The music career of Jennifer Lynn Affleck akaJennifer Lopez. For her other entertainment ventures, see that page.
Lopez began her career as a dancer onIn Living Color! before venturing into acting. She made her music debut with the 1999 single "If You Had My Love", which featured in the subsequent albumOn the 6. This album helped spearhead what music critics called "The Latin Invasion" of 1999 along withRicky Martin,Enrique Iglesias, and Lopez' future husbandMarc Anthony. She has released nine studio albums thus far, withThis Is Me...Now released in February 2024 following a ten-year hiatus.
Lopez releases music in both English and Spanish and freely utilizes the genres pop, R&B, Latin, and hip-hop. Her performances and music videos are also characterized by her technically challenging and provocative dance routines.
Discography:
- On the 6 (1999)
- J.Lo (2001)
- This Is Me... Then (2002)
- Rebirth (2005)
- Como ama una Mujer (2007)
- Brave (2007)
- Love? (2011)
- Dance Again: The Hits (2012)
- AKA (2014)
- This Is Me... Now (2024)
Don't be fooled by the tropes that I got/I'm still, I'm still Jenny from the Block:
- Auto-Tune: One of the remixes of "If You Had My Love" is autotuned (which no less thanT-Pain credited with inspiring him to make the technique his trademark), and more recently, her cover of "Venus". "Good Hit" fromLove? also counts.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: "Waiting For Tonight". Basically, she (or the protagonist, as it's unclear if it's about her or not), has had a ton of failed relationships and is terribly lonely. Then, one day, she finally manages to find true love.
- In Da Club: The setting of "On The Floor" and "Get Right" are exciting, sexy nightclubs.
- Ms. Fanservice: Her first appearance on mainstream television was as one of the "Fly Girls," the female dancers who would perform during interludes onIn Living Color!. Since then, she's been renown for her beauty as both an actress and a singer. Several songs play up her sex appeal, for example "Get Right", where she's wearing several midriff-exposing outfits and dancing sensually, "Booty" (which is pretty self-explanatory), and "I'm Glad", where she's doing a strip tease on stage in a homage toFlashdance. The greenVersace number she wore to the Grammys is still-remembered as one of the sexiest signature looks of the decade.
- New Sound Album:
- This Is Me, Then was more personal than her prior works.
- Love? is much more musically based around EDM than her previous works. This is the case with a lot of musicians who have also veered more into this area - seeChris Brown,Rihanna andBritney Spears.
- N-Word Privileges: She created controversy when she jarringly dropped the N-bomb in "I'm Real (Murder Remix)." The black rapper Ja Rule (who co-wrote and was featured in the remix) came to her defense, saying that she wasn't the first Latin person to say the n-word and that it was just another thing for people to complain about her. Clearly, not everyone agrees that it was acceptable for Jennifer to say it.note It's possible for a Latino to be of African ancestry, but Jennifer never said anything about being Afro-Puerto Rican.
- She later avoided this issue with the single "I Luh Ya Papi", whose original version written byTinashe was called "I Luh You Nigga".
- Naked in Mink:
- Ina photoshoot
◊ forMovieline magazine she wore a white fox wrap around her torso. - Some scenes in the "Jenny from the Block" video show her in a fur coat, silver-grey bikini bottoms, and not much else.
- Shot-for-Shot Remake: "I'm Glad" is a near-identical remake ofFlashdance, to the point where she got into a major copyright dispute withParamount over it.
- Stuffy Old Songs About the Buttocks: "Booty", about a beautiful woman with a "big booty" (the phrase is repeated several times in the verses and chorus).
- A Wild Rapper Appears!: Has quite a few songs with a featured rapper. To name a couple:
- Flo Rida in "Goin' In".
- "Booty" has two versions, one withIggy Azalea, and another withPitbull.
- Lin-Manuel Miranda in "Love Makes the World Go Round." The song also opens with his famous "love is love is love" from the Tonys.
◊ forMovieline magazine she wore a white fox wrap around her torso.
