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.