kids, it's the
idea of what is a quote unquote real job or
a real career for our parents is different than what
we think of it. And that's kind of what happened
(14:39):
with Jennifer. You know, her parents didn't consider being a
performer a real career, but she says, to their credit,
they did encourage their daughters to explore their more creative sides,
anything to keep them busy in off the streets. I
say so. As early as the age of five, Jennifer
started taking classes at Ballet Spanico. She was the unnatural,
(15:04):
but if she was going to be the dancer in
the family, then she had to be the best at
the ballet he Spanico. Jennifer began developing her talent. It
became a second home to her. Training as a dancer,
but also teaching younger dancers meant the world to her,
including teaching Kerrie Washington shut your butt. She taught Olivia
(15:28):
Pope how to dance. Yes, I know, small world, right,
But it turns out that Carrie Washington used to take
classes with her teacher, Larry Malunado, but according to Carrie,
he quote had an awesome substitute teacher named Jennifer who
would sometimes step in and teach Jenny and Carrie from
(15:48):
the block. Really, Joseph, have you seen Kerry Washington's moves?
I actually have not, so you have to tell me, Oh, okay, Well,
here's the thing. If you guys are on Instagram or
TikTok and y'all have not seen Carrie dance it out?
What are you even doing on these apps? Because girl
can move. I'm not saying j Loo is responsible for it,
(16:09):
but I have a feeling she was kind of born
a good dancer and then taking classes just enhance it.
She's got serious moves. I would love to see the
two of them dancing at It was about to say,
I think they need a dance off officially, can we
make that happen? So by now, I bet y'all are
wondering where this deep love for music and movement came from.
(16:30):
And yes, of course it came from her parents love
for musica, especially salsa, and all the classics that our
parents grew up on. But j Lo was also raised
with musical theater. Her mom, Lupe, loved musicals and they
watched them regularly as a family. Damn all we watched
growing up. My family was sat Saved by the Bell
(16:52):
And obviously, obviously did you grow up watching musicals? The
short answer is no, because musicals were like very green gold.
But that was not a part of how I was
raised like my family. Culturally, No, culturally same for you.
(17:12):
Like culture for us was the novedas And it really
wasn't until I got into high school that I started
to really fall in love with musical theater. And then
I saw Rent on Broadway and it completely changed Mile Good,
so good, Chicago changed my life. There's always one, and
(17:37):
you know who else's life. It changed j Loo. She
was fascinated by them being able to sing, dance, and
act all at the same time. That was the dream.
And there was one musical that changed her life forever.
Three words West Side Story. It's a modern day Romeo
(18:00):
and Juliet sat on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
There's big dance numbers, vibrant costumes and glado Rita modeno
I mean once not to love a singer, a dancer,
an actress. And she was Puerto Rican. She was living,
breathing proof that Jlo could achieve her dreams. I mean,
look at Rita. That visualization of what a career on
(18:23):
stage could look like was life changing for her. It
was one of the first times she really saw herself
on a screen. It made her feel like she existed,
that she was important, and that she had a chance
at a career as a performer. From that point on,
Jennifer wanted to be in every production at her school.
(18:44):
She was in all these high school plays, singing and
acting and ship well not really, she was usually just
a dancer. But then in eleventh grade she was cast
as one of the leads in God's Ville and that
meant Jenny had to sing, of course, on her big
opening night in front of everyone, her family, her friends,
(19:05):
her cast mates. Just where she was about to sing
day by Day Girl choked the pure stage fright. Oh god,
it was so bad. Her voice was clumsy, off key,
and like Randy Jackson would say, that was a little
pitchy man, little pitchy. Jay Loo recalls she was terrified
(19:31):
during that moment, and as an inexperienced vocalist, she didn't
know how to control the fear in her voice. You know,
I had a similar moment in my TLC cover Man debut. Okay, no, no, no,
I'm left eye. I've got my halter on baggy cargoes
and I'm just about to drop into by leaving yourself,
the rest is up to me. You or were you
(19:53):
about to do the don't go chase and water fuzz
please stick to the vill And that wasn't crazy, sexy
or cool. Okay, let's go back to the Bronx please,
all right? So onstage, Jennifer gave it her all and
she took the Ellen stride. She had discovered the power
(20:15):
of self confidence, or as some of us call it,
just make it till you make it. That was beautiful,
little poetry Listen. She knew exactly what she wanted to
do with her life, but her parents, that was a
different story. They still didn't think performing was a career.
They wanted her to go to college and become a professional,
(20:35):
but after one semester in college, Jennifer dropped out. I
feel this, I feel Jelo as a dancer because I
am a makeup artist and I didn't know that I
could really take this career to where it is now.
As a makeup artist, you just feel like you're at
a counter or something like that. So I can see
how her parents were afraid. Oh my goodness, totally. I
(20:59):
think this is such a first generation mindset. You know,
your parents feel there's only certain acceptable careers that they
want for their children. You can be a doctor, you
can be an accountant, you can be an engineer. In
my case, you could be a lawyer. Because our parents
had these kind of archaic visions of how somebody could
(21:19):
make money, and the only rich people they knew were lawyers, doctors,
or accountants, and that's really what they wanted for us.
It comes from a good place, but what it does
is it stifles all of the creativity that we as
young Latinos have. I want to imagine a world where
Latinos don't have to choose between being a lawyer or
(21:41):
being an artist. I feel like all of these creative
avenues should have a place in our world as well.
If you have young children, remember that you could be
parenting the next little j Low right now. So let
that little baby take all the dance classes. I'm investing
wherever you are to take all the ballet, all the
acting classes, all the art classes. Let's let our little
(22:03):
baby Latinos be as creative as they dream to be.
Anybody who saw Jennifer dance when she was young would
describe her as a star. Dancing for her was like
second nature, very graceful and fluid. She made it look effortless.
Jlo dreamed of the Great White Way, Broadway and beyond,
but everyone else in the Bronx thought she was a
(22:26):
real funny girl for that one. Hold on, hold on, Joseph,
have you yet seen funny Girl? Do you know who
originated the role? Glado Cano? I don't even write this.
I don't even know what funny girl is. I appreciate
your honesty. Let's go back to Broadway. Right. Here's the thing.
Anybody that has tried or attempted to perform on Broadway
(22:50):
knows that getting a big break is not easy. There's
just not that many gigs available to go around, especially
for young Latinos from the Bronx. Until in nineteen ninety,
(23:11):
MC hammers you Can't Touch This was everywhere. Hammer was everything.
He got everyone wearing parachute pants aka hammer pants aka
my favorite pair of yoga pants, and of course we
all wrapped along into light whenever the song came on
the radio and it desperately tried to nail all those moves.
(23:36):
Thank god there was no social media then or video
evidence of me attempting to do this dance. And one
thing that we loved about mc hammer and this song
was that he presented this song with huge stage shows
with dozens of dancers, and now every artist in group
wanted the exact same thing. Who wouldn't want their own
(23:56):
backup dancers? Can you imagine the drama when you walk
into that room. And that's why hip hop dancers at
that time were in such high demand, especially for pop
groups like go On to Say It Now, Kids on
the Black and KOTB y'all. I was in love with
(24:16):
the little one Joey. I mean I had it all obviously.
I had the posters and the tapes, but I also
had the pillows. I had the lip gloss. No, no, no,
my boo, my book come back to me. Okay, fine,
I'm good. I'm back down now. In twenty eleven, Jennifer
even told Jay Leno that her big break was actually
(24:37):
performing with NKOTB at the nineteen ninety one AM as
she was moving and grooving, bitch, did you see that performance?
I had to go back and rewatch it. I don't
know why I don't remember this performance. I mean, I
think I was Jesus, I was a baby. I think
I was eleven, and I don't know that I watched
(24:59):
this perform It's live the first time. But I'll tell
you this, I went back and watching it for this podcast,
and it was giving me like so much nineties glory.
I mean, the gold Duda mc hammer in Living Color,
like that was the time to be alive. So again,
I don't remember j Loo, but I do obviously remember
(25:23):
all of the music. It's just crazy to me that
she was one of like thirty dancers in this It
wasn't like it was her dancing with Joey or with Jordan.
She was in the back. I couldn't even spot her
in the actual footage. It was nineteen ninety one, and
to be honest, nobody knew who Jennifer was. The host
(25:43):
of the AMAS that night was Keenan Ivory Wayans, and
just four months later he would debut his brand new
comedy Scotch show on Fox in Living Color. I'd say
it was an ESNL, but for a younger, more diverse crowding.
It featured Jamie, Jim Carrey, David Alan Grier, Damon Wayans.
(26:03):
All of them got their start on in Living Color,
and for about two years it was a cultural sensation.
I lived for this show and for all of our
younger listeners that maybe never watch it, don't know what
we're talking about. It was awesome, you guys. It was
all of these sketches, iconic moments. Joseph, I know you
(26:25):
have a favorite sketch. What was your favorite one from
in Living Color? It was the two gay guys, obviously,
and they would do a snap in a Z formation
and they would let's go, hey, did it do you
remember that? I do remember that. You know what I
remember Jim Carrey, Fire Marshall Billy. He was scary, he
(26:47):
was supposed scared. My dad freaking loved a fire Marshall bill.
So it was all of these different sketches. It was
all these performances, but at the very top of the
show and in between all these sketches, and then right
before where they went to commercial break, they would have
these female dancers perform the fly Girls. Yes, and at
the time, everyone wanted to be on the show, so
(27:10):
naturally Jlo auditioned, but she got rejected, not once but twice.
But right before the debut of the show, one of
the dancers mysteriously vanished, vanished like dateline vanished, which I
already told you. You You have to keep your phone on
you so they could track you. And don't trust your man, Joseph. No,
(27:33):
she didn't vanish like disappear. She basically just ghosted on production.
She is fine, for the record, nothing serious happened to her.
But this did create a huge opportunity for j Lo.
She came back a third time and our girl got
the job. But there's always a butt, isn't there. This
(27:57):
job would take her to La and being a New Yorker.
Jennifer just was not about that West Coast life. I
mean to be honest, neither am I excuse you so much, Shade,
But here's the thing. It wasn't this West coast East
coast battle like Biggie versus Tupac. Jennifer just wasn't really
(28:18):
into it because of the distance. She missed her family,
so the space and loneliness really got to her. And
the other fly girls, Yo, they didn't like her. Spill
the tea, bitch, Okay, I'll come out to a regular
volume down Okay. So allegedly they didn't like her. Maybe
they thought she was getting special treatment, and yet she
(28:41):
got in the girl lay Okay. But here's the thing.
You want to know which flygirl was the toughest on her?
Oh tell me, bitch, tell me Rosie Harrez, say what.
The Brooklyn born Bodhigua was the show's choreographer, and she
would bush Lopez's buttons. She had her number, y'all. There
(29:05):
were lots of laudrimas. I feel like Rosie saw another
Nuyorica and was like, you have to show these people
what were made of and show them that we're the best. Okay, fair,
but Jennifer didn't really see it that way. The two
of them first met in nineteen ninety one during the
open cast and call for the show's Fly Girls. It
Is was the choreographer the Hbic and claims that she
(29:29):
was the one who convinced the host and creator Keenan
to pick Lopez, and in her memoir Handbook for an
Unpredictable Life, she even claimed that Wahn's thought j Lo
was I quote chubby and corny, and that none of
the other girls liked her. First of all, chubby and corny. Literally,
(29:55):
who says that that's I'm gonna bring that back number one,
number two gag? That's insane. Yes, So Rosie alleges that
they would come into her office, claiming that Lopez was
manipulating wardrobe, makeup, even manipulating her as herself. Paris denied
it until one day Lopez went off on her and
(30:16):
I quote like some ghetto beach, screaming and pounding her chest.
Those are Rosie's words, not mine, and j Loo had
had enough. One day, Lopez shouted this, you pick on me,
me and only me every fucking day. Every fucking day,
I work my ass off, deliver and you keep pushing
(30:38):
me aside, treating me like shit. I know I'm good.
I'm better than any of these girls, and you know it,
see what I mean? Hold on, I just have to
say I really heard that in the j Loo Wedding
planner voice, and it was just so good. To be honest,
I didn't know any of this beef until I started
doing research for this episode. But y'all, if you did
(31:00):
not stop at a living color, this ship went on
for years. Because Rosie claims that Jennifer continued to make
disparaging comments about her in Hollywood. I mean, why were
they fighting? You know? I think that's a really good question,
and I wish somebody would sit them down, maybe like
Jada could sit them at the red table, invite them
(31:21):
both and find out why this feud started. I mean,
here's what I'm going to say. Rosie and Jennifer are
of a certain age. They are from a different generation
of not just women, but Latina women. And if you
think back to the nineties, these two women were coming
(31:42):
from a scarcity. There were no roles for Latina's. There
was like maybe once a year, once every two year
or something would come up. So I feel like in
today's world, we look at this and be like, oh
my god, why wouldn't you want to help your girl.
She's Puerto Rica and you're both from New York. I
would not want to help each other. It was a
different place back then. It was a different time, and
(32:05):
when you're not coming from abundance, that is when you
start to pick these stupid fights with people that could
actually be your biggest advocates. So that is my explanation.
You're welcome, but I really want to hear it from
Rosie and Jennifer on Red Table Talk. So let's also
put that out into the universe and make it happen.
Despite all of the onset drama in Living Color proved
(32:28):
that Jennifer was a star. I mean, she took five
minutes of airtime every week and turned it into a
launching pad for her career. During the day, she would
rehearse for the show, and at night she would take
acting lessons. She spent two seasons on the show, and
soon after she was everywhere, including Janet Jackson's video where
That's the Way Love Goes? That song was sex e Hollee.
(32:52):
They do not make music like that anymore. I'm sorry, No,
that was like some sultry, sexy shit. Yeah, like listen,
Shakida and Alejandro's sons have like done some stuff. But
oh my god, Janet everything, it was everything. Now did
you know that Jennifer was actually supposed to go on
(33:13):
tour with Janet for the entire year, But when the
tour started, Jenny called and said, sorry, y'all, I'm out.
I mean, bitch had other plants. She sure did. Jenny's
dancing took her all over the world, from Castle Hill
and the Bronx too far away places throughout Europe, Latin America,
and Asia. In her twenty eleven book True Love, she writes,
(33:37):
I'm a dancer. That's who I am. I'm most happy
and free and alive when I'm dancing. She still choreographs
all her shows, her tours, the Vegas Residency, and just
to bring it all full circle for y'all. In twenty
twenty one, it was announced that she's teaming up with
Sky Dance to adapt the entire catalog of Rogers and
(33:57):
Hammer Sign. We're talking a TV version of Oklahoma that
is already in the works. Oklahoma is pretty far from
the Bronx. It is, but you have to remember how
did we start this episode? She was always inspired by
the Golden Age of musicals, and now with her stature
and her power, she's able to make musicals for the
(34:18):
next generation. I wonder if you'll turn any of those
musicals into film. Excuse me, look at you, Joseph. With
that seamless transition, my babies are grown up. On the
next Becoming an Icon, We've covered the singing, we've covered
(34:40):
the dancing. Now it's time for the drama. Becoming an
Icon is presented by so Noo and Ihearts Michael Guda
podcast Network. Listen to Becoming an Icon on the iHeartRadio
app podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
So when we last left Jennifer, our girl was stuck
like me in an extra extra SMARTE T shirt. I
met more of a creative sense. But thank you for
that image, Joseph. After the album Rebirth came out, she
made other records and some movies, but she seemed lost.
That fuigo that Jlo had when she came out, well
it was totes missing. This is when many stars can
(00:24):
fade away. They break out, have a ton of success,
but when they lose their magic, they can't find it again.
Dare I say that's what separates the iconic. You're not wrong.
On today's episode, we continue with Jlo's music career, her reinvention,
and how she learned to dance again. I'm your host
(00:48):
Liliana Vasquez and I'm Joseph Carrillo and this is Becoming
an icon a weekly podcast where we give you the
rundown on how today's most famous Latin X stars have
shaped pop culture and given the world some extrassleble. Sit
back and get comfortable because we are going in the
(01:09):
only way we know how, with ba and a lot
of opinions, as we relive their greatest achievements on our
journey to find out what makes them so iconic. After
(01:29):
the album Rebirth came out, she married Mark Anthony, went
on her first tour with her then husband, released a
few more albums, and embarked on her most important role yet,
Mama j Low. Now, if you think about it, she
had done so much at such a high level, and
the one thing she hadn't done was become a mother yet.
(01:53):
And it was something that she really wanted. And I
was so excited to see her do this with Mark Anthony.
And let me tell you why. I know that she
was head over heels in love with Ben and she
loved the dancers and whatnot, but there was just something
so special about her making little boutiqua babies with Mark Anthony.
(02:17):
I just loved this for her and I felt like,
at this time in her life, it's what she needed.
She needed these little twin babies. And they kept it
a secret until their final show in Miami where they
announced it to the world. Now, if you ask people
that were watching Dale at the time, it was the
worst kept secret ever, because when you're pregnant with twins,
people know pretty early. I just remember there was a
(02:40):
big thing with People magazine and money involved and it
was something really crazy. Yeah, so it was a huge,
big deal. You know, things are not like this anymore
because now we live in like Instagram and everything is instant.
But back then the way we saw celebrities baby pictures
were on the cover of People magazine and at the time,
(03:02):
People allegedly paid six million dollars for the first photos
of twins Emmy and Max. She had a boy and
a girl, and it was a big deal back then,
and it was a very top secret. I remember she
was in Long Island with Mark Anthony and again she
was rumored to have basically like bought up this whole
(03:25):
giant delivery suite at this hospital. No one was allowed
to set foot in the space until she checked in,
And because obviously when you're having a baby, you never
know when you're going to have it, they had to
pay for weeks and weeks of holding this room for
her until she could get in there. And it was
top secret, tons of security. Can you imagine Jennifer Lopez
about to deliver babies. It was American Royalty. When Jayla
(03:48):
left the Spotlight to become a mother, it really allowed
her to reset and refocus, to figure out what she
wanted most out of her music, and with this new focus,
she made a lot of changes. In two eleven, she
reinvented herself once again and became a judge on American Idol.
(04:08):
It was a huge shift for her and a true
turning point in her career because I think Idol really
humanized her. I felt it really gave us a chance
to show that she was not just a singer and
a performer and an actress, but she was an actual
person with feelings. It definitely made her more accessible, if
(04:30):
that's the rec I do you know, when you ask
a lot of people about this moment in time, a
lot of people think that Idol really saved her career because,
like you said, people saw her as a mom, not
just this diva superstar blinged out on a yacht in
a bikini. She said that in the process of trying
(04:53):
to build this perfect life in a family life, she
felt kind of lost and she lost who she was
as an artist, but that Idol was the thing that
gave her purpose and it really helped launch the next
chapter of Jennifer's career. She had her first headlining concert
tour in the middle of all of this. In twenty twelve,
(05:13):
I know, and I also think that for her creatively,
being around all of those aspiring singers, well, it made
her want to get back out there, make her own
music again. Dance again. The album that gave us on
the floor. That's the Jalo I love. That's the Jalo
we need, the one we can shake our as too.
(05:36):
And this next musical step in her career was by design.
Jalo had taken a very smart and strategic step in
her music. Instead of making full albums, she just started
making singles with some of the world's hottest performers. She
released We Are One, the official song for the twenty
fourteen FIFA World Cup, along with pit Pole, So I
(05:58):
Know he is. You know, it's so funny because she
was sitting in front row watching Ricky Martin sing Cup
of Life at the Grammys and then here she was
now with her own FIFA song. I mean, something was
definitely going on. She was modeling her career and that
was just the beginning. The bangers just kept coming and coming.
(06:19):
She had Ain't Your Mamma God. I love that song. Mama,
you can actually say that. I can say that Mama Elanio,
which Elanio was Juice the Nettle featuring Kalid and Cardi
B Juice and more Juice. Basically, Jayla was working with
the hottest names in music, turning out hit after a
(06:42):
hit and looking better and happier than ever. Yeah, so
much so that she took her act to Vegas for
an incredible residency. It was called All I Have, And
let me tell you, she gave us all she had
on that stage. It was all good. Did she leave
it there all she had left it? Or I mean
I wish you would have left at least a sequin
(07:03):
or something on this stage and I could have taken it.
It was so good. It was a Planet Hollywood. She
just shine, you know what it was that theater. Planet
Hollywood is the perfect size venue. So Britney Spears did
her residency there as well. Yes, I saw her there
three times because I'm obsessed Brittany. So that theater is
(07:24):
the perfect scale for Brittany, for j Lo, because I
felt intimate but still big. And let me just tell you,
the costumes were law. Oh I bet she just gave
you look after look after look. I need to go
backstage and understand how the quick changes work, because there's
no way that she can shove all of those feathers
under some little coat and then pop out like an ostrich.
(07:46):
It was so good. But here's the thing, you guys.
That was only the beginning of all of the fabulous
things to come. So what is the crowning achievement of
the twenty year career filled with the super Bowl in Miami.
In February twenty twenty, Lopez co headlined the Super Bowl
halftime show in Miami alongside Shakira. The performance included an
(08:11):
appearance by her child's Emmy, Jay Baldman and residence So
Noo Icon Bad Bunny. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. This
would have been a long time coming for j Low.
For so long, she'd been fighting for her voice to
be heard, and it finally felt like it was happening.
Her team did feel it was a little shady to
(08:31):
have two Latino women do the jobs that is usually
given to just one performer, but they didn't let that
hold them back, no, not for one second, because this
was a chance to bring together the Latino community, or
should I say, the Latino game. They even made a
mission statement with a power point and everything all official
(08:55):
and shit true that their mission was to make a
statement to a divided declaring the importance of kindness, compassion,
and above all, inclusivity. They wanted to be a reminder
that we are always stronger, always better when we do
things together. Super Bowl twenty twenty, take me back, this
(09:15):
was pre COVID days. I was ware were there. I
remember that. I remember I had to help you find
a makeup arket. You did you help me find a
makeup artist in Miami on Super Bowl weekend. You know
we're probably gonna touch on super Bowl twenty twenty a
lot when we talk about Shakira in a future episode.
But let's focus on j Lo right now, because, in
(09:36):
her words, okay, the most important part of the show
wasn't all the crazy outfits and let the hustlers move
on the pole. For her, the most important part of
the show was let's get loud with all the little
girls in the light of cages. She wanted this moment
to say something bigger. She wanted it to say that immigrants,
(09:57):
all people deserve to be in the US, and that
no cage can contain anyone. And then you have a
transition to board in the USA. So while we think
of Jlo as these songs that we can just shake
our ass to in the club. Here she was using
these songs and iconic Jalo hits with iconic Americana songs
(10:19):
by Bruce Springsteen to really send this massive message on
a global scale. I thought it was really powerful, and
I think it's not what people would have expected from her.
You're absolutely right, But I was just there for that
pole dancing. I know you got really deep, but I
got to go back to that scandal because it was
just that was fucking jalo, a fifty year old woman
on that pole, and I was here for that. I mean,
(10:42):
that is what I think we all love about Jennifer Lopez,
I think, and that's what the documentary Halftime really showed.
There's a duality to her, and there's a duality to
all people, right, everyone's everyone. It's sure, of course she
can have this sane bod that makes us envious and
it defies the laws of aging in physics. But she's
(11:06):
also a mom, and she's Puerto Rican and she grew
up in the Bronx and she cares about her community,
and for so long people didn't let that side of
her exist because they felt, well, you can't be in
like glittery unit chard shaking that ass, but also have
important things to say. She was feeding us the American
dream and telling us everybody should be able to have this. Yeah,
(11:28):
exactly so, to all the haters out there, j Loo
got the last word. This performance was not just widely praised,
but it is currently the most watched Super Bowl halftime
show to date. There's no denying that she's a musical icon,
(11:50):
no doubt, and when you hear her music most of
the time, it makes you want to twerk. Bounce on Todd,
drop it, drop it low girl, drop it, drop it
low girl. Joseph, it is finally time to shake your ass. Yeah,
we're going all the way back to the beginning to
(12:10):
tell you the origins of Jlo and how she danced
her way into the spotlight. When you think about what
made Jlo famous, what's the very first thing that comes
to mind? Duh? Her killer body? Okay, fair? What's the
(12:31):
second thing, Joseph, Wait a minute, her dancing. Yes, So,
we can't go through Jalo's career and not discuss the
foundation of her entire career. They were literally her first
steps to superstart them. Jlo's parents were your typical Latin parents,
(12:51):
strict but also supportive. Can you relate to that sentiment? Absolutely?
I would say that my parents were even strict and
very lightly supportive. It's just it was a hard balance
both of my parents or my mom is an immigrant.
My dad was born in Puerto Rico, a spent his
whole life in Puerto Rico, very Latino, very new to
the US. When he moved here, it was a totally
(13:13):
new world for him, and I think how they grew
up really played a role in how they parented me.
They parented me the way that their parents parented them.
But I guess the question is, what is it about
Latino parents and tough love? Why do those two things
go hand in hand all the time. My mom was
really really supportive, and my dad just didn't really say much.
(13:34):
They were very strict in how they wanted me to
approach education and obviously how I was going to approach
going on to college. But they were supportive. They just
weren't supportive of creative thing, anything that was outside of education.
They were like, why do you need to do that,
Why do you need to play sports, Why do you
need to have friends? Just focus on your education, get
a full ride, go to college and become a lawyer.
(13:54):
That was really what they wanted for me, and they
both pushed that agenda because it wasn't something that they
had And I feel like that's what happens. Our parents
try to use us as vehicles to what they find successful,
the success that maybe they couldn't get to in their
opportunities here in the US. I feel like that has
a lot to do with it. I think it's true.
I have four older brothers, and I think as the
(14:18):
youngest one out of all of them, the fifth I
got away with everything. Your mom was like, I'm done.
This one can raise himself. I think a lot of
times when you talk to first generation kids, it's the
idea of what is a quote unquote real job or
a real career for our parents is different than what
we think of it. And that's kind of what happened
(14:39):
with Jennifer. You know, her parents didn't consider being a
performer a real career, but she says, to their credit,
they did encourage their daughters to explore their more creative sides,
anything to keep them busy in off the streets. I
say so. As early as the age of five, Jennifer
started taking classes at Ballet Spanico. She was the unnatural,
(15:04):
but if she was going to be the dancer in
the family, then she had to be the best at
the ballet he Spanico. Jennifer began developing her talent. It
became a second home to her. Training as a dancer,
but also teaching younger dancers meant the world to her,
including teaching Kerrie Washington shut your butt. She taught Olivia
(15:28):
Pope how to dance. Yes, I know, small world, right,
But it turns out that Carrie Washington used to take
classes with her teacher, Larry Malunado, but according to Carrie,
he quote had an awesome substitute teacher named Jennifer who
would sometimes step in and teach Jenny and Carrie from
(15:48):
the block. Really, Joseph, have you seen Kerry Washington's moves?
I actually have not, so you have to tell me, Oh, okay, Well,
here's the thing. If you guys are on Instagram or
TikTok and y'all have not seen Carrie dance it out?
What are you even doing on these apps? Because girl
can move. I'm not saying j Loo is responsible for it,
(16:09):
but I have a feeling she was kind of born
a good dancer and then taking classes just enhance it.
She's got serious moves. I would love to see the
two of them dancing at It was about to say,
I think they need a dance off officially, can we
make that happen? So by now, I bet y'all are
wondering where this deep love for music and movement came from.
(16:30):
And yes, of course it came from her parents love
for musica, especially salsa, and all the classics that our
parents grew up on. But j Lo was also raised
with musical theater. Her mom, Lupe, loved musicals and they
watched them regularly as a family. Damn all we watched
growing up. My family was sat Saved by the Bell
(16:52):
And obviously, obviously did you grow up watching musicals? The
short answer is no, because musicals were like very green gold.
But that was not a part of how I was
raised like my family. Culturally, No, culturally same for you.
(17:12):
Like culture for us was the novedas And it really
wasn't until I got into high school that I started
to really fall in love with musical theater. And then
I saw Rent on Broadway and it completely changed Mile Good,
so good, Chicago changed my life. There's always one, and
(17:37):
you know who else's life. It changed j Loo. She
was fascinated by them being able to sing, dance, and
act all at the same time. That was the dream.
And there was one musical that changed her life forever.
Three words West Side Story. It's a modern day Romeo
(18:00):
and Juliet sat on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
There's big dance numbers, vibrant costumes and glado Rita modeno
I mean once not to love a singer, a dancer,
an actress. And she was Puerto Rican. She was living,
breathing proof that Jlo could achieve her dreams. I mean,
look at Rita. That visualization of what a career on
(18:23):
stage could look like was life changing for her. It
was one of the first times she really saw herself
on a screen. It made her feel like she existed,
that she was important, and that she had a chance
at a career as a performer. From that point on,
Jennifer wanted to be in every production at her school.
(18:44):
She was in all these high school plays, singing and
acting and ship well not really, she was usually just
a dancer. But then in eleventh grade she was cast
as one of the leads in God's Ville and that
meant Jenny had to sing, of course, on her big
opening night in front of everyone, her family, her friends,
(19:05):
her cast mates. Just where she was about to sing
day by Day Girl choked the pure stage fright. Oh god,
it was so bad. Her voice was clumsy, off key,
and like Randy Jackson would say, that was a little
pitchy man, little pitchy. Jay Loo recalls she was terrified
(19:31):
during that moment, and as an inexperienced vocalist, she didn't
know how to control the fear in her voice. You know,
I had a similar moment in my TLC cover Man debut. Okay, no, no, no,
I'm left eye. I've got my halter on baggy cargoes
and I'm just about to drop into by leaving yourself,
the rest is up to me. You or were you
(19:53):
about to do the don't go chase and water fuzz
please stick to the vill And that wasn't crazy, sexy
or cool. Okay, let's go back to the Bronx please,
all right? So onstage, Jennifer gave it her all and
she took the Ellen stride. She had discovered the power
(20:15):
of self confidence, or as some of us call it,
just make it till you make it. That was beautiful,
little poetry Listen. She knew exactly what she wanted to
do with her life, but her parents, that was a
different story. They still didn't think performing was a career.
They wanted her to go to college and become a professional,
(20:35):
but after one semester in college, Jennifer dropped out. I
feel this, I feel Jelo as a dancer because I
am a makeup artist and I didn't know that I
could really take this career to where it is now.
As a makeup artist, you just feel like you're at
a counter or something like that. So I can see
how her parents were afraid. Oh my goodness, totally. I
(20:59):
think this is such a first generation mindset. You know,
your parents feel there's only certain acceptable careers that they
want for their children. You can be a doctor, you
can be an accountant, you can be an engineer. In
my case, you could be a lawyer. Because our parents
had these kind of archaic visions of how somebody could
(21:19):
make money, and the only rich people they knew were lawyers, doctors,
or accountants, and that's really what they wanted for us.
It comes from a good place, but what it does
is it stifles all of the creativity that we as
young Latinos have. I want to imagine a world where
Latinos don't have to choose between being a lawyer or
(21:41):
being an artist. I feel like all of these creative
avenues should have a place in our world as well.
If you have young children, remember that you could be
parenting the next little j Low right now. So let
that little baby take all the dance classes. I'm investing
wherever you are to take all the ballet, all the
acting classes, all the art classes. Let's let our little
(22:03):
baby Latinos be as creative as they dream to be.
Anybody who saw Jennifer dance when she was young would
describe her as a star. Dancing for her was like
second nature, very graceful and fluid. She made it look effortless.
Jlo dreamed of the Great White Way, Broadway and beyond,
but everyone else in the Bronx thought she was a
(22:26):
real funny girl for that one. Hold on, hold on, Joseph,
have you yet seen funny Girl? Do you know who
originated the role? Glado Cano? I don't even write this.
I don't even know what funny girl is. I appreciate
your honesty. Let's go back to Broadway. Right. Here's the thing.
Anybody that has tried or attempted to perform on Broadway
(22:50):
knows that getting a big break is not easy. There's
just not that many gigs available to go around, especially
for young Latinos from the Bronx. Until in nineteen ninety,
(23:11):
MC hammers you Can't Touch This was everywhere. Hammer was everything.
He got everyone wearing parachute pants aka hammer pants aka
my favorite pair of yoga pants, and of course we
all wrapped along into light whenever the song came on
the radio and it desperately tried to nail all those moves.
(23:36):
Thank god there was no social media then or video
evidence of me attempting to do this dance. And one
thing that we loved about mc hammer and this song
was that he presented this song with huge stage shows
with dozens of dancers, and now every artist in group
wanted the exact same thing. Who wouldn't want their own
(23:56):
backup dancers? Can you imagine the drama when you walk
into that room. And that's why hip hop dancers at
that time were in such high demand, especially for pop
groups like go On to Say It Now, Kids on
the Black and KOTB y'all. I was in love with
(24:16):
the little one Joey. I mean I had it all obviously.
I had the posters and the tapes, but I also
had the pillows. I had the lip gloss. No, no, no,
my boo, my book come back to me. Okay, fine,
I'm good. I'm back down now. In twenty eleven, Jennifer
even told Jay Leno that her big break was actually
(24:37):
performing with NKOTB at the nineteen ninety one AM as
she was moving and grooving, bitch, did you see that performance?
I had to go back and rewatch it. I don't
know why I don't remember this performance. I mean, I
think I was Jesus, I was a baby. I think
I was eleven, and I don't know that I watched
(24:59):
this perform It's live the first time. But I'll tell
you this, I went back and watching it for this podcast,
and it was giving me like so much nineties glory.
I mean, the gold Duda mc hammer in Living Color,
like that was the time to be alive. So again,
I don't remember j Loo, but I do obviously remember
(25:23):
all of the music. It's just crazy to me that
she was one of like thirty dancers in this It
wasn't like it was her dancing with Joey or with Jordan.
She was in the back. I couldn't even spot her
in the actual footage. It was nineteen ninety one, and
to be honest, nobody knew who Jennifer was. The host
(25:43):
of the AMAS that night was Keenan Ivory Wayans, and
just four months later he would debut his brand new
comedy Scotch show on Fox in Living Color. I'd say
it was an ESNL, but for a younger, more diverse crowding.
It featured Jamie, Jim Carrey, David Alan Grier, Damon Wayans.
(26:03):
All of them got their start on in Living Color,
and for about two years it was a cultural sensation.
I lived for this show and for all of our
younger listeners that maybe never watch it, don't know what
we're talking about. It was awesome, you guys. It was
all of these sketches, iconic moments. Joseph, I know you
(26:25):
have a favorite sketch. What was your favorite one from
in Living Color? It was the two gay guys, obviously,
and they would do a snap in a Z formation
and they would let's go, hey, did it do you
remember that? I do remember that. You know what I
remember Jim Carrey, Fire Marshall Billy. He was scary, he
(26:47):
was supposed scared. My dad freaking loved a fire Marshall bill.
So it was all of these different sketches. It was
all these performances, but at the very top of the
show and in between all these sketches, and then right
before where they went to commercial break, they would have
these female dancers perform the fly Girls. Yes, and at
the time, everyone wanted to be on the show, so
(27:10):
naturally Jlo auditioned, but she got rejected, not once but twice.
But right before the debut of the show, one of
the dancers mysteriously vanished, vanished like dateline vanished, which I
already told you. You You have to keep your phone on
you so they could track you. And don't trust your man, Joseph. No,
(27:33):
she didn't vanish like disappear. She basically just ghosted on production.
She is fine, for the record, nothing serious happened to her.
But this did create a huge opportunity for j Lo.
She came back a third time and our girl got
the job. But there's always a butt, isn't there. This
(27:57):
job would take her to La and being a New Yorker.
Jennifer just was not about that West Coast life. I
mean to be honest, neither am I excuse you so much, Shade,
But here's the thing. It wasn't this West coast East
coast battle like Biggie versus Tupac. Jennifer just wasn't really
(28:18):
into it because of the distance. She missed her family,
so the space and loneliness really got to her. And
the other fly girls, Yo, they didn't like her. Spill
the tea, bitch, Okay, I'll come out to a regular
volume down Okay. So allegedly they didn't like her. Maybe
they thought she was getting special treatment, and yet she
(28:41):
got in the girl lay Okay. But here's the thing.
You want to know which flygirl was the toughest on her?
Oh tell me, bitch, tell me Rosie Harrez, say what.
The Brooklyn born Bodhigua was the show's choreographer, and she
would bush Lopez's buttons. She had her number, y'all. There
(29:05):
were lots of laudrimas. I feel like Rosie saw another
Nuyorica and was like, you have to show these people
what were made of and show them that we're the best. Okay, fair,
but Jennifer didn't really see it that way. The two
of them first met in nineteen ninety one during the
open cast and call for the show's Fly Girls. It
Is was the choreographer the Hbic and claims that she
(29:29):
was the one who convinced the host and creator Keenan
to pick Lopez, and in her memoir Handbook for an
Unpredictable Life, she even claimed that Wahn's thought j Lo
was I quote chubby and corny, and that none of
the other girls liked her. First of all, chubby and corny. Literally,
(29:55):
who says that that's I'm gonna bring that back number one,
number two gag? That's insane. Yes, So Rosie alleges that
they would come into her office, claiming that Lopez was
manipulating wardrobe, makeup, even manipulating her as herself. Paris denied
it until one day Lopez went off on her and
(30:16):
I quote like some ghetto beach, screaming and pounding her chest.
Those are Rosie's words, not mine, and j Loo had
had enough. One day, Lopez shouted this, you pick on me,
me and only me every fucking day. Every fucking day,
I work my ass off, deliver and you keep pushing
(30:38):
me aside, treating me like shit. I know I'm good.
I'm better than any of these girls, and you know it,
see what I mean? Hold on, I just have to
say I really heard that in the j Loo Wedding
planner voice, and it was just so good. To be honest,
I didn't know any of this beef until I started
doing research for this episode. But y'all, if you did
(31:00):
not stop at a living color, this ship went on
for years. Because Rosie claims that Jennifer continued to make
disparaging comments about her in Hollywood. I mean, why were
they fighting? You know? I think that's a really good question,
and I wish somebody would sit them down, maybe like
Jada could sit them at the red table, invite them
(31:21):
both and find out why this feud started. I mean,
here's what I'm going to say. Rosie and Jennifer are
of a certain age. They are from a different generation
of not just women, but Latina women. And if you
think back to the nineties, these two women were coming
(31:42):
from a scarcity. There were no roles for Latina's. There
was like maybe once a year, once every two year
or something would come up. So I feel like in
today's world, we look at this and be like, oh
my god, why wouldn't you want to help your girl.
She's Puerto Rica and you're both from New York. I
would not want to help each other. It was a
different place back then. It was a different time, and
(32:05):
when you're not coming from abundance, that is when you
start to pick these stupid fights with people that could
actually be your biggest advocates. So that is my explanation.
You're welcome, but I really want to hear it from
Rosie and Jennifer on Red Table Talk. So let's also
put that out into the universe and make it happen.
Despite all of the onset drama in Living Color proved
(32:28):
that Jennifer was a star. I mean, she took five
minutes of airtime every week and turned it into a
launching pad for her career. During the day, she would
rehearse for the show, and at night she would take
acting lessons. She spent two seasons on the show, and
soon after she was everywhere, including Janet Jackson's video where
That's the Way Love Goes? That song was sex e Hollee.
(32:52):
They do not make music like that anymore. I'm sorry, No,
that was like some sultry, sexy shit. Yeah, like listen,
Shakida and Alejandro's sons have like done some stuff. But
oh my god, Janet everything, it was everything. Now did
you know that Jennifer was actually supposed to go on
(33:13):
tour with Janet for the entire year, But when the
tour started, Jenny called and said, sorry, y'all, I'm out.
I mean, bitch had other plants. She sure did. Jenny's
dancing took her all over the world, from Castle Hill
and the Bronx too far away places throughout Europe, Latin America,
and Asia. In her twenty eleven book True Love, she writes,
(33:37):
I'm a dancer. That's who I am. I'm most happy
and free and alive when I'm dancing. She still choreographs
all her shows, her tours, the Vegas Residency, and just
to bring it all full circle for y'all. In twenty
twenty one, it was announced that she's teaming up with
Sky Dance to adapt the entire catalog of Rogers and
(33:57):
Hammer Sign. We're talking a TV version of Oklahoma that
is already in the works. Oklahoma is pretty far from
the Bronx. It is, but you have to remember how
did we start this episode? She was always inspired by
the Golden Age of musicals, and now with her stature
and her power, she's able to make musicals for the
(34:18):
next generation. I wonder if you'll turn any of those
musicals into film. Excuse me, look at you, Joseph. With
that seamless transition, my babies are grown up. On the
next Becoming an Icon, We've covered the singing, we've covered
(34:40):
the dancing. Now it's time for the drama. Becoming an
Icon is presented by so Noo and Ihearts Michael Guda
podcast Network. Listen to Becoming an Icon on the iHeartRadio
app podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hosts And Creators
Lilliana Vazquez
Joseph Carrillo
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