Freestyle Wednesday #5: Exposé

MP3: Exposé - "Point of No Return"

One of the most successful freestyle groups of the 80s was, like most pop acts of the day, a record label construct. Exposé, formed in 1984 by Pantera Productions, initially consisted of Miami natives Sandra Casanas, Alejandra Lorenzo, and Laurie Miller. "Point of No Return" debuted at number one on the Billboard dance charts in 1985, and the success of the single earned them a contract with Arista Records.

MP3: Exposé - "Exposed to Love"

The following year, to the strains of their second hit single, "Exposed to Love," Exposé prepared to begin work on their full-length debut, Exposure. Changes in the group's lineup would stall the album until 1987, but when it was finally released to a #16 position on the charts, Exposure set a new musical record for the group. With chart-topping hits like "Seasons Change," "Let Me Be the One," and "Come Go with Me," Exposé surpassed The Supremes and even The Beatles for the most Billboard Top 10 singles from a single album.

MP3: Exposé - "Come Go with Me"

Exposé's current lineup of Anne Curless, Gioia Bruno, Jeanette Jurado (and, occasionally, Kelly Moneymaker) is still coasting on the triple-platinum sales of Exposure. County fairs, "Freestyle Explosion" concerts, gay pride festivals--you name it, they're there.

Freestyle Wednesday #4: Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam

Depending on who you ask, Lisa Lisa was anywhere from 16 to 20 years-old when she met New York producers Full Force at the Fun House (the same club where DJ/producer Jellybean Benitez discovered Madonna). Despite having had no previous musical experience, Lisa had the type of singing voice that teenage girls could easily sing along with and imitate. That was enough to land her a place at the helm of Full Force's new musical conceit: a freestyle group called Cult Jam consisting of guitarist/bassist Alex Mosely and drummer/keyboardist Mike Hughes. After enjoying considerable success with hip hop act UTFO, Full Force were golden (platinum, actually) after the 1985 release of Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam's eponymous debut.

MP3: Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam - "I Wonder If I Take You Home"

As was the case with most early freestyle singles, the dancefloor popularity of "I Wonder If I Take You Home" lead to the track's popularity on the airwaves. Columbia Records took note and signed the group, re-releasing the single to worldwide acclaim. It reached #1 on the Billboard dance charts and was quickly certified gold.

MP3: Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam - "Can You Feel the Beat"

Follow-up single "Can You Feel the Beat" climbed the dance charts and spilled over into the R&B charts, and their third single, "All Cried Out," scored them another gold record. All three singles are still old-school radio staples, as are tracks from their following albums. As a matter of fact, we bet if you go to your radio right now and switch it to R&B/Top 40, somewhere, at some point in the immediate future, you'll find yourself dancing to Lisa Lisa's sing-along vocals.

Freestyle Wednesday #3: Noel

A few years ago, while waiting for my new apartment to finally become available (the previous tenants had been taking their time), I went out into the country, two hours into the west, to move in with my grandparents while I waited. Once, during that slow succession of lazy days, I woke up to a morning that felt like most mornings in my early childhood--with all the windows open, with the smell of my grandmother's cooking, light on the back of a morning breeze, carried throughout the entire house. I went out to my car for something, I forget what, and was greeted by my grandfather, up since daybreak, watering the roses. Just then, somewhere around the corner, perfectly and as if on cue, I heard an approaching car being trailed by the familiar strains of a certain freestyle classic, and somehow, with my bare feet caught mid-tiptoe on the cold driveway I used to tiptoe barefoot through as a kid, avoiding the bees on the lawn, my brain did a sort of memory double-take; it processed the sound of that car booming down the street, and the presence of my grandfather behind me with the garden hose in hand, and the bare feet and my grandmother calling us in to eat, and it settled into some long-forgotten and comfortable nook, but the paradox created by the car keys in my hand and the conscious understanding that I'm no longer seven-years-old and this is no longer my summer home and is, in fact, 20 years older than when I remember it, and smaller at that--that paradox created some new form of memory that surfaces every time I hear an 808 beat.

MP3: Noel - "Silent Morning"

That song, "Silent Morning," was a top 10 hit in 1987, and everyone in town knew it. Including, most importantly, my older cousins and youngest uncles, who spent every single summer day installing huge carpeted boxes of speakers (were those woofers or tweeters?) in the trunks of their cars. Ride-alongs consisted of my younger cousin and I buckling ourselves into the backseat and having our ribs quite literally rattled by the bass as we sped down the main road.

Noel (born Noel Pagan) caused a considerable ripple with that first single, and although it was his second hit, "Like a Child," that made the biggest wave (it peaked at #1 on the dance charts), it's "Silent Morning" that does it for me. (That embedded video up there, by the way? With the new wave girls in the audience hamming it up for the camera while Noel tries his best tortured artist stance? That totally does it for me, too.)

Freestyle Wednesday #2: Debbie Deb

Unbeknownst to the general music-listening public, we're all sort of experiencing Debbie Deb overkill at this point. Not that that's a bad thing. It's just that whether you know it or not, everyone's been biting her for years. The Black Eyed Peas, Xscape, Pitbull, Janet Jackson, countless Brazilian baile funk bands, and a couple handfuls of other nostalgic artists have honored their freestyle roots by sampling and covering Debbie Deb's two legendary hits.

MP3: Debbie Deb - "When I Hear Music"

Deb was only 16 and working in a Miami record store when a chance meeting with musical artist and producer Pretty Tony (member of the freestyle group named, you guessed it, Freestyle) found her recording her first single the very next day. Tony, rumor has it, "just liked her voice." That track, "When I Hear Music," quickly became a club and radio hit, ensuring that Deb would be around for at least one more hit.

MP3: Debbie Deb - "Lookout Weekend"

Unfortunately, one more hit meant just that. Deb's second single, "Lookout Weekend," while considerably successful (arguably even more so than her first), came on the heels of tensions with her record label. She had struggled with her weight for most of her life, and in a bullshit move that crushed Deb, her label decided to use a slimmer stand-in for her on record sleeves and even in live performances à la Milli Vanilli. Not ever having received any royalty payments from the label for her records, Deb ultimately quit the music business and took up work as a hairdresser.

In the mid-90s, Deb attempted a comeback with She's Back, an album full of modern re-workings of her 80s freestyle hits, and she's been riding that second wave with frequent billings on "Freestyle Explosion"-type concerts. The two songs she performs that are met with the loudest cheers and grandest ovations? It's the same two songs that everyone (including Deb herself) still can't seem to get over. And you know what? With songs like "Lookout Weekend" and "When I Hear Music," which encapsulate the 80s freestyle vibe, defined it, and even did it one better, who can complain?

Freestyle Wednesday #1: Shannon

Freestyle--also known in other forms as Miami bass or, more generally, old-school electro--is a musical genre familiar to most children of the 80s. Those who were cool enough to cruise around in a Camaro IROC-Z with 808 beats pumping out of the trunk (or who had older siblings letting them ride along in that tiny backseat) will wax nostalgically when an old freestyle song comes on the radio, and unless you were already waist-deep in either the goth or butt rock of the era, you can't help but love it to this day.


MP3: Shannon - "Let the Music Play"

Widely known as the first freestyle dance track in musical history, "Let the Music Play" has been remixed and covered by others, but it's the original record by Shannon and New York producer Chris Barbosa that made all the waves. Barbosa, along with co-producer Ed Chisolm, isolated the electro funk sound made famous by Afrikaa Bambaataa's "Planet Rock" (whose own sound was birthed by the grandaddies of modern electro, Kraftwerk) by incorporating Latin American dance rhythms and electronic elements taken from the era's emerging new wave movement.


There's still plenty of speculation as to why the resulting sound was dubbed "freestyle." Some believe it's because after the steady and consistent disco beats club DJs had been mixing together up until that point, the syncopated drum machine rhythms in this new sound gave them more creative freedom on the decks. Others believe it's either because of the vocal techniques or the style of dancing that freestyle music spawned. Most likely it's due to a mix-up between a musical group called Freestyle and the sound that became synonymous with them and their contemporaries. Whatever the reason, "Let the Music Play" topped the charts and blazed a trail that's still being tread by artists who incorporate samples and lyrics from well-known freestyle tracks in their music.

MP3: Shannon - "Give Me Tonight"

Shannon's follow-up single didn't chart quite as well as "Let the Music Play," but it was still embraced in clubs and on the airwaves. "Give Me Tonight" received recent attention from its spot on the Party Monster soundtrack as well, and while it has no shortage of fond affections due to nostalgia and the current music scene's "80s chic" resurgence, "Let the Music Play" is the one that will always be remembered as everyone's "jam." Dance pop, and pop of any species for that matter, would never be the same after that first unmistakable whiplash intro.