Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam were an urban contemporary

band Band or BAND may refer to: Places *Bánd, a village in Hungary *Band, Iran, a village in Urmia County, West Azerbaijan Province, Iran * Band, Mureș, a commune in Romania *Band-e Majid Khan, a village in Bukan County, West Azerbaijan Province, I ...

and one of the first

freestyle music Freestyle music, also called Latin freestyle or Latin hip-hop ''( sic)'' is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in the New York metropolitan area and Philadelphia, primarily among Hispanic Americans and Italian Americans in the 1980s. ...

groups to emerge from New York City in the 1980s. Cult Jam consisted of vocalist

Lisa Lisa Lisa Velez (born January 15, 1967), better known by her stage name Lisa Lisa, is an American singer. She rose to fame in the 1980s as one-third of the band Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam. Early life According to Spin Magazine, ''Spin'' magazine, Velez ...

(born Lisa Valez),

guitarist A guitarist (or a guitar player) is a person who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of guitar family instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselv ...

bassist A bassist (also known as a bass player or bass guitarist) is a musician who plays a Bass (instrument), bass instrument such as a double bass (upright bass, contrabass, wood bass), bass guitar (electric bass, acoustic bass), synthbass, keyboar ...

Alex "Spanador" Moseley, and

drummer A drummer is a percussionist who creates music using drum The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one mem ...

keyboardist A keyboardist or keyboard player is a musician who plays keyboard instruments. Until the early 1960s musicians who played keyboards were generally classified as either pianists or organists. Since the mid-1960s, a plethora of new musical instr ...

Mike Hughes. They were assembled and initially produced by

Full Force Full Force is an American music group of hip hop and R&B singers and producers from Brooklyn, New York. Members *B-Fine (Brian George) - drums and drum programming, backing vocals *Shy Shy (Hugh Junior Clark) - bass guitar, backing vocal ...

History

Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam was formed after Velez auditioned with

, a production team from

East Flatbush East Flatbush is a residential neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. East Flatbush is bounded by Crown Heights and Empire Boulevard to the north; Brownsville and East 98th Street to the east; Flatlands, Canarsie and the ...

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, at the age of 14. The group released their debut

album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

'' Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam with Full Force'' in 1985. The group was signed by

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...

and the label released their single " I Wonder If I Take You Home" to the European division of

CBS Records CBS Records may refer to: * CBS Records or CBS/Sony, former name of Sony Music, a global record company * CBS Records International, label for Columbia Records recordings released outside North America from 1962 to 1990 * CBS Records (2006), founde ...

in 1983 for the compilation album ''Breakdancing''. Stateside club DJs began playing the single from the import LP during 1984, and thus the U.S. division of CBS, Columbia Records, released the record. It quickly became a chart-topper on ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

s Hot Dance/Disco chart. It then crossed over to the R&B chart where it peaked at No. 6, and then to the

pop chart A record chart, in the music industry, also called a music chart, is a ranking of recorded music according to certain criteria during a given period. Many different criteria are used in worldwide charts, often in combination. These include re ...

, peaking at No. 34 in summer 1985. The single eventually went

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

. "I Wonder If I Take You Home" was followed by another club hit, " Can You Feel the Beat", which also went to No. 40 on the R&B chart in late 1985. A sampling of the lyrics of this song would later be used by

Nina Sky Nina Sky is an American musical duo consisting of identical twins Nicole and Natalie Albino. Their debut single "Move Ya Body", released from their self-titled debut album in 2004, was a success, reaching number four on the ''Billboard'' Hot 10 ...

for their hit single "

Move Ya Body "Move Ya Body" is a song by American musical duo Nina Sky featuring rapper Jabba. It was released on April 12, 2004, as the lead single from their debut album, ''Nina Sky'' (2004). The song became the duo's only solo single to reach the top 40 o ...

" in 2004. Their third single, the ballad " All Cried Out", also went gold, going to number No. 3 R&B and No. 8 pop in summer 1986. "All Cried Out" was later recorded by Allure in 1997 and was a hit in 1998. ''Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam with Full Force'' went platinum. Their second album, ''

Spanish Fly The Spanish fly (''Lytta vesicatoria'') is an aposematic emerald-green beetle in the blister beetle family (Meloidae). It is distributed across Eurasia. The species and others in its family were used in traditional apothecary preparatio ...

'', was a success in 1987. It spawned two No. 1 pop hits, "

Head to Toe "Head to Toe" is a song recorded by Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam that appeared on their 1987 album ''Spanish Fly''. The song hit number one on three charts: ''Billboard'' Hot 100 on June 20, 1987, the Hot Black Singles charts on May 30 of that year, ...

" and "

Lost in Emotion "Lost in Emotion" is a song by urban contemporary band Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam that appeared on their 1987 album ''Spanish Fly''. The song hit number one on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 on October 17, 1987. The song was their second number-one single ...

", both of which went gold. "Head to Toe" also parked at No. 1 R&B for two weeks and stayed in the pop top 5 nearly three months, while "Lost in Emotion's" video became the fourth most played of 1987 on MTV. ''Spanish Fly'' went platinum, peaking at No. 7 on the

Billboard 200 The ''Billboard'' 200 is a record chart ranking the 200 most popular music albums and EPs in the United States. It is published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine and is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of art ...

chart. Other singles from the album were the ballad "Someone to Love Me for Me" (No. 7 R&B), and "Everything Will B-Fine" (No. 9 R&B). In between albums they recorded "Go for Yours", which was featured in the movie ''

Caddyshack II ''Caddyshack II'' is a 1988 American sports comedy film and a sequel to the 1980 film ''Caddyshack''. Directed by Allan Arkush and written by Harold Ramis (who co-wrote and directed the original ''Caddyshack'') and PJ Torokvei, it stars Jackie ...

''. Their third album was titled ''

Straight to the Sky ''Straight to the Sky'' is a 1989 album by Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam. It is best known for the lead track " Little Jackie Wants to Be a Star", which reached number 29 on the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100. Two further singles were released from the album; ...

'' and was released in 1989. It featured the single "Little Jackie Wants to Be a Star". Their fourth and final album, '' Straight Outta Hell's Kitchen'', was less of a success, though it did include a hit with " Let the Beat Hit 'Em", which was a No. 1 hit on both the R&B and club charts. The group disbanded in 1991.

Discography

Studio albums

Compilation albums

*''Head to Toe'' (1995,

Sony Music Sony Music Entertainment (SME), also known as simply Sony Music, is an American multinational music company. Being owned by the parent conglomerate Sony Group Corporation, it is part of the Sony Music Group, which is owned by Sony Entertainment ...

) *''Lisa Lisa and Friends'' (1995, Sony Music) *''Past, Present & Future'' (1996, Thump) *''Super Hits'' (1997, Sony Music) *''Playlist: The Very Best of Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam with Full Force'' (2010, Columbia/

Legacy In law, a legacy is something held and transferred to someone as their inheritance, as by will and testament. Personal effects, family property, marriage property or collective property gained by will of real property. Legacy or legacies may refer ...

)

Singles

References

External links

* * {{Authority control American dance music groups Electronic music groups from New York (state) American house music groups American freestyle music groups Columbia Records artists Musical groups established in 1985 Musical groups disestablished in 1991 1985 establishments in New York City 1991 disestablishments in New York (state) Musical groups from New York City