How much do you kids know about Freestyle? A genre created in the mid 80s, popularized by multiple Latino singers of ... debatable vocal stylings. It is VERY Tri-State area, so anyone from NY/NJ/CT should know it like the back of their hands.
But you other kids want to learn, right? By the mid-90s, freestyle was dying - but for those looking to get into the industry, it was a great way to make your start. Enter Rockell, a kinda sorta legend for the Northeast and a kinda sorta no one for everyone else.
Rachel Alexandra Mercaldo was born in Staten Island in 1979. By her teenage years, she was journeying to a professional career as a singer. In 1996, she entered the dance charts with her first single - I Fell in Love.
It went to number one in Canada!
Followup single In a Dream reached the top ten then, and, weirdly enough felt MUCH bigger than its predecessor (although Wiki tells me it wasn't!)
She gained her highest charting single on the Hot 100 with a cover of an 80s ballad, Can't We Try.
The last single from her debut, What Are You Lookin' At?, did not chart ANYWHERE - but still gets recurrent play on New York radio stations like WHTZ and WKTU. Check me.
I Fell in Love
In a Dream
Can't We Try (w/ Collage)
When I'm Gone
We covered Brandy, Aaliyah, and Monica in the first edition of this rate.
They were pretty much the Miley/Ariana/Selena of the mid-late 90s.
But who was their Demi?
Mya, that's who.
Born in DC to a Black father and White mother, young Mya Harrison would impersonate all the Michael and Janet Jackson videos she could as a child. Noticing this, her parents enrolled her in artistic activities; she took violin lessons, but her heart belonged to dancing. At two, she began tap, by twelve, her prowess was noticed by none other than Savion Glover.
As a teen, Mya's dancing ability landed her a gig as a background dancer on BET's Teen Summit, which was taped in the DC area. Her father, a musician himself, worked with her on her vocals, and recorded a demo for her. He shopped it around, and Interscope bit.
She was seen as a promising newcomer by her label, and was sent to work with the likes of Missy Elliott, Babyface, and Diane Warren. Her debut single, a collaboration with Sisqo, sent the tone for the rest of her career:
It's All About Me added an interesting wrinkle to the Black Teen Girl Explosion - it was a noticeably adult song, sung by a girl who owned it. It went top ten on both the R&B charts and the Hot 100.
Her next single was a collabo with an at the time hot rapper, SilkK The Shocker - one Mya co-wrote!
Now came time for the inevitable Diane Warren penned ballad, and Mya was given a Deborah Cox album track (the nerve!): My First Night With You.
Mya was also tapped for the lead single to the Rugrats film, a Mya/Blackstreet production called Take Me There.
Couple that with her hook on 1998's SMASH record Ghetto Superstar, and the end of the decade left Mya in a good place. Would she conquer the new millennium?
No, she would not. But she would start it off well!
It's All About Me (featuring Dru Hill)
Movin' On (featuring Silkk The Shocker)
My First Night With You
Take Me There (with Blackstreet, Ma$e, and Blinky Blink)
The biggest "copycat?" Faith Evans. Born to a Black mother and a White father she never met, Faith was reared in Newark, New Jersey. As a young child, she sang in the church, and her voice got her noticed. During high school, she sang in local jazz bands, and was encouraged to perform in talent shows and pageants. She attended Fordham University, but during her freshman year, became pregnant; she dropped out and had her first daughter with a local producer. A year later, she moved to LA to be a backup singer, and got a gig with Al B. Sure. At this time, she was noticed by a upstart - Sean "Puffy" Combs. He hired her as a background vocalist and writer as he prepped Mary J. Blige's seminal My Life. A year later, he signed Faith to his new label - Bad Boy Records.
(This act of "betrayal" would fracture Puffy and Mary's relationship for almost a decade.)
Faith gained buzz by singing the main hook of The Notorious B.I.G's One More Chance, soon thereafter, they would be married - and she would be pregnant with his son. But she had an album to release!
You Used to Love Me, a song Puffy co-produced and Faith wrote, was picked as the lead single - it went to number four on the R&B charts, and number twenty four on the Hot 100.
Faith's look - the aesthetic of the platinum blonde hair with her honey light skin - made her something of an icon; her marriage to Biggie made them the King and Queen of the East Coast.
Her next single, Soon As I Get Home, was an even bigger hit, peaking just outside of the top 20 on the Hot 100.
Ain't Nobody, more of a bop, followed.
But the Faith/Biggie union was crumbling. Biggie was cheating - most notably with Lil Kim and Charli Baltimore. To add insult to injury, Biggie's former friend/now rival Tupac Shakur released a track intimated that he and Faith were bumping uglies. The couple separated; within six months, both Tupac and Biggie would be dead.
Before Biggie passed, but after they separated, Missy Elliott introduced Faith to record producer Todd Russaw; the pair hit it off, and within a year and a half, they were married with a newborn.
During all the turmoil of the last two years, Faith had been hard at work in the studio. She took a lead role on Keep The Faith, and co-wrote the entire album. She had been the wringer, and was ready to celebrate; she actually got to "no more drama" before Mary did! The two biggest singles, Love Like This and All Night Long, are party classics. It is impossible, actually, to be under thirty five in the US and not have heard LLT in the midst of your nights out. Of course, it usually sounds like this.
It had been a busy time for Faith, a year before, she was a part of Puffy's all star salute to Biggie - I'll Be Missing You - was inescapable. Then, she duetted with Whitney Houston and Kelly Price on Whitney's Heartbreak Hotel. Love Like This and All Night Long both went top ten on the pop charts, and it seemed that Faith had bested Mary.
That would not last.
You Used to Love Me
Soon As I Get Home
Ain't Nobody
Love Like This
All Night Long
Monifah - Spanish Harlem born and raised. Groomed by Heavy D, Monifah hit the scene in 1995 with the very MJB I Miss You (Come Back Home) and You.
Came back with a sexier, more voracious image a few years later. Lead single Touch It hit the top ten in the US and Down Under, got her onto TRL, and would be her biggest hit.
You know I was waiting for some melanin! Faith can SANG though...those ending runs on "You Used To Love Me", the buildup and climax on "Soon As I Get Home". They don't make songs like that anymore.
. But I'd be happy to see "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)" in any ATRL rate.
They don't make songs like that anymore.